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Ski Chalet

By Katharine Niles

Our New Year's Day discovery was our local - very local - ski hill. We live 10 minutes from it and have disdained it all these years. Granted, some years it didn't snow enough to warrant its opening. But still. You'd think we at least would have tried it once. It's a mom-and-pop place with creaky 10th Mountain Division equipment and is patronized by those who can't afford bigger places and/or know what a well-kept secret it is. Half the license plates in the lot are New Mexican; the other half local Coloradan. Nary a Texan to be seen, in other words, which was ever the goal. For we wanted to ski, as a family, on New Year's Day, and at the bigger hills, I knew what that meant in terms of crowds. I generally make it a policy to stay away from "resorts" during the holiday season, and spoil myself silly on odd Wednesday afternoons tucked deep in the winter when hardly anyone else is "resorting" it at all. So after some coaxing, we managed to convince my son Chris that our local hill was the way to go, and got ourselves into a healthy afternoon of what turned out to be challenging skiing.

Family outings are by definition slow at first. You have to wait for one person and then you have to wait for another. My father-in-law says that for every added person you must add at least five minutes to the departure time. After hunting up Jonathan's ski boots, we waited while Chris rented snowboarding equipment. Then we waited while he wrestled with the straps. Then I waited while Jonathan helped him with the straps. Then we finally took the lift halfway up, to do a practice run. At that point, we waited for Chris to get into his other binding. I am used to skiing alone, and when I need exercise and am not getting it immediately, I turn into a harpy. The halfway hill proved lovely and not nearly long enough, so that by the time we actually took the lift to the top I was about ready to kill someone. Needless to say, I shot on ahead while my husband, The Patient One, waited for Chris, and I found myself on a steep, moderately moguly slope requiring all my due diligence. Now that's more like it, I thought to myself. But as I looked up, I saw Jonathan in classic yard-sale mode, skis everywhere and his face in the snow.

"Are you all right, Daddy?" Chris asked as he boarded up to him.

"Are you all right?" I hollered up slope.

He seemed to be all right. He collected his gear and himself, did two turns, and fell again. At least this time his gear stayed on.

My husband is a beautiful broad-slope, bomb-down-the-straight-hill skier. He's not that big a fan of moguls or tricky snow. And he hadn't been on skis in a while. By the time we went up for a third run, Chris was in full form and his parents were now the ones tottering behind. We did several runs on different parts of the mountain, and decided that from the road this hill looked deceptively simplistic. It isn't at all. It's tough. We didn't even try shushing through scrub oak or a couple of narrow chutes embedded in aspen. It was enough to pitch down the moderate moguls on the steep slopes and, by the end of our time there, go back to the halfway hill and do quick, zoomy runs. Somewhere in there we procured handsome snack items - chili dog, soda, nachos with fake cheese and jalape�os - and figured we'd spent about 40 bucks less than if we'd managed a half day at the big resort.

As we got in the car, Jonathan joked that we should "prepare for the long ride home," and as we pulled into our driveway some 10 minutes later (if that), suggested that this made our house almost seem like an on-slope chalet.

"Ski in, ski out," I giggled. "Awesome."

So: so much for big fancy mountain skiing. This New Year, we've started out makeshift and Podunk, and it has been terrific.