Ski Time!

Above: From our first ski trip of the season.
After a relatively mild winter, some "real weather" arrived in Southern California in the form of storms this past January. And rain in SoCal means snow in the mountains.

There must have been a lot of pent up demand, because on the first weekend of the storm, (January 23–24) traffic was so bad in the local mountains that it made the news. Some people spent six hours or more driving only to find roads closed or the ski resorts sold out. Though I'm an avid skier, this puzzled me because the snow was still going to be there later in the season, and the ski resorts keep their runs groomed and can add man-made snow to the base when the weather conditions are right. But I guess people wanted to be the first to experience the fresh powder. (Many years ago, I got to ski in a blizzard at Mammoth—a longtime dream come true! Talk about fresh snow—I remember visibility being no more than 10 feet at times due to the snow and fog!)

This past week, my 8-year-old's elementary school was closed Friday for an administrative day, so my wife and I used it as an opportunity to take a one-day family ski trip to Snow Valley. As I have mentioned in a past blog, we have started going to Snow Valley because it's less than halfway up the mountain that leads to Big Bear Lake where some of the larger ski resorts are located. And while the runs at Snow Valley are a bit less challenging for me, because the focus right now is to acclimate our kids to the sport, it's been a great alternative that's less of a production to get to and ski at.

We actually had visited Snow Valley just two weeks prior for a two-night trip. Though there was no snow in the mountains at the time, there had been enough of a base earlier in the season for adding man-made snow, which made skiing fine—coverage was actually very good on the trails that were open. Over the years, I've skied late in the season when coverage and conditions were iffy due to melting snow, so I was impressed by the coverage.

We left West L.A. at 6 a.m. and, accounting for the time we got momentarily turned around and then got caught behind a very slow-moving snow plow going up the mountain, we made it to our ski-rental place about 5 miles out of Snow Valley at 8:30 a.m. Because of the minor delays, the wait to purchase our lift tickets turned out to be surprisingly long, so we didn't actually start skiing until around 10:15 a.m. (It helped that we had a coupon to purchase our tickets at half price!)

Above: An overcast day at Snow Valley—great ski weather!
But it turned out to be great skiing! As I mentioned, there was fresh snow from the week before, and it was nicely packed and groomed. It also was overcast much of the day and reached a high of only about 49 degrees—the first time in years I got to wear my ski jacket and goggles! (My daughter wore one of my old pair of goggles as well.) Though we learned later in the day that the ski resort had sold out partly due to promotions—which resulted in people reportedly taking as long as three hours to purchase their tickets and rent equipment, I was surprised at how relatively short the lines were for the chair lifts and how uncrowded the slopes were!

Obviously, one reason we wanted to take the trip was to get the children more ski time. As mentioned here last year, my daughter learned to ski last season and she has improved every trip. Last year, she easily made the leap from the bunny slope to the beginner's-to-intermediate trail. On this trip, seeing her growing capabilities, I took her down a short, steeper run that she quickly mastered—which was helped by the fact that she had somehow instinctively figured out how to turn and change direction on the slope. After seeing this, I told her she was good enough to ski down from the top of the mountain which I had done earlier in the day on my own, finding a way down using fairly intermediate trails and avoiding harder black diamond runs. At first she said she wasn't interested, but near the end of the day as twilight approached, she suddenly said she wanted to give it a try. (Of course, I suddenly got cold feet and, after making sure she felt truly ready, as we rode the long lift up to the top, I kept going over some pointers and reminding her to take it in easy stages.)

Below: A ski bunny in the making.

Well, it was clear my assessment was on the money—my daughter ended up taking the run from the top so easily that when we got down to the bottom and I noticed there was no line for the lift, we did it again before calling it a day! I can now truly say my daughter is a "real" skier!

What's funny is that my daughter takes the runs pretty fast. When we ski with her, my wife and I constantly shout after her to slow down—not merely for safety reasons, but also so that she can enjoy the run and the view. But she just likes to tear down the slope!

We signed up our 4-year-old for his first ski lesson—just a half day—during our trip a couple weeks earlier. This was partly to give my wife a chance to hit the slopes herself for the first time since the kids were born (I started up again about three years ago.) He always has been more cautious than his older sister and, to be fair, she did not start until she was 6. But though we had given him a feel for what it was like to have skis on before he went to the class, he sat out the lessons and refused to participate for more than an hour-and-a-half until his mom finally persuaded him to give it a whirl. So he really only got the basics.

