A Family Ski Day in Zero Degree Weather

After looking at the calendar weeks ago, I realized that there would really only be one day during Winter Break that would work for the five of us to go skiing.  Due to Lia helping out with the Rudolph play on  December 16 to 17, the family Christmas party on the 18th, and Ron taking the kids camping December 19 to 20, December 22nd was the only day to go skiing if we wanted a "buffer day" after camping and another one before Christmas Eve.  So, I asked my mom and dad to watch Emmett and purchased our tickets to go skiing at White Pass.  Since it has been such a busy week, I had not found any time to watch the news and was totally oblivious to the fact that the temperature was forecasted to drop to unbelievable low temperatures on Thursday.  As a result, my mom called me yesterday afternoon and asked if we still wanted to go skiing when the temperatures were predicted to get down to zero and even into the negatives with the wind chill factor up on the pass.  After talking it over with Ron, we decided to just go for it, especially after skiing in temperatures this low last year at Schweitzer.  

After driving all the way to Issaquah to meeting my dad off of Hobart Road last night during Ella's gymnastics class, we managed to get everything packed up and ready to go by the time we put the kids to bed around 9:30.  After our alarm clocks went off at 6 this morning, Ron and I were in full swing and getting ready to go when Ron found a voicemail from our friend, Noel, who was planning on meeting us at White Pass with his daughter, Elle.  Noel announced that White Pass had decided to close due to the extremely low temperatures forecasted that day.  We couldn't believe our bad luck as this was the one day this entire week when the temperatures were supposed to get this low!  After weighing our options, we decided to pay double the price to go skiing up at Snoqualmie since they were still planning on being open and since it meant that we could easily pick up Emmett in North Bend on our way home.  So, we woke up the kids and moved forward with our morning.

After some slow driving on I-90, due to some crazy winds, we made it up to the resort around 9:30.  After getting everyone ready, we braved our way up to the ticket booth to pick up our ski cards and then spent the morning and the afternoon skiing on the bunny chair as we decided to purchase the lower mountain lift ticket.  I was blown away by how cold the air felt as I do not remember it feeling this intensely painful while at Schweitzer last year.  I barely took any pictures and never even asked anyone to take a family picture since it was so painful to take my gloves off for even a few seconds.  Everyone managed to power through the morning except for Ella who hit a wall a few minutes before our lunch break.  She then had a full blow melt down in the lodge and it took her almost 30 minutes to calm down with some hot chocolate before we made it back to our car for lunch.  After a 1.5 hour break (which is unheard of for us), we rallied and headed back out for the afternoon.  Ella managed to pull it together and did a great job in the afternoon as well as Logan, while Lia threw in the towel after a few runs and went back to the lodge due to her toes hurting so much from the cold.  We stayed on the slopes until almost 3:30 before calling it quits for the day.  Although the freezing winds and cold temperatures made the day less enjoyable than it would have been, I was so happy to see that Ella picked right up where she left off last year and was skiing down the hill while making short turns the entire day.  Logan also did the same and spent the afternoon working on his turns.  So, I was grateful for the chance that we had to get out on the slopes as a family one time during our break and to give our two middles the opportunity to continue to work on some basic skiing and boarding skills.

The two degree temperature that was on Ron's car screen when we pulled up into the parking lot.

The one group picture Ron took of the kids and me at the top of the chair lift.

Ella skiing down the hill.

Logan giving me a thumbs up while snow boarding past me.

Lia pausing for a picture next to me before heading down the hill.

Logan boarding down to the bottom of the hill.

Lia in the foreground and Logan in the background.

A cute shot I managed to get of Ron and Logan on the chairlift.