Ryan's First Time Skiing

While the kids were out of school and I was off of work for Christmas, Mark wanted to go skiing. Ryan had fun sledding just after Christmas and was pretty excited at the prospect of going skiing. Mark invited a friend to ski with him and the four of us headed up to Alta Ski Resort. (Alta lets you ski for free after three o'clock on some of the easier runs. After renting skis, Mark and Michael (his friend) headed for the lifts and Ryan and I headed for the rope tows. (Editorial note: I'm not sure why they have rope tows for the beginners since they are harder to use than chair lifts.) Ryan and I worked on putting our skis on and then started skiing. At first I was trying to give him some confidence by holding him up, but quickly realized that he was relying on me too much (leaning on me rather than trusting his equipment.) I decided to turn him loose and see how he did. To my surprise he was able to ski very well on his own. He wasn't very good at stopping, but as far as the skiing went he was great! This picture was of him after one of the few times he fell. Most of the times he fell it was because I was stepping on his skiis. Notice the large ski goggles he has on. They are Mark's, but Ryan wanted to wear them. Mark wore mine and I wore sunglasses.


Ryan's First Time Skiing from Derek Lindsey on Vimeo.

The video clip is his second run on his own. He was navigating pretty well, but when he came up on a second group of people, he wasn't sure what to do. My audio commentary is pretty funny in the clip as was my filming the nearer he got to the group of people. As always, if you don't see the video on the blog, follow the link to vimeo and watch it there.