As Natalie mentioned in her post we recently went on a ski trip to Heavenly Mountain Resort on the border between Nevada and California. The first time we went skiing I was around 7 or 8, and we were living in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. We went to Hidden Valley Resort because my mom had been there before and liked it. I was not very good, but I really enjoyed the experience and wanted to go again. Aleah had a harder time because she was learning to snowboard and it has a much steeper learning curve, although by now she is pretty good at it, and I have also gotten better. So now we are good enough that we can all ski together and go on ski trips like this one.
The first day of skiing Heavenly we went to the California side. It was very busy and by the time we got there the wait time for the primary lift was more than 40 minutes and it wasn’t even running. Fortunately, it quickly started, and because it was an express lift the line was shortened very quickly. We did a few not noteworthy runs, and then stopped at a small break area to eat, drink, and rest for a moment. I had some nice hot chocolate and the adults got some alcohol from a bar, then it was back to skiing. The runs were fun, but nothing particularly special, until the final run that led down to the main base area. It was an easy cruiser, although there were areas that you could choose to go on a steeper slope to get down a little faster. What made this run special was the view. Almost the entire way down we had beautiful views of Lake Tahoe, it really made me wish I had brought my phone.
Every other time we went skiing this trip we went to the closer Nevada side. The main lodge area for this half of the mountain was on the route of the shuttle system, so we usually took that to get there, although we did walk there once. The runs on this side were a lot more challenging, but also a lot more fun. My favorite run was called North Bowl. It was super steep and was full of moguls, so both Uncle Derek and Dad disliked it because it tired them out, but Dad was willing to go down it again to video me doing it. I went down it three times, although the last time it had just snowed so it wasn’t as steep, and there weren’t any moguls. Speaking of fresh snow, we got so much snow that we had to ski in blizzard conditions a couple of times, and it was absolutely miserable. I hate skiing in powder because you can’t really turn at all, and the thing you are normally supposed to do in both skiing and snowboarding is turn, so it was a challenge to learn how to ski on powder. Even though I had a bit of a struggle with that the trip it was still really fun, and I can’t wait for our next one.
