What a weekend! Friday…Breck. Saturday…Beaver Creek…Today…Vail! I do lead a charmed life, I admit that!

I got up leisurely, no pressure to go out there and ski all day, just when I get there. I got dressed, made myself a sandwich for lunch and headed out the door, about 9am. It was about a 30 minute drive, such a change from yesterday, almost no snow on the roads, it was as if someone had a giant hand dryer and poof! And gorgeous, as always!

I got there and drove around Vail Village looking for parking, finally decided on the parking garage, which, turned out great, covered parking with ski gear! Not freezing sitting on your car trying to get dressed? Possibly no snow under your feet in case you happen to step down before you get your boot on? I’m good with that!

I followed everyone else through the parking lot, out to Vail Village. What a charming place this is. It’s a charming, adorable alpine village, like walking through some of those towns in Europe with PSM. You get that Winter Holiday feel all around. It’s hotels, restaurants, and shops, lost of shops, of course! Not just clothing, but, as you can imagine, ski and snowboard equipment and accessories. It reminded me of Keystone, but the streets were more narrow, like a European town or city, whereas Keystone’s lanes are much wider, just as charming!

Headed through Vail Village to the gondola line. That line…well, that was a long line, but it moved. When it’s your turn to get into one of the gondola cars, you put your skis in one of the holders outside the car and only take your poles in with you. As I’m standing there waiting for my turn, I get to look around. It’s a beautiful place, the slopes coming down to bottom were wide and bright. I could see on one of the slopes that there were a lot of moguls, which I discovered as a kid, were not my thing. Moguls are those bumpy places on a slope, a lot of people enjoy skiing them, I don’t happen to be one of them.

What I did notice throughout Vail, on the runs that I did, a bunch of the blue squares and most of the black diamonds were all moguls. I knew what I would be avoiding! I got out of the gondola and walked over to the first lift line, put on my skis and up, up, up, and away I went! I got off the lift and looked for green dots, which, I believe we talked about, is what I tend to do on mountains I have never been on, just to get a feel for it. And today, I stuck to mostly the green dots, threw in a few of the blue squares, but the green circles were just fine for me!

One thing I found that they had, in abundance, at Vail, were catwalks, which is a narrow trail connecting one slope to another or going all the way down the mountain. What vail has… are flat catwalks! Oh no! I tend to ski with my poles in one hand, but…I am ever so grateful to have ski poles when I end up on a catwalk! Oh my! Now…if you can get enough momentum when you get going, you can sail through a flat catwalk, but…if you stop at the bottom of one hill, to take in the splendor and a picture, and lose your momentum…there is a lot of walking, using the poles to try to push, skating, and a few four letter words. Let’s just say, I know why professional skiers are so skinny! O M G! I was sweating! I wasn’t sure if I had enough layers on when I left the house, since it was -2! Nope, I was fine! I had to unzip my jacket and take off my gloves just to get a breeze going! And…I didn’t make that mistake again!

Between the gondola ride up and the catwalks, my first run took me almost an hour to get down! I did learn my lesson though and the rest of the day, there was swooshing and swishing to my hearts content. The cool thing with the catwalks was that if you chose to do a run going down, you could go for a piece, then take a catwalk and start the process over again.

I went up in a chair, then skied a short distance and got on another chair that went up, then skied down, the went up and it was like that for about four hours, at least, non-stop, it was great. I remember going up and up and up on one chair and as I’m looking down, it’s mostly moguls and steep slopes and I’m thinking not my bag, and as we get to the top, I look to my left and see black diamond and double black diamond signs, uh oh, what did I get myself in to? I would go down if that’s the case, it might take me a while, but I’ll do it. Then…a sigh of relief, I looked to the left and there were my green circles and blue dots, whew!

I skied a few more runs, somehow made it to the bottom to where I needed to be and it was like everyone was having the same thought, they were done. So, I kicked off my skis, well, not kicked, and walked through Vail Village a bit, I got a zipper pull, a t-shirt on sale, and a sticker for my helmet, not very exciting, and this was all in one store, I was good to go!

I headed to the parking lot, found the car, got out of my boots and ski pants, and away we went! Headed back to the house for a hot, hot, hot shower, some dinner, work, and chill. Not a bad day. I’ve been to Vail and I really liked it, I know I’ll go back! But I think tomorrow, might be a day off from skiing, we’ll see!