The end of the season

The next to the last day of the Chicken family ski season has come and gone. We spent Sunday and Monday at Baker, where Maya decided that she actually does like skiing and Paige remembered that, while it hurts, it is kind of fun. So today we got up early, left the house early, and drove the 8 bagillion miles (OK, so it only felt like that) to Crystal Mountain.

Paige and the kids hadn't been there before...I went for the Vertical Express for MS ski event back in February. It was a gorgeous day - sunny, cool but not cold, and there were very few people there...pretty much ideal conditions!

We started out on the Discovery chair, the Crystal bunny hill. Maya, as you can see from the photo, was excited.

Heck, even Paige and Logan seemed to be pretty psyched!

After a few runs on Discovery the kids were bored with it and even Paige was ready to move on to something a bit harder, so we headed over to the Chinoook Express six-pack chair, then moved on to the Forest Queen Express. This was the only mistake of the day...while the Queens run down from the top of the chair is rated a green circle, there's a pretty steep section of the hill, and Paige don't do the steep. She had to side-step down a chunk of it, but once she got to the bottom she did fine. The kids, meanwhile, rampaged their way down pretty much every hill in their way.

Once we got back down to the base we had lunch, then headed back up. While Paige stayed on the low runs from the top of Chinook Express, the kids and I headed back up to Forest Queen until they were worn out, then went back down to meet the wife. For our final run, Logan and I went up to the top - not all the way up to High Campbell, since we're not up for that double-diamond stuff, but up the Rainier Express to take in the view. And what a view it was! The mountain was out in full force, looking even more impressive than the crappy cell phone camera can communicate:

So, the up shot of three great ski days in one week?

1. Maya is now stoked on the skiing and ready for lessons next year
2. Paige is smitten with Crystal and is now stoked for next year's Vertical Express
3. My legs have been sore for pretty much a week.

In other words, everything's bitchin'!