What Can I Give?

Today was the first time that we took Landon up skiing. I told Katie on the way up that going up skiing was allot easier before I got married. After we got married it seemed to take allot longer to get out the door and put on our ski stuff and walk from the parking lot to the hill. Now I not only have to throw my clothes in the pickup and drive up but I have to make sure I load two pair of skis two pair of boots, make sure I get four poles, and gloves two coats and gobbles (goggles), a camelbak and some lunch. Wow that allot of stuff. Plus I have to walk up and down stairs making multple trips to the Taco. For our adventure today it seemed like because we have one more coming up with us it should take 1/3 more time than when the two of us go, but it doesent it takes twice as long.  But its all worth it, I know because I remember my mom saying multiple times to me how wonderful it is to have all of her kids grown up and skiing with her.


One thing that has been really hard for me is thinking about the missed opportunity that my kids will not have skiing with 'Granmom'. I always thought that my kids would be able to ski with their 'Granmom' and thinking about them not being able to makes me sad. This story story started a over 20 years ago when my mom took me up to Snowbird to teach me to ski on a sunny day. She recounts how when we got up to chikadee asking me if I wanted her to tell me what to do. My reply was no, I already know how to do it. Then I proceeded to fall the whole way down the hill. After we got back to the top she asked again if I wanted help, my response was the same. She then said that I skiied down the whole hill without falling and did great.

Since then, during the winter months I spent every Saturday up at Snowbird skiing with my family. As I got older I skiied with friends but then after I came home from my mission I skiied with my mom and dad. Its been one of the greatest things in my life. I have been up in the mountains and seen the coolest things. I have been on a hill of white fluffy powder on a sunny day with my core as toasty as a fire with my face as wet as a shower from cold snow hitting my hot face and melting and floating over rocks and mountain grass burried beneith the snow. I have been up in the mountains on such windy snow storm days that I could not see 10 feet in front of me. I have been in the midst of tall pine trees with red bark and listening to silence. I love the sound of a chair on a chairlift rolling over the wheels on a ski pole. I like feeling like I have breathed allot of fresh air when I come down from a sunny day of skiing and look out at valley inversion at the seven turns.

I like that I can look at the surface of the snow and know exactly how my skis are going to react to it. I have been in snow that is so sun bakked that it almost feels like potatos were greased and used to cover rocks. I have been on such icy snow that it seemed as if the edges on my skis were rolling pins. The first time that I felt that I went four wheeling was in a silent suburban while my family was eating lunch on a extremely snowy day. My friends and I had just met my parents and little sister and her friends back at the suburban for lunch. We climbed in the back and could not see outside the windows anywhere. My family always eats lunch in the parking lot. Today we could not however, because it was snowing so bad so my dad had the suburban turned on to warm us up. After we got settled and my mom had handed me a sandwitch, snow had busted out the front window on the passenger side where my mom was sitting with a little 'Oscar' cooler on her lap filled with sandwitches. Almost silently snow began to come into the car. Everything was quiet. We were in an anavalanche! We were pushed in the suburban by snow, along with all the other cars in the parking lot. After what seems to be a long slow motion yet short time we stopped. My dad tried to get out of the car but could not get his door open because the car was burried. We were able to open the back window to open and we climbed out to see the parking lot filled with snow and burried cars. Snow had come down mount superior (shown below) over the road and into the parking lot.

We wandered from the car walking over other cars back to chickadee and down the hill. We didnt have out skis and poles any more because they had been burried in the snow. We went down to the plaza and walked around and I remember thinking how odd it was that I had just been burried in the snow yet here I was among many people bustling around going places. We spent the rest of the day sitting down on a bench while my dad was up in mountain operators trying to find a ride for us down the canyon. But the roads were closed because other avalanches had covered the road. We ended up later in the day about 8pm finding a ride with someone on the ski patrol but we didnt all fit in the car so the plan was to have my dad take us boys with him, and my mom would take the girls and go with someone else. While we were walking out quickly to the car the guy who was giving us a ride heard on his radio that the canyon was going to stay closed and that they were going to gather everyone indoors for the night. So I spend the night on a leather couch in the lobby of a hotel up at Snowbird with a ton of other people. When I woke up the next morning I was starving and all we had to eat was some dried out french bread that the hotel was giving out. During the night they had cleared the roads and started to let people down the canyon in the morning. I remember walking out to the car of the guy who was going to take us down and there was snow all around. It had burried cars almost. When we got to his car he jumped in it after sweeping off some snow and pulled right out. The people in the car next to his were digging their car out and didnt have four wheel drive. I remember them watching him pull out and then after he did they chuckled and said, "Hu, four wheel drive, of course". While driving down the canyon I remember looking at the wall of snow on both sides of the road in amazement. After we got home, we were contacted by the news and were on it. It was pretty fun. I have showed Katie that clip. It was funny to watch it because my voice was allot higher than it is now.

While this is probably the biggest adventure Ive had skiing my memory is full of other stories that I hope to tell my kids one day. After leaving the parking lot the first day taht we took Landon skiing I was saddened while looking at the snow on the hill, that he will never know my mom in life. He wont have the experience of snow skiing with his Grandmom. The plan was always that my mom would live to be 100 years old and she would snow ski forever. In the summers she would water ski and make lunches to eat out on the water of the rocking boat. She really loved Landon and showed her love in many ways that I will have to share with him one day.

So my answer to what can I give... I want to give my kids and wife all the same experiences that my mom worked so hard to give me! They are rich and full of life and love.