Skiing in Snowmass

I was pretty sad when Victoria moved out to Colorado. It was so much fun having her nearby in Rye and New York City… but I also knew I’d get the chance to travel out to visit her. With her birthday coming up and her family flying out for a vacation, I ended up booking a flight out there (with miles, thank goodness) for a couple of days of skiing and catching up!

It. Was. So. Much. Fun.

It took forever for me to get out to her because of a ten-hour delay in Atlanta, but it was so worth it. We had a blast and, in true Victoria fashion, fit in as much as entirely possible into two and a half days. I’m exhausted just thinking about everything we did.

Victoria and her family are expert skiers. There is no way that, with only two years of skiing under my belt, I’d be able to keep up remotely. Her sister in law Megs and I decided we’d stick together on the blues. We did a group lesson on our first day, and it was just what we both needed. It could have had up to seven or eight people, but we just had another girl and us. Our instructor was incredible, and we both walked away from the lesson with skills to work on and a little more confidence than we started with.

I started out feeling incredibly on edge. I was pretty sure I was going to throw up when we started as I hadn’t skied in over a year and wasn’t sure what to expect with the lesson. After an hour, though, I was feeling good, and by the end of the day, I was feeling great.

Having Megs to ski with was perfect. We were both pretty excited to practice our new skills on the second day… and to go on our schedule. We mapped out some of the trails we wanted to do and went out to enjoy the fifty-degree weather. (Very funny considering Connecticut was getting hit with a blizzard!)

Victoria is crazy, and it’s been made clear in the past that you can’t trust her judgment regarding what she thinks you’re capable of doing. (Like when she convinced me to climb a mountain.) When my mom found out I was going to ski with her, she gave me two (funny) rules. Rule #1: Do not trust Victoria. Rule #2: Always follow Rule #1.

I was good until the second half of the day when she convinced Megs and me that we could do this one particular blue run at the top of the mountain. I should never have believed her and must have forgotten my mom’s rules for a second because I WILLINGLY got on a chairlift with her. I was immediately weak in the knees when we got off just due to the height. There were tons of black runs and only one lone blue square.

The bottom line is that I made it down the mountain. I had the skills to make it work, even with very tired legs, but it was my nerves that held me back quite a bit. There’s something about learning how to ski as an adult where you realize just how injured you can get. It’s hard to get over that thought mentally. But again, I made it to the bottom completely drenched in sweat (partly due to the temperature and partly due to sheer terror).

Proof that I was at the top with the whole family! Our matching Patagonia Primos was a total coincidence, but I love how colorful the jackets are together.

We celebrated an early birthday dinner with the whole family at Pine Creek Cookhouse. The dinner was AMAZING, but to get there, we had to cross country ski the two miles there. I’ve never done it before, and it’s completely different from skiing. The snow had also melted and re-froze so it was super slippery. The uphill parts were difficult (Victoria pushed me up a bit), and the downhill parts were super scary because I had no control. I kept asking, “how do I stop?! HOW DO I STOP!?” And the answer: you don’t. I fell hard on my knees at one point. It’s the one time where I just couldn’t stop crying. Luckily, I bribed my way on the horse-drawn sleigh on the way back. Everyone was slipping and sliding the whole way back, and I knew I had made the right decision, ha!

I can’t believe how fast the two days went and I would love to visit again before Victoria uproots again.