Wacky Hair Night

Youth Group Meal

Had to go to Utah to get Snow

So after the great American un-winter this year - it was the latest year on record that the temperature went below 0F (-18C) and almost no snow we decided not to go up North to Lutsen (biggest hill/mountain in Minnesota) where we've been before and to head out somewhere a little bigger - to Utah (motto - greatest snow on earth) to see what that was like.

The answer was - very big indeed, made Whitefish where we went last year look very small indeed. They had 20 lifts with 6 of them with 1,500ft elevation and 2 more than a mile long.

The resort itself was fantastic, lots of new facilities including a European style village complete with snow beach.
We did have one day to recover when we went to Salt Lake itself (not the city as it looked like any other big city) - Utah is pretty spectacular, tons of mountains all around, wish we had some more in Minnesota.
The lake itself was a real contrast from the ski area, the kids love the rocks, I swear that they have more fun with rocks and boulders than at any theme park,




The hotel also had an outdoor heated pool which was a feature every night we were there, even on days when it was snowing heavily - and we had over 2ft of snow when we were there!
















This is at the top of the main gondola, so we're a mile into the resort at the top of an load of runs and the mountain in the background is up another lift but just one of the 5 peaks in the resort. The grades of runs are also somewhat more challenging than anywhere else we've been, see the steep looking slope down the mountain - behind Andy- well that's a double blue, I'm sure it would be a black anywhere else.

You can't make her out unless you blow up the picture but here's Becky having just come down that double blue on her first day of snowboarding on a real mountain (and only the 5th or 6th day she's even been on a snowboard).