Sleepy on Saturday we almost decided to stay at home, luckily we had the ever-enthused Sam, or we woul have missed out on a perfect day. It looked dreary and verging on drizzle as we ascended out of the Mesa, but as we pulled into the ski valley parking lot little kernels of corn snow began falling. I held out my hands and just starred at it for a while melting on my glove, every now and then catching a few that looked like little stars. It was my first time at the snow, I was a kid again, everything was new, it was a day of grinning.

The towers crew began to hike up the mountain, people we chatted to couldn’t understand why we wouldn’t just take the shuttle to the top, they just didn’t get it. We threw snow and watch it fall, I was ambushed by snowballs and of course Dylan ran and ran. The ground looked reborn, fresh and crisp. We walked in each others footprints and when we veered from the path sank to our knees.

We trekked until the footprints ahead of us began disappearing under powder, then double paced down to the Bavarian where bar wenches wore lace and something akin to lederhosen. The beer steins were as tall as my forearm and we ate mountain priced beer battered chips and trout like we hadn’t seen food before.

Then we bundled out into the snow again. A snow plough passed and left an icy slide in its wake. We slipped and slided, landing hard. The boys began “ice surfing” on their feet down to the valley. Then sleepy, so sleepy we returned to the towers where our Den Mother, Griffin, told us stories about grave robbing and schemes of how to get Sam skiing up the mountain for free which involved hiding in a ski lift hut overnight. Then our lights went out, we’d run out of electricity, and it was time for bed.