Feb 25, 2012 - Skiing at Grouse Mtn British Columbia

The marine forecast was terrible with gale force winds forecast for Friday and Saturday.  So, once again we decided to go skiing instead.  This has become our winter pattern; boating when the weather is good, skiing if it's not.  We have a "family" season-pass at Grouse Mtn. British Columbia, so this is where we ski.  The mountain is just outside of Vancouver B.C. (home of the 2010 Winter Olympics) and it looks down on the city of Vancouver.  It's a spectacular view, when the skies are clear.

It was a very cloudy and foggy day skiing Saturday.  The winds were calm until the late afternoon when it got gusty and cold.  The snow was a bit heavy and wet, but the skiing was decent.  The crowds weren't too bad.  After a few hours of skiing, and dealing with very poor visibility the kids asked if they could go ice skating.  We said "of course."  Kevin has done it once before but this was Cindy's first time.  

Kevin uses "the cage" to get some extra speed.

Cindy enjoying skating at the outdoor rink atop Grouse Mtn.

Wonderful view of Vancouver B.C.

Cindy heading down "Paper Trail".  This is our kids favorite run at Grouse.

View from the restaurant on top of Grouse.  The wind is blowing pretty hard.

We put the kids in a semi-private two-hour lesson.  It was just the two of them and their instructor Jordan.  We were worried that they might not like having a lesson, or that one of them might get hurt, or that one of them would have to go to the bathroom, or....  you know, the usual parent stuff.  Well, they loved their lesson and we could see that both them had improved as soon as we skied with them.  It was amazing!  Kevin was doing very good parallel turns and Cindy had completely lost her snowplow!  In two hours Jordan did more to improve the kids skiing that we have in 10+ days of skiing with them.  But, I know I'm a terrible ski teacher, so I guess it's no surprise.

Here's a little video I (Steve) shot of Kevin skiing down a narrow trail through the trees.  It's a little shaky, sorry.  This was before their lesson, but even so, it's hard to ski this trail without doing a snowplow almost the whole way.

Kevin skiing the woods trail.  It's so fun to see him do this!

It was a great day, despite the poor visibility and less than ideal snow.  The lessons were a huge success; the kids can't wait for another lesson, and we could see big gains in their ability in just two hours.  We'll likely put the kids in another lesson or two with Jordan, if we can get him again.  It was well worth it.

On Sunday I worked on our boat galley.   I'm working on permanently installing our microwave oven.  This is proving to be a very time consuming task.  But, I'm so picky when it comes to these things that I'll easily spend an extra few hours just to get something to fit "just right" when likely I'm the only person who would ever notice the difference.  I'll post some pictures of the galley in week or two when I get things put back together.