Nathan and I went skiing with Jenny, Erin and some of their friends today at Winter Park. It was actually pretty nice in that it was a crystal clear day, warm (upper 20's) and no wind - NO WIND!! I think it might be the best weather I've had for skiing in a long time, over a year maybe. Sadly, other than the company, that was about all that was good.

Nathan and I had to go up to Echo Mountain to get passes to use at WP so we didn't have to pay $50-92 to ski, so that took about 2 hours of driving. Can you believe it costs more than $90 to ski?! Then since it was a holiday, everyone from out of town was out in force clogging up the roadways which had been relatively empty all weekend, so it took us another 45 min longer than it would have otherwise for us to actually get to WP, find parking, acquire our tickets from the window (which were free, the only way I ski these days) wait in the lift line... From the time we actually arrived at the base on the bus, it was close to an hour before we were actually on the lift. Then the skiing on the WP side consisted mostly of dodging near death experiences caused by other out of control gapers and very small children.

Once we finally met up with our group, it became a little more tolerable and fun - did I mention we didn't start skiing until noon - NOON! Winter Park is what I call a "play mountain" in that it's fun to to go every once in a while, maybe once a year, and play around. The terrain is mostly that of a mini-Vail; a couple turns on relatively good snow/terrain, then a mile of flats and people dodging to get back to the lift. It was fun overall I suppose, and it was free, save for gas, so I can't complain too much.

It certainly reaffirmed my no skiing on weekends or holidays rule though - I probably won't do that again anytime soon unless the circumstances are extremely extenuating.

Rest week is now over and it looks like the winds will die down enough for me to get in a few quality hours on the bike tomorrow and the rest of the week - fingers crossed for the wind gods!