Once he got on the bunny slope after the class, however, he refused to get on a lift—we suspect he was too scared to ride the chair. So my wife and I took turns hiking partway up the bunny slope with him (while the other skied with our daughter) and then, while holding hands, skiing down with him. Although it was pretty tiring to have to constantly hike up the slope in the snow carrying our skis, what's important at this stage is that he enjoys and finds it fun. Next year we plan to put him in a class again to reinforce his basic skills so that he can begin skiing on his own.

We left the ski resort at about 5:30 p.m. Although we were driving home 90 miles across the length of L.A. in the middle of rush hour on a Friday night, it took us only two hours to get home! Anyone who knows L.A. will know that this is very impressive—it helped that we were going against rush hour traffic and took the carpool express lanes almost the entire way! By that time, the kids were pretty tired and slept much of the way home—I actually had a lot of ski in me left and could easily have gone another day.

Anyway, it was an enjoyable trip and it's nice to know now that a one-day trip with the whole family is doable! My wife and I are very happy to be passing along our enjoyment of this activity to the kids at such a young age.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Perhaps unfairly, the stereotype of cartoonists and comic-book fans is that we're a rather sedentary lot. This is not helped by the fact that cartooning is a rather solitary occupation, with the cartoonist stuck behind a drawing board for hours on end. Though having children certainly has made leading an active life challenging in recent years, I actually played many sports from an early age.

These included baseball, football (both touch and tackle), ice hockey, volleyball, and even a little golf (actually, among classic cartoonists, golf was actually quite a popular pastime!)

My favorite sport for the past 12 or so years has been skiing. My wife taught me back in the 1990s, and I actually quickly became more proficient at it than she!

For my birthday, my wife generously let me go on an overnight ski trip to Big Bear in Southern California with a buddy. (I last went two years ago. Before we had children, my wife and I used to go once or twice a season. Since then, however, we've gone twice in the last five years. We hope that will change once the kids learn!)

It turned out to be a terrific trip, with everything falling perfectly into place for us. Big Bear experienced snow storms and fresh snow last Monday (President's Day) and the following Thursday and Friday morning, but by Saturday when we actually hit the slopes, it was about as clear, sunny and beautiful as one could ask for!

We got a late start Friday, and though traffic was heavy at the outset (particularly as our route briefly put us on the same freeway taking people to Las Vegas), we were pleasantly surprised to find the road up the mountain to be fairly open and not very busy. My main concern was that we would need snow chains which I was carrying in the trunk; in fact, at the base of the mountain, a sign warned drivers that chains were required, confirming what I had read on the ski resort's real-time website just before hitting the road. But I guess the crews cleared the roads in time, because we were able to make it all the way up the mountain without needing the chains. Though we ended up driving up the mountain in the dark, I know Big Bear well enough that we got to the top and to the hotel without much incident or problem. There was quite a bit of snow around Big Bear City, but the roads were fairly free of snow and ice.

Although we got an early start the next morning (we also had to rent our equipment first), the traffic and the slopes were already busy by the time we arrived at about 8 am (which was when the mountain opened). But again, good luck and timing were on our side. Just before we turned up the main road that led up to the base of the resort, the parking spots on the road had filled up and we were redirected to a an overflow parking lot off the main road. This was fortunate because we ended up parking right by the shuttle stop; had we parked on the road, we would have had to hike up the main road carrying all our equipment, which is an uphill walk of about 200 yards--not pleasant when you are wearing ski boots and carrying your equipment. Instead, we got to ride the shuttle and get car-to-ticketbooth service!

As you can see in the pictures, it was a pristine and clear day. Since I had not skied for a couple years, I wondered how rusty I would be, but I got my ski legs back almost immediately! My friend and I were fairly comparable as skiers (he has skied much longer than me), and it was nice to have a companion to both pace me and push me a bit. In fact, we ended up taking three runs down a slope called "The Wall"--so named because when you first look down the run from the top of its perch, it looks like nearly a vertical drop!! (For those of you who are familiar with skiing, it is rated a "double-diamond" run--diamond runs are considered the most difficult and are for advanced skiers only.) However, once I started down, the hill turned out to be less intimidating than it looked, so it was rather exciting and exhilarating to conquer it. I'm fairly certain I've taken the run once before in the past, but because of my improved confidence and skill level, it was not difficult or intimidating.

A first for me was that once we got to the top of the mountain, we just stayed there the entire day, and avoided the crowds at the bottom where all the beginning and intermediate skiers tend to congregate. As a result, the advanced runs remained fairly open, and there were times when we literally skied onto the chairlift to take us back up to the top of the mountain at the end of a run! My friend and I skied from about 9:30 a.m. to 4:20 p.m., with two one-hour breaks (one for lunch). After that, we returned our rented equipment and headed home.

I must say, this was one of my best experiences skiing, both because of the conditions and because it was some of my best skiing technically.