Was it easier or harder when I was 9?

The snow stretched before me. So many questions rattled around in my head. We started late. Maybe I shouldn’t be out here with the cut on my foot. Jeeze, I’m really out of shape. I hope we don’t miss the last lift. But my school roommate, Hannah and my Dad were behind me and the sun was out, so I just turned around and joked "nice alpine start guys!"

Hardly. An alpine start is usually before the sunrise – we started on the trail at almost 11:00. On the plus side, motivation is a good thing. Especially when it involves Hogan Park Trail, the pinnacle of Steamboat XC skiing, a 7-9 mile trail between the top of Rabbit Ears Pass and the Morningside Gate at the Ski area – nicely at about 10,000 feet. I set out at a clip, quickly stripping down to my Smartwool layers. I passed the time intermittently singing bad country, daydreaming, and noticing the sparkle of the snow. It really was pretty.

At one point, I got into a groove. Kick glide. Kick glide. Kick glide. Then I looked up. The high alpine meadow stretched as far as I could see. Oh well, I muttered to myself, there will be a pace change around the corner, just chug. I got to the corner and white glistened in front of my all the way. I barreled down and got to the rise and, yet again, there was more meadow.  I turned around in awe. The last time I did this trail was when I was nine years old. I didn’t remember the meadow of doom. Oh well, just keep it moving. Finally, we reached the next line of trees about 3 stretches of plain, old, flat white meadow later and caught a glimpse of the ski area. Must be close I thought. Yeah right.

In fact, I think that we entered into the vast forest of Narnia, because every turn seemed to bring us further from that lift tower. Finally I heard voices! The lift! While putting on layers, I briefed Hannah on our plan of attack for the second half of the adventure – getting down the mountain on skinny skis at the end of a 3” snow day = push piles. At the top of the lift she inquired what the rules were for walking down the mountain. Not allowed, I yelled as I skied past her. And  by skied I mean tumble, pizza, and slid our way down the mountain. By the time we got to the bottom, I couldn’t decide – was the 9 mile xc or the skinny-ski downhill harder?