Keystone Trip

Last year Kim and I skied in Utah and got to watch everyone else with little kids on skis.  For the second year running, it seemed we were the only ones not on a family vacation and we decided to put Alastair on skis in 2012.  Fast forward a year:  it seemed like we were one of the very few people who actually were on a family vacation.  Go figure.  

We flew into Denver and found an awesome restaurant/pub, the Yard House, to have a leisurely lunch.  After that we did all the usual pre-ski stuff:  drive up the mountain, pick up our skis, gasp for breath, and figure out where to drop Alastair off for ski school.  One of Kim's colleagues and brewing buddies was vacationing there with his wife and we met up for dinner at a brewery.  We excitedly shared the awesome place where we had lunch, only to find out there was one in Houston.  Oh.  But that's good news, right?  

By that time, we were pretty worn out and headed to our condo for the night.  On the way there we saw one of two red fox we would see on this trip.  For the rest of the trip, whenever we would see a dog, Alastair would ask if that was a fox too.  "No, son, that is a Lab," I had to tell him at one point.  He was excited about the wildlife.

 Ready for ski school.

For his first day of skiing, we dropped Alastair off with the good people at Keystone Ski School.  He spent the whole day cruising down the mountain and back up on the "magic carpet" and even got lunch and fun activities too.  

Kim and I made the most of our time and hit the slopes.  Colorado has had very little snow so far this year and the base depth was 33" while we were there.  A normal depth would be around 130."  The people at Keystone must be magicians though, because there were very few slopes that you would guess that.  The snow was perfect: sparkly powdered sugar.  Our first day we got a later start (ski school drop off was at 9:30 and pickup was 3:30) but we still managed to ski over 12,500 vertical feet.  

The only place we noticed a lack of snow was in the Outback on a tough slope called Bushwacker.  I'm a fan of a challenge and I can handle trees, ice, the occasional rock, steepness, moguls, and even a really narrow trail.  All of them at the same time, however...  I get tired just thinking about it.   I made it down without falling by fighting my momentum the entire time and then took a nice break at the picnic table down by the lift with Kim who wisely bailed out when the opportunity presented itself.

In Alastair's short life, he has seen snow several times in Houston, which is in itself an oddity.  Boy, does he love the white stuff!  It became clear very early on that he would have to wear his ski pants and snow boots all the time because he kept leaping into the snow every chance he got.  Any little snow drift or snow bank soon would have a kid in a red coat climbing or rolling around in it.  I am fairly confident there was no snow without footprints in it by the time we left Keystone.   He even got to make a snow angel.

On our second day of skiing, we hit Copper Mountain.  I was delighted to discover at the ticket window that five year old's and under are free.  Score!  

We put Alastair in his little "don't run into a tree" harness and took off on some easy slopes.  As Dickens wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times."  There were moments of bliss when we watched Alastair turning and stopping on his own and even one run with no harness where we handled the whole thing by himself.  Then there was a 15 minute total meltdown on the mountain when he decided he was tired of falling, tired of skiing, tired of us, tired of everything, and was going to walk down the rest of the way, but only after giving us and everyone on the mountain a piece of his mind.  At that point, I picked him up, stuck him between my skis and skied down the mountain.

Then we went tubing!  It was every bit as much fun as I always thought it would be, even though I could never convince anyone to go with me.   You grab a tube and ride up another magic carpet to the top of the hill, where there are several banked lanes to go down, sort of like wide bobsled runs.  Then you go hurtling down, laughing/screaming the whole way.  Such fun!

After the meltdown at Copper, we decided to put Alastair back in ski school for our last day.  We probably should have put him in two days to start with.  Lesson learned.

 

Before we dropped him off, we took the first gondola up for a little skiing together.  I wanted to make sure that we ended the trip on a good note.  Alastair did a little solo skiing on the super easy parts and the rest of the way, we skied like this.  I remember doing this with my dad when I was very little (probably smaller than Alastair since I started at three) but I do not recall perceiving any difficulty in the technique.  Stopping and turning for two is actually pretty tough!

Alastair had a great day in school school and by the end he was doing solo skiing and getting on and off the chair lift.  He ended the trip really excited about skiing and we're all excited to get Emery on skis next year.

 

As for Kim and I that day, we skied like our lives depended on it.  Since we were on the mountain when the lifts opened and only took 45 minutes for lunch, we managed to ski 26,645 vertical feet.  Mount Everest is 29,035, which kind of bums me out since we didn't make it that far, but by the end of the day, both of our legs were jello and we had to get Alastair.  Next year!

That night we headed to Breckenridge to visit their brewery (are you picking up on a theme here?) and let Alastair do a little shopping.  We arrived in time to see the ice sculptures created for the International Ice Sculpting competition.  

Alastair with the Koi.

At Planet Bowling, we believe that vacation is not for the faint of heart.  We didn't make it up past 8:30 any night on our trip because we ran so hard all day that we fell into bed the moment the opportunity presented itself.   It was awesome.

Special thanks go to the Granny Brigade:

Without these baby loving ladies, we would have had a grouchy and tired two year old in attendance and have enjoyed many stressful dining experiences trying to keep our allergy girl safe and happy.