I'm Basically the Chloe Kim of Skiing
Alright, picking up where we left off: Winter Park, Colorado! (And if you haven't read my last post, this won't make sense so go read it!)
Coley woke up extra excited for his first real day of skiing. He had came back from ski school a new lover for the winter sport, and I was excited to finally ski with him! I wasn’t surprised that he had picked it up so fast. I mean, he did grow up on a mountain in Appalachia, so how much different could this be?
Coley and I headed off to ski some longer greens (easy-ish level) while my dad went to ski more blue (medium-ish level) slopes. By the time we hit our first run, I could tell that this was a perfect sport for him. We breezed down the long green run that ran from the top of the chairlift all the way down to Winter Park’s village. By the time we had done the same run a couple of times, I decided he was ready to be introduced to a slightly more advanced version of the same green run.
There’s this trail at Winter Park called Village Way that is a pretty steady green run until it merges with a blue. And when it merges with that blue, it is a straight up blue. I explained to Coley how this version would be steeper and to be prepared to cut into the snow a lot harder with his skies in order not to fall. I skied all the way down quickly so I could turn and watch Coley do his thing. He unsurprisingly killed it, and he triumphantly skied down, announcing to me that he was ready to do the bigger and harder slopes!
Luckily, it was time for lunch and to meet up with my dad, who could take him up to the higher portions of the mountain. I was starting to feel the same way that I was feeling the day before, headache-y and light-headed, and I knew that I probably wouldn’t be able to bear it at the top of the mountain with them. The changes in elevation were just affecting me too much, and skiing when you don’t feel good is the WORST.
After lunch, Coley, my dad, and I decided to hit the same green that Coley had conquered an hour before just to warm up a little. This is when a small debacle occurred. We were in line waiting to load onto the chairlift, and there happened to be a lady wearing normal tennis shoes and in line with a bunch of skiers and snowboarders. When I saw that I instantly was like lmao wtf because that has to be one of the dumbest things you can do at a ski slope.
The reason why ski boots and snowboarding boots are so thick is to prevent you from breaking your ankles. Literally. This lady was in line wearing plain old tennis shoes, just waiting for someone to break her ankles with their skis. She ended up getting in a weird tiff with us because she wouldn’t move hahaha. She really was out here standing her ground and being grumpy. By the time it was our time to load the chairlift, the snowboarders around us turned and agreed that she shouldn’t have been there to start with.
We just ended up laughing it off (because like what else are you going to do when people are dumb?) and we skied our way down to the bottom. By this time, my dad and Coley were ready to hit the big slopes and I decided to just stick around where I was and ski by myself.
I started to explore different routes and experimenting with my cuts in the snow. There’s this feeling you get when you know you’re going way too fast and making way too short of turns, and I started to feel that in my chest when I hit the bottom of a blue. In my head I thought, “yeah, I think I’m going to fall” and the next thing you know, I was tumbling down backwards with my skis flying over my head.
I laid their for a second and felt the cold snow seep into my pants and a nice person, probably around my age, skied up to me and asked if I was okay. I thanked her and was like yeah lol, just skied too fast. After that giant wipe out, I decided my skiing adventures for the day were over LMAOO.
Me literally 2 minutes after I crashed into the snow lol
After heading back inside, showering, and changing into normal clothes, I headed to Starbucks to once again try to perfect this milk tea order. I ordered a grande black iced tea with no extra water, two pumps of syrup, and a splash of cream. It ended up tasting a lot better, just not sweet enough.
I waited around for Coley to finish skiing, and once I found him and he had cleaned up a bit, we were off to go shop at the little village shops! There were a bunch of storefronts at the bottom of the ski slope, so Coley and I decided to meander around. My favorite was this little candy shop (a different one from the day before) and I bought some treats for my dad and a treat to bring home to my mom!
Once we were done shopping, my dad was back from the ski slopes and was ready to hit the town of Winter Park to eat dinner. He had been trying to convince me the whole trip that we should try out this Indian food place in town but I was not having it. It’s not that I don’t like Indian food, it’s just that it’s never really my number one choice. But I caved once my dad stood by his opinion that it was the BEST Indian food he had ever had in his life, and I decided, yeah, fine. I guess I’ll go.
And he was right of course lol. The food was incredible! Like oh my god, garlic naan bread? Yes please. Everything tasted so good and yummy that we all smashed on the food.
The whole time we were there, there was a family sitting next to us with a son probably around 15(?) that had his laptop out and a textbook and was clearly doing his homework out at dinner, and I laughed because honestly a MOOD.
After dinner, we drove back to our lodge and started packing things up because the next day we were headed off to Denver airport to fly home. It was a short little weekend getaway, but I’m glad it happened because I forgot how much I loved mountains and the Rocky’s!
Until next time, aka Thursday (where I’ll be writing all about San Francisco!!!!) HA.