Winter Break Ski Trip

The President's Day long weekend doubles as the 'Winter Break' for the Atlanta Public Schools system, so we were looking for something fun to do on Sunday. Fortunately, a group of parents with kids all around the same age got the idea to go on a group ski trip up to western North Carolina, to a small outfit called Sapphire Valley Ski Resort.

Since around 75% of the children had never skied before or were beginners, this place was perfect because there was a bunny hill, a tubing hill and then a very modest adult hill.

Grace had never skied before, so she took part in the group lesson with the rest of the newbies.

They started them out with the basics, such as their stance and even just moving around on one ski.

By the end of the lesson, they were cruising down the bunny slope on just their skis, and no poles. In the picture below, that's me on the right with the gray jacket chaperoning her and a friend down the slope.

Grace was a little tentative at first, but by lunchtime she'd gotten her confidence up and she worked up the courage to try the 'big' slope. The video below is Grace's last trip down the 'bunny' slope before going "big time!"

She made it down probably 6 or 7 times without any major bumps or bruises. In the picture below, Grace is posing with her friend Sophia who is a pretty experienced skier. They had just finished a wicked run down the main slope.

However, on about the 4th or 5th run, another parent with his son got out of control and totally slammed into Grace, knocking her over. I was right there, so I was able to get her up quickly and make sure she understood that wasn't normal slopes behavior and NOT her fault.

All in all, she had a great day and will probably make major improvements and enjoy skiing from now on. The picture below is Grace and some of her friends, tuckered out from skiing, waiting for their dinner at Cracker Barrel.