Finally hitting the slopes!

Thursday, Dec 29th

Well the day turned out perfect for skiing -- maybe even a little too warm!  After lunch we headed to the slopes. The drive is about a mile or so to the base area, then park and catch a frequent shuttle up to the base area, just about 30 steps to the lift. For ease to get from door to skiing, Angel Fire is one of the better locations. Sadly, they haven't had great snow yet, but it was good enough for us. They had multiple lifts and areas open so it wasn't too crowded at the base area.

We got on the Chili Express which takes you to the very top, but has multiple runs to choose including a fairly decent long green run. We decided to do the green run to get warmed up, since we hadn't prepared for skiing like we should have.

The run was good, but a little crowded. We stopped at the bottom to rest and have a snack, then headed up the same lift again. We took the same run, but since our legs were warmed up more, we had a better time of it. We could go a little faster, and it seemed like less people the second time. I enjoyed my new (former demo) skis that I bought last spring, when we were with the Cisco HS Band on their trip to Winter Park. They seem to turn much easier.

By the time we got down, we'd skied almost 7 miles, which is pretty far for a first day. So we decided to call it quits and not overdo it.

Once back at the truck and shed of the ski gear, we decide to go get pizza to go from our favorite pizza joint in Angel Fire, Angel Fired Pizza. Tony dropped me off and I ordered while he waited. The parking near thee is not dually-truck friendly, so once I had pizza in-hand, he came back to get me and we headed home. We had great pizza, breadsticks and beer, the best food after skiing!

We've been really impressed by the way the Big Country has handled the winter weather! Although we seem to go through the propane a little faster, (a bigger rig and larger furnace,) it stays much warmer overall and hasn't really had condensation on the windows like our previous rig did.

After dinner we watched some tv and then hit the hay fairly early.