Snowy Days Fun

This year's winter vacation was not with a ski club.  Instead we journeyed off to Steamboat Springs on our own to visit and ski with our cousins from Atlanta.  Leaving our home at 3:30 a.m. for a 6 a.m. flight.  Our accomodations were a beautiiful spacious 3 bedroom house that they traded for 2 weeks for their lovely hacienda in Zijuateneo Mexico.  From the house we can see Steamboat Springs ski slopes, the town and Howlsen Hill training area.

An afternoon adventure took us took us out of town to Strawberry Park to the hot springs.  It had snowed all day and had accumulated several inches, making the steep, narrow road a challenge, but our fearless driver in the rented Subaru Forrester met the challenge.  Upon arrival and paying our entry fee, we were directed to the changing hut, a small wooden structure, unheated, with 3 curtained stalls to change from all our winter layers into bathing suits.  Suits are optional after dark, but it was afternoon, so suits we wore.  The hut seemed freezing cold and to get from the hut to the pools were 30ish icy stone steps.  Back on went the snowboots.  Towel wrapped around the shivering body, out into the snow we went to a tiny stone shelter where you could leave your shoes and towels before settling into the pool of your choice, ranging from 70f to 110 f.  With hats on our heads to keep the snow off, we started in one of the warmer pools until we were about half boiled, then moved to a slightly cooler mineral pool to soak the sore from our skiing muscles and half fearing the walk back to the changing hut would be chilling in the 21 f air temperature and snowfall.  A quick dip back in the hotter pool, we ventured out and much to our amazement, we stayed warm, relaxed and sluggish as we climbed the icy steps back to the changing hut, which surprisingly no longer felt cold.  The rest of the day was been spent in residual lazy relaxation, hung over from the mineral bath under the snowy skies.

Six great days of skiing with more than a foot of fresh powder while we were there.  We arrived home 8 days later just after midnight.  It was a great, exhilarating week.