Bloomington, IN: Skiing in Our Backyard

Yesterday we got a few inches of snow (probably around 5 inches in the backyard) and decided to take advantage of it. We have a large hill in the backyard that stretches wide and is just steep enough to get a little bit of speed. We started off by sledding face first into piles of fluffy snow. I don't have any photos of this but here is the sled we used:



Sledding was so much fun. The hill is perfect for me. I have only been sledding two other times in my life, once on Valentine's Day in 2007 at DePauw and once with Eric in Ohio, on an enormous hill* where I accidentally ran into a tree and think I possibly broke my wrist or at least seriously bruised it. So I was quite happy to be sledding and not be scared (nothing to run into!). At some point, Eric said something about wondering if we could ski down this hill. Then we realized that we actually had skis that we could test this theory on (his dad's skis now live in our garage). 

*Eric thinks this hill is a normal-sized hill. 


After some work figuring out how to put the boots on and getting them connected to the skis, Eric took them up the hill for a trial run.




Success! He tried going straight down for the first run.



Walking back up the hill was a lot of work in the snow boots with the heavy skis. But he did it multiple times ... always asking where our chair lift was!


For subsequent runs, he went across the hill and then down between two trees. He could get pretty fast and go for much longer this way. It was so fun to watch.





I also got to try out skiing in the backyard. This was the first time I have ever been on skis! It was so much fun! I had a great teacher who helped me stop and also made sure I didn't fall down. So, for my first ski runs, I didn't fall or break myself at all (definitely a confidence booster - thanks, Eric!). I followed the same path that he did and only almost ran into someone's house twice (out of my three runs). The first run I moved pretty fast and it was so much fun. And now I want to go skiing for real.




Skiing and sledding in the backyard was the best way to spend a snowy Valentine's Day, that's for sure.
Bloomington, IN: Skiing in Our Backyard Bloomington, IN: Skiing in Our Backyard Reviewed by Maria on 9:26:00 PM Rating: 5

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