Snow Shoe Last Night

After a full day of hard skiing we were very grateful to have Will the gourmet with us. He made a fantabulous dinner of pork loin with rosemary and pears with gorgonzola.

After dinner we drove over the village where Susie and Will hit the Starbucks for a little coffee and wireless and Rach headed off for her snow cat tour.

Here is a picture of a snow cat.

It is basically a modified snow groomer that had a passenger box put on the back so that it can be used to give people tours. When Rach was waiting for her tour where they teach you about making snow and grooming slopes, she pulled out a note pad and wrote up a little heading. You see, Rach is writing this trip off as "research" for a novel, and taking this tour would make it tax deductible. When the tour guide/snow cat driver showed up, he noticed the note pad and then invited Rach to ride up front in the cab with him!

It was a great! Rach got a personal tour and took 8 pages (!) of notes. Andy, the driver, was so happy to be able to share all his knowledge with someone who was actually into it that he made a special detour to the compressor house, and the whole tour got to get out and see all the massive compressors that control every snowmaker on the entire mountain. So if you have any questions about making or grooming snow, ask Rach!

After the tour, Rach and Will decided they were gluttons for punishment and went back over to Silver creek for some night skiing. Normally we are scared of night skiing because we don't like the iciness of all the snow that melted during the day and then froze again at night, but it was unusually warm so, we hit Cubb Run and Robertson's Run for about another hour. We were literally flying down Robertson. We were burning so fast that we actually caught fire. :)

Just kidding. The fire trucks were there when we came off the mountain and the firefighters were dragging the hoses towards the slopes, but we never did figure out what caught fire in the snow.

Alas, this was the end of our wonderful week of skiing. It was raining when we woke up on Friday, so we just loaded up and headed home. We have been home for several days now, and we are already thinking about the next time we can possibly hit the slopes.