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We rolled the dice and booked a couple of nights at the Holiday Valley Ski Resort in upstate New York over spring break. It’s no Vale, but it’s got twice as many runs and they’re twice as long as the local slopes. We were officially off-season, and, when we arrived Tuesday afternoon and took a couple of runs, things looked a bit bleak — heavy slush. But, we got 6″ of snow Tuesday night, so Wednesday was good skiing…albeit largely ungroomed. By Thursday, the groomers had been hard at it, and the skiing was ideal, if a bit chilly.

Riding Up and Getting Ready

Julie and Alana on the Lift

Carson on the Lift

Alana Poses While Waiting for Carson to Get His Snowboard Strapped On

Carson and Alana Ready to Head Down Northwind

Benton and Carson Strap on Their Boards Before Heading Down Mardi Gras

Heading Down…

Because we were off-season, there were no crowds whatsoever, neither getting onto the lifts or coming down any of the runs.

Benton Coming Down an Ungroomed Independence

Carson and Benton Snowboard Down Independence

Alana and Carson on Northwind

Carson Snowboards Independence

Exhaustion at the End of the Day

On Wednesday, Carson, Benton, and I were skiing, and Carson announced that he’d had enough and was heading in. Benton and I decided we would make a few more runs. One run later…Benton was out. Of. Gas. He lay like this for several minutes after completing the run and would have been content to lie there indefinitely! To his credit, this was after a morning of skiing, lunch, then swimming in the indoor/outdoor pool (which included a 3-kid snowball fight and various dares of each other to sit in/lie on snow-covered patio furniture by the pool), and then afternoon skiing:

Hot Tubbin’

Trip number three to the hot tub (I was the adult escort for the first two, but Julie finally drew the short straw):

When you’re standing at the top of a run and see nothing but grooming machine grooves in the snow, you know you’ve got the slopes largely to yourselves:

After a couple of runs on greens and blues, Carson, Benton, and I headed over to the lifts that go up to the blacks. And…that’s where the two of them spent the rest of the day. No matter how we started out at the top of the run, Carson “The Bullet” would make about three big turns near the top and then just rocket straight down the rest of the hill. He judged each run by how much “air” he caught coming over one of the steep sections about halfway down (only one big wipeout there, partially induced by another skiier who was similarly inclined). Benton, on the other hand, was determined to perfect his parallel skiing form, and he wanted to savor each trip, so he would be the last one down. The blacks at Mad River are how I remember the blues at Killington, which means Benton was still moving at a pretty good clip, but with a methodical style.

Here’s Carson wrapping up a run (the only reason I was below him was because I’d skated off to check on Alana, so the boys were on their own):

Alana was in a 2-hour class, so the remaining four Wilsons (as well as a neighbor whose daughter was in the class with Alana) did some skiing together. We headed up a 2-chair lift and Julie and I rode together, which meant Benton and Carson rode together ahead of us. We didn’t realize until looking at the picture later that Carson appears to be snuggled over next to his big brother. We have no doubt that this was wholly unintentional and it was just where his butt landed on the chair. That doesn’t mean this shot won’t be getting dredged up with a story of sibling affection at some point down the road.

Alana finished her class, had lunch, and then was a complete wreck for ~45 minutes (not helped by the fact that she lost her goggles, so she peppered her grievances with references to how bright it was). After that, she brightened up and spent a few hours going up and down the bunny hill, happy as a clam. She’s starting to get the hang of turning and of slowing down, so we’re hoping we’re riding the chairs up to a green slope or two with her by the end of the season.

For his part, Benton commented 2-3 times during the day that he was having fun, and, spontaneously, when we got in the car to head home, he let loose with another, “That was fun!” He was right. The family is hooked.

(The pictures below were taken using one of our ultracompact Panasonic DMC-FX10 cameras. It wasn’t practical to take along the DSLR.)

Benton and Carson Preparing for a Run
(It was an absolutely gorgeous, sunny day — compare the lack of bundling in this photo to the photo in the link earlier in this post)

Alana…

Post 2-Hour Class (goggle orientation was not a topic they covered…obviously)

The runs Alana could handle were “Bunny Hill” and “Fanny Hill.” The former used a conveyor belt to ferry skiers to the top (that’s actually all the people to the right in the photo below), and the latter used a tow rope. The tow rope was a little tricky, and Alana never really mastered her exits. What’s impressive (be impressed people!) is that, for the shot below, the photographer (moi), had to hold onto the tow rope crossbar while being pulled up the slope and hold onto two ski poles and remove a glove (and hold onto it) and extract a small camera from a zippered camera case inside a zippered coat pocket and take the shot. No equipment was harmed or lost in the taking of this picture.

Ready for a run down Bunny Hill

After a half-dozen runs, I took my skis off and just helped Alana through the line and onto the conveyor to head up Bunny Hill. By the time of this run, the sun had set and the lights were on. That’s Alana 3/4 of the way through a solo run down the hill.

All kids were still raring for more when we headed home after ~8 hours at the facility, so it was definitely a hit.

Julie skied, too, so there wasn’t much of an opportunity to get any real action shots.