Ceci N'Est Pas Une Ski Pass

I am trying to make friends with the snow this year. The last two years, I have loved the snow from the magical snow falls when the world gets snow quiet and the sky so light at night to the feeling of being snug in my house with a fire or outside playing in the cold medium. But this year, we are not so friendly. It takes a lot of work to get three humans ready to go out on a cold snowy day. My Volvo is audibly protesting to the cold, deciding to make horrible grinding noises when the heater fan is on (thank goodness a mechanic was able to patch up the Volvo’s hole that let so unfriendly cold air run over my feet). My house feels continually cold. Asher can only run so many circles around the house and over all the furniture.

Yesterday, I bundled up the kids and braved the cold to take them sledding. I found a manageable hill at the nearby golf course and, amazingly, our adventure went incredibly smoothly (if you don’t count Harper’s immediate and pitiful full face plant into the snow). I showed Asher how to use the sled and trudge back up the hill. He loved it – ignored all the cold and snow and building wind to go down the hill “my turn one more time” ten times before we left, discovered that he could lie back on the sled and soon found that he could be a Ninja sled rider (that is one who rolls out of the sled half way down the hill). We made snow angels, and Asher soon discovered he could do one of his favorite activities in the snow, roll down hills. Okay, this is worth the snow, watching my active three-year-old exhibit his unabashed and all out zest for life and learning.

For the past week, I have been planning to go skiing – get this – for the first time in Colorado after living here for three years. It was the perfect plan . . . except for the snow. As Amy and I started out this morning for the ski resort, we found to our great dismay that highway I-70 to the ski resort was closed. Unheard of! Refusing to believe the news and road closure signs and with great hopes that just by chance the road would open, we drove up to the closure. C-DOT employees informed us the road might open between noon and two. Unheard of!

So we turned around with much hope in our hearts that we could still have a fun day, sans skiing. Three and a half hours after starting out, wind whipping our faces, snowshoes strapped on, great hopes that it might be a bit warmer in the trees, we hiked away from Eldora’s Nordic center and up the Lakes Loop snowshoe path. How good it felt to be hiking, moving my legs, breathing heavily, among the trees, climbing to a view of the mountains, climbing down to a view of lake, chatting with Amy up and down the hills, feeling like I was “off duty” for a short while and accomplishing the completion of Lakes Loop.

We wrapped up the day with dinner and a pint of Jackman’s at Left Hand brewery, watching the sun set over the cloud veiled mountains and wondering if I-70 would ever opened. I am slightly reconciled to the snow, knowing the joy it brings Asher and the fun sports I have the opportunity to do in it (who can really complain about living somewhere that you can snowshoe if you can’t ski?). I am quite amazed at the power of a friend to make a good sized disappointment into a day of unabashed and all out zest for life.