Things are not going well at all here on our annual family ski trip.  In fact, from a skier’s point of view, it’s been the worst 36 hours imaginable.  First, there’s the weather.  It rained the night before last.  Hard.  All night.  The warm air, fog, and rain showers continued through most of the first part of the day yesterday.  Then, of course, temps dropped below freezing and everything froze up.  Last night, just before bed, I checked the snow report here at Bolton Valley, and we’re looking at 4 lifts and 13 trails.  One of those lifts is the rope tow. So we’re really looking at 3 lifts and 12 trails.  The two lifts with access to decent terrain (Vista Quad and Wilderness) are closed, for different reasons. For wilderness, it’s because there’s no snow on that side of the resort. For Vista, it’s because the 3 year-old lift is down for maintenance for the second time in a week.  Timberline, the last respectable lift, is running with 3 trails.  One trail is the one to get over there, another is the trail to get you back.  So, there is essentially one trail open. This, of course, is a very bad scenario when you’ve been waiting since a near-death experience last spring (on the ascent, mind you) at Tuckerman Ravine to ski again.

To every bad story, there is an upside.  And to this one, there are actually two.  First of all, we’re looking at a fairly decent storm headed our way, which could bring as much as a foot of snow (I’ll take 6″ gladly), so the conditions should shape up pretty quickly.  Second of all, and more importantly, I’m blessed to have a seven year-old and a five year-old who love to ski.  There is just enough terrain open to ensure that they have a fun, exciting first day of skiing. Both of them are on new-to-them gear setups (with significant ski length jumps in both cases), so a day on the easy stuff is probably best anyway.

So today is all about keeping one eye on the kids and the other on the skies while I wait and hope patiently for a speedy recovery for the Annual family Christmas Trip.