Playing in Powder

Us Schrammels, along with our friend Carl, spent the day at Eldora. Chloe was enrolled in her 3rd lesson, which left, Peggy, Carl and I to go play in some 6" of new snow that fell overnight.

What became immediately obvious to Peggy and I is that these conditions are completely different than what we skied in in PA, NH or ME. How so?

1. Less ice. MUCH less ice. Virtually NO ice.
   
2. When you hit a knee-high pile of snow here, it dissipates because it's powdery. We're used to hitting a pile of snow and it being a lot denser, which usually causes one to brace for the impact and adjust balance.

After lunch, Peg traded in the skis for her snowshoes and did some trekking around Eldora's Nordic Center, and Carl and I went back out on the slopes. What all 3 of us noticed quickly is that the temperature dropped pretty significantly while we were inside. Carl and I did a couple of runs then found ourselves in a small summit cafe to warm up. (I don't know the temperature at the time, but when we left for the day 1 hour later it was 10 degrees.) We did one more run, and then met up with Peggy. She put her skis back on so we could do some runs with Chloe after her lesson.

And my, what a little skier we have on our hands! She's skiing on green (beginner) trails now, and is gradually progressing to longer and slightly steeper runs. And her stability/balance have improved greatly since her last lesson. She's not "snowplowing" as much and is pretty good at bringing her skis closer to parallel on the turns. Her big trick today was showing us how she skied through the woods... kinda. Right off the lift we were on there's a 50 foot trail that skirts through some trees before emptying back out on to the trail. There's still some practice to be done, but Peggy and I couldn't be more proud of her and how well she is doing.