Twelve years ago, John and I had one of our first "dates" while skiing down Bolton Mountain. It was October 28th. It wasn't bad. This year, I noticed from some social media posts that there was snow in the high mountains. With the hecticness of our life, it can be easy to ignore such posts. The snow wasn't on the ground here in Jericho, so it was an "out of sight, out of mind" kind of thing.
But, on Sunday morning, when we woke up with a mostly free day in front of us and an urge to ski was itching at both John and myself, we decided to motivate the troops. It didn't take much to get them fired up to ski. We just needed to get the gear together.
This was easier said than done. John had acquired several old pair of alpine trekkers last year. We had tried them out on the kids skis, but even the smallest size wasn't smalle enough for Hazey's binding. You slip them into the bindings and use the regular skis and boots. It's a heavy set up, but they were so excited to give them a try.
John had to hacksaw the metal off of part of Hazen's bindings and I had to cut skins for both kids, but we made it to Smuggs. There was snow....... barely.
We used to get the kids down the mountain with skittles. But this adventure involved 2 Milky Ways, a Samoa Cookie, and a donut. Whatever it takes!
The kids did such a great job. It was steep at times, the snow clumped to their skins, and the trekkers came out of the binding a few times, but they persisted.
The ski down was nothing to rave about. But, we got out earning our turns as a family! This is a dream come true for me and John. After all those years of passing the baton or missing turns all together, we are at the point where we can travel in the backcountry as a family!
