Powder Day

Tons of snow in the mountains this week (not so much in the valley -- a weird drought year).

Dan drove with Heidi and I up to Alta for our class, and we arrived a little early.

It was snowing hard when it was time for us to get our boots on,

soooo.... we just sat inside the back and got ready!

I'm pretty impressed that both of us were flexible like that! 

Here is our fun group LAST week in the sun.

This week was very stressful for me because it was my first time EVER skiing in powder.

Because usually I avoid it. 

We did hard stuff and I followed and was fine. Physically fine.

But it was hard. Mentally hard.

I fell a few times and it was soft, which was great.

One time I even ejected and couldn't find my ski ANYWHERE. It vanished!

Fortunately one of my classmates was behind me so she stopped and searched with me

(and called our classmates down the hill to let them know why we were taking so long.)

We swiped our poles through the powder at least 18" deep.

The snow was blue, like up on the Alaska glaciers, and it kinda freaked me out.

I felt like we were searching for an avalanche victim...

because that's where my imagination always takes me... the worst case scenario. Ugh.

I was on the phone with Dan and my friend on the phone with our instructor and at the same time

they both said, "It's always higher than you think." 

And I tried about two feet higher up the hill and BAM, found it. 

By the end of our classtime, 12:30, I was physically, mentally and emotionally EXHAUSTED.

And when I our instructor said she was taking us on one more run, I said I was done so would part from them and head to my car. But she said she wasn't challenging us anymore, she was going to take us down a blue and get us closer to our cars (no hiking). That made sense and so I followed. 

But that's how tired I was. Enough that I said so! Ha! 

The best part of after ski class is coming home and taking a LONG hot shower, putting on sweats and relaxing the rest of the evening!