Soda Springs

HP was kind enough to force employees to take 2 weeks off around Xmas time this year.  Since we had a few days before Xmas and we had finished our Xmas shopping, we decided to head up skiing for the day.  Nate took 5 lessons last year and by the end was ready to ski with us, but never really got a chance.  We knew the Cottles would be coming up for New Year's and Nate would want to ski with everyone, so we decided we'd do a little trial run up at Soda Springs.  We decided to give him a 1 hour private lessons before spending the rest of the day with us.

Long line for Nate's rental gear, but he found a friend with this little bear.

Maria waiting for Nate and I to head down, had to show off her new hat that Nicole brought from Peru.

Here's Nate on his first run with us.  Soda Springs only has 2 lifts and this was an easy green run.

The instructor told us that Nate didn't turn much, really just wanted to get down the hill FAST!

The trick we have to remind Nate is to make Pizza with his ski's.  The more he wants to stop, the bigger the piece of pizza to make.

He went down one run, going fast and crashed into the soft powder alongside the groomed area.  As we got there, he was missing both ski's and buried in the snow.  We pulled him out and he said "Did you see that?  It was totally awesome!"  I guess he liked skiing & crashing.

Nate and I riding the lift.  Nate's biggest problem on the day was getting ON the chair lift.  Maria wouldn't ride with him, as he constantly needed help onto the seat (not really tall enough) and twice he lost his ski getting on.  The trooper managed to get off the lift with my help and ski out of the way on one ski.

After several runs, a break for lunch and several more runs, Nate was ready to play in the snow.  Wanted to make snowmen, snow angels and of course...

Make a snow ball.

Glad he doesn't have his aim developed yet, he really enjoys throwing snowballs.