Wintry Fun

My recent Heavenly trip whetted my appetite for more. I have some (very!) good friends in Utah, with a standing invitation to visit. Somehow I keep letting each winter slip away without planning a trip. Work interferes, and then there are social commitments—like season tickets to San Francisco Ballet.

March, already. Was it too late? [No!] It has been a good year for snow in Utah, too.

I continued warming up at Deer Valley. Although I picked up my skis (Völkl Aurora) a few years ago, they are still “new” to me. The first time I took them out, I worried that my friends had overestimated my skills in recommending these. After reading some reviews this year, it clicked: be more aggressive. Words from an instructor at a long-ago Snowbird Women's Ski Camp echoed in my head. Pep is a better skier than she thinks she is.

Biking, hiking, skiing—all involve lots of leg muscles. But not the same leg muscles. I took a day off, joining my friend on a short, snowy hike in the neighborhood—before spending the next three at my favorite place to ski: Alta.

So much snow! Fresh snow, just before I arrived in town. Picture-perfect skies. No crowds.

No snowboarders. [Sorry, not sorry.]

My confidence returning, I turned onto a black diamond slope after lunch. Pep is a better skier than she thinks she is. It was fine.

I picked up enough speed to make it, easily, uphill to the top of Razor Back. Several times. [I'm likin' these skis.]

I was also liking the lack of bumps. I mean, they're there if that's what you want. And I don't mind flirting with them, now and then. But they're not my thing.

I'm in it for the sheer joy of gliding down the hill.

And the views.

“If you've left anything behind,” my friends warned, “you'll have to come back for it.”

Deal!