Jay Silveira
New member
Saturday the 13th was Rocky Mountain Laboratories ski day, and I was in charge of getting the group tickets. We arrived around 9:00 and set up in the Conroy Room, which was sparsely populated as usual. Some of the participants were likely to trickle in later in the morning, which meant that I should hang around in the lodge to hand out the rest of the tickets. Actually though, hanging in the lodge for the morning was a good option, since reports from the slopes indicated the snow surface was rock hard. With no snow in a week, and warm daytime temperatures even at elevation, Lost Trail was firmly entrenched in spring conditions. Until the sun had a chance to soften up the slopes, it was going to be hard and fast. <BR> <BR>The Lost Trail staff was great about dealing with the group tickets. In fact, the manager gave me the tickets without charging me, and let me know that I could come back and only pay for the ones we used. It turns out that all our participants arrived (despite the lackluster snow conditions) so we used them all. For the rest of the morning, I hung out with E and Ty around the lodge, and Ty got to formally try out his “Kid Ski” plastic skis for the first time. He seemed to have no problem walking around the lodge in them, and only encountered frustration when he wanted to get something and the ski tips kept him from getting close enough to touch it. He also found out that it was difficult to crawl with skis on. After a while we brought him out so he could walk around on the snow. Unfortunately, the snow surface was still very hard and slick and he couldn’t keep his legs from sliding apart. So, we only spent a few minutes out on the real snow surface. But, overall I’d say Ty enjoyed his first real day on skis, hopefully he’ll have more to come this spring. <BR> <BR>Around 11:00 or so, Lisa, one of the other organizers, arrived with a boatload of food that she’d prepared for the event. We enjoyed a great lunch, as did the other participants who came in at various times. Finally, at around 1:00, things were under control and I got a chance to head out on the slopes. I joined up with Andy for some snowboarding on Chair 4 and we did a couple of nice long runs on “Sacajewea” and “Lewis and Clark”. The headwall sections were a bit firm, but most of the trails that had been exposed to the sun were nice loose spring snow. Actually though, I was glad to find a few areas of shade, especially on my trip through the flats over to Chair 4. I had to get my head into “snowboarding mode”, which meant stopping only at strategic uphill places and keeping my speed up. At around 3:00 I headed in to switch off with E, but since some clouds had rolled in and the snow had started to firm back up, she decided she didn’t need to head out. <BR> <BR>Even though it was only a typical spring day, it seemed that everyone had fun getting together out on the slopes. The most interesting discovery we made was finding out that Lost Trail allows you to ride the lift and ski the area with children in child carriers. I couldn’t believe it; I didn’t think any ski area allowed that sort of stuff anymore. But, I guess Lost Trail still does. It seems like a crazy policy, but I’m certainly willing to take advantage of it this spring. So far, I’ve only skied with Ty in the pack in powder conditions after hiking, and a bit of spring backcountry, but I wouldn’t be opposed to riding the lift and skiing with him. As long as the snow was soft, my only concern would be other skiers, so we’ll try to take him out when the crowds are low. The potentially great part is that the whole family will be able to ski together again, even riding the lifts. The gentleman we spoke to said that the most difficult part is riding the lift with the carrier, so I’ll have to see how that goes. I’ll certainly send a report if we go and try it out. <BR> <BR>J.Spin