The world outside was trimmed in white.  The snow was fresh and squeaky, and as Shawnee tried to climb into the unbroken snow, her entire body disappeared into a fluff of white powder, with only the top of her back showing.  Her tail poked above the mounds of snow, serving as a periscope to alert us of her direction as she made doggy snow tunnels.

We awoke this morning  to a foot of new snow over in the Winter Park area.  We had come over to spend a long weekend here, and the snow Gods smiled on use by dumping a foot of light, fluffy powder — a skier’s dream.  But I should preface that by saying only if said skier is of the adult version as I would soon find out.

The dogs weren’t the only small creatures who found the new snow abounding through the woods to be somewhat of a challenge.  Teaching 5 year old children to ski in a foot of new snow is not easiest task either.  For a child, a foot of new snow is halfway up their leg and it’s very difficult to get enough oomph to power through it.  Normally as kids, we make long, slow, windy turns schussing back and forth across the hill.  But if you take the tactic with little kids, one of two things will happen — they can’t move at all, or they get caught in the deep snow and down they go in a big whoosh of snow.  The one positive of a powder day is the landings are soft and fluffy.

It’s amazing how long it can take to ski a trail through deep snow relative to skiing a groomed slope.  Everything seems to be in slow motion, and everything takes that much longer.  Even putting skis on takes longer, because as you walk across the snow, hug clumps of snow build up on the bottoms of your ski boots like rudders on the bottom of a ship.  As adults, we learn to smack our ski poles against our boots to knock the snow off.  But most kids don’t ski with poles until they get older, so as instructor you must do it for them.  The best tip I got from a neighbor who is a former instructor was to bring a ice scraper with him for days like today.  Boy, was that useful — that’s not what I would have considered as required items for ski instructing….

Unbelievably, I feel more tired today from skiing three trails with a bunch of 5 and 6 year olds, as an entire day of skiing on my own.  But I also got to play I Spy, discuss the merits of which Ninja Turtle is most awesome, sing songs while skiing down a ski slope, and experience the sheer joy of kids having a great day skiing, and that really is pretty priceless.

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