The season has started. For our first ski day of the season, we went skiing at Stevens Pass in near-blizzard conditions. Last year, we focused on skiing at Whistler, but this year we thought we’d spend more time at local ski areas and were excited to check out Steven’s after camping there last September. Stevens Pass is about an hour and a half from Seattle, and is amazing. 
The first impression is that it has some really diverse terrain while not being crowded; there were almost no lift lines, and we were still getting first turns at 11:30am.
We started the day out with a few groomers before Jim and Jess – who are both fantastic skiers – took us off-piste and into Steven’s more challenging terrain. After skiing some incredible soft, deep snow, we found ourselves in a stand of Denser-Than-I’m-Comfortable-Skiing-Through (DTICKT) trees. Jim led the way by hooking his binding under a branch (thank you, pre-season conditions) and doing a lawn-dart into the top of a chute, managing to stop just before going over the lip. I decided I could handle it and started jump-turning down. Being out of shape and a mediocre skier did not work out to my advantage like I had planned: I slid face-first at alarming speed down the hundred-meter slope and landed, with limbs still in their original configuration, in a field of uncut powder. I attribute the unskied snow to the accessibility of this field being limited to over-confident Dutchmen (is there any other kind?) and people riding a luge.
Meanwhile, Michelle had an unfortunate appointment with a four-inch stump (thanks again, pre-season conditions), but cleverly managed to limit the contact to the mid-torso. Note for next time: full body armor may not be as ridiculous as it sounds. I’ll be calling Wayne Enterprises after Christmas to pick up one of Batman’s spare suits. With the cape.
We finished the day by going over to Jim and Jess’s to attend the Solstice Gargle. Good friends, good homebrew, and amazing home-made Eggnog.
Sidenote: it’s remarkable how unsuited I am for social occasions. Lets just say the Dutch are not a subtle people. I felt the low-point of the evening was when I referred to a Menorah as a “Gurka”.
