The Last Day Of Brighton Skiing 2009

Joe, Sarah D. and I went to Brighton today. As we headed up the mountain I stopped at several shops to pick up some discount passes. I was unable to find anyone who had discount passes. I resigned myself to paying full price for the day. As we passed Solitude Ski Resort, I noticed a sign saying "Lift Tickets for $39.00." The only problem was the sign should have been taken down yesterday after they closed the resort for the season.

We continued on our way to Brighton and had a great time skiing, especially in the morning when the snow had not yet turned to ice and slush. We were skiing down some pretty fun runs today. Joe even talked us into going down a black diamond run. As he slid about 20 yards on his belly, I was convinced that this run was for not me! I did the only thing I knew how to do when its too steep to snow plow. I carefully lowered myself while going sideways until I got to a part that wasn't too steep. Sarah D only fell once, okay she never got back up on her skies and slid down while sitting, but we consider it only one fall.

After lunch the weather got really warm and the snow got slushy. At the top of the mountain the snow was great, but once we skied down a ways our skies started making about 3 inch deep ruts. The slush, accompanied with the ice in the shade, made it pretty difficult to ski. At the Snake Creek Lift Sarah D tripped on the ice and lost one of her skies while getting on the lift. The lift attendant handed it to her and she was able to put it back on shortly after she got off. She is getting so good at skiing. She was able to ski off the lift with only one ski while holding her other ski and her poles without falling.

When I lost my balance about 5 times on the ice and slush all of my bravery of the morning was gone. Joe would wait for me at the bottom of the run and give me helpful hints like, "Mom if you keep your skies straight you would go faster." I was actually trying to go slow because as soon as I would go fast I would start to loose my balance.

It got so difficult to turn in the slush that I ended up just snow plowing. At about 3:00 I decided that I would call it a day. Joe and Sarah lasted about 30 minutes longer than I did.

We ended our day in the traditional way of stopping at 7-11 for some slurpees. We were not surprised to find that the slurpees were about the same consistency as the snow we were skiing on.

Once I figure out how to get the pictures from my phone to my computer I will load some pictures from today.