Adventuring

Our group must have looked quite the spectacle from the tram cars: a gaggle of the littlest ski racers making their way down the mountain’s toughest trail. A few of our crew ripped right down D.J.’s Tramline, not the least bit phased by the rock drops and snowy bumps as high as the skiers who were maneuvering around them. Others struggled – more with their own nerves than with the technicality of the skiing. These are, after all, Cannon kids; they’ll ski just about anything.

After the descent, as we stood between the tram car docks waiting for a ride back to the summit, I had the kids look up at the trail they’d just skied: strewn with boulders and exceedingly steep in some areas. Whether they’d been the anxious ones or the confident skiers moments before, they all seemed to puff up just a little bit gazing back up the mountain.

That was my first time down Tramline, too, and it was, until Saturday, the only trail on the mountain I hadn’t skied. At least the only one on the trail map.

That trail map has changed a good bit since the days when I was one of the littlest ski racers here. Maybe it’s because I lived (and skied) away during college and for several years after that, or because I’ve been exploring the mountain with my own kids as they have grown and progressed in their skiing prowess, or because I coach with a guy who knows every nook and cranny here – on the trail map and off – whatever the reason, I find joy in this adventuring.

Last Wednesday my kids had a rare snow day from school, and we spent a good chunk of it at Cannon, arriving to find snow so deep it was hard to open the car doors (and we later had to dig said car out of the unplowed spot we’d parked in early that morning). We made one run down a wide-open trail before the kids dragged me into the woods, and we spent the rest of the day exploring.

I grew up skiing this mountain, although we were weekend commuters, so too far away to make it on a snow day from school. Back then, there were no glades. Sure, there were a few secret stashes off the saddle between Cannon and Mittersill, and once the latter area closed and the forest grew back up around trails and lift lines, there were some hidden spots there, too. But certainly nothing on the trail map.

Now Cannon lists 22 glades on its trail map, ranging from short, beginner woods runs to long, tight, tricky tree skiing. Wednesday we headed to the top to ski the glades there, then over to Mittersill to ski more glades, and finally ended the day on the old Tuckerbrook trail, cut back in the 1930s and maintained, often clandestinely, in the decades since.

This is the one off-piste trail I remember from my own childhood. Skiing it is a rite of passage. Tuckerbrook is not a particularly hard trail, but it is an adventure. You have to hike to reach the entrance, it’s not groomed, and there’s a long traverse out at the bottom. You also need to line up a lift back to the base area, as the trail spits skiers onto a dead end back road a couple of miles from any ski lift.

Although a few others had been in there by the time we reached Tuckerbrook Wednesday, it was some of the best skiing we had all day. As grateful as I am for the manmade snow that allows some consistency to ski season, there is nothing like the real stuff – and that’s what you find on Tuckerbrook and in the glades.

So it was fun to continue the adventuring last weekend, both for my kids and their ski groups and for the young skiers I help to coach. My youngest daughter took another trip down Tuckerbrook. My oldest skied a different unmapped trail. Our group snuck through woods so tight branches smacked our legs and cheeks as we made our way to hidden glades, turning around trees and rocks, finding soft snow everywhere we went.

I don’t know about the kids, but I ended the weekend tired – and fulfilled. And grateful that, on a mountain with as many secret stashes as there are named trails, there are plenty more adventures to chase.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the March 23, 2018 issue of the Littleton Record.

Paying my dues... on the pony slope

As much as possible, I try to allow my children to make their own choices and be their own people. If my 6-year-old daughter wants to wear plaid, paisley, and polka dots all together, that’s fine with me. If her twin brother wants to throw on snow boots over footie jammies and go outside to play in the snowy pre-breakfast darkness of a winter morning, no problem. If the littlest one insists on dressing her stuffed dog in pajamas and sleeping with her Halloween costume every night, it’s A-OK by me.

But there is one thing on which I will not waiver. They will, all three, be skiers. This means, of course, that I have been paying my ski mom dues over the last several winters. For the most part, I’m OK with that, even as I long for the freedom and pure bliss of a powder day all my own.

C'mon, Mom. The glades are waiting!

In our family, skiing is simply a part of life. A really good part of life. Other than my first couple years on this planet, when I was still mastering walking, plus the two winters I was massively pregnant, I have spent a good bit of each winter on a mountain, with skis strapped to my feet.

My parents met while skiing at Cannon Mountain. My brothers and I learned to ski there. My husband and I spent a good part of our early courtship on the slopes. I missed the New Hampshire mountains when I moved to the foothills of upstate New York for college – so much so that I fled west to the Colorado Rockies after graduation and stayed in those high peaks for five years. Winter means skiing, and it always has.

For much of the last five years, winter has meant – for me – skiing slowly backwards, or with a small child clutching my legs, or while holding the tethers of a kid’s ski harness. I have spent much more time on the bunny hill than I have on the steep stuff or in the powder. On the rare occasion that I am able to sneak in a few adult-only runs, I often forget my poles, having become so accustomed to skiing without them, in order to have my hands free for lifting a kid onto the lift or adjusting small mittens or helping little ski boots click into bindings.

The ski moms and dads among you will understand this – the constant tug-o-war between wanting to ditch the kids at Grandma’s house for a day of real skiing and knowing that the more time you spend progressing from bunny slope to blue trails and beyond, the sooner your kids will be right there with you on the powder days. 

You’ll also be able to relate to the answer I received recently when I asked another parent, during the weekly ski outing from school, if he’d been skiing much this season. “With poles or without?” he asked. “I haven’t skied with poles in about three years.”

People often say to me, “Just wait a few years, and you won’t be able to keep up.” I’m pretty confident in my skiing ability, and I can keep up with most people. But, yeah, that’s the goal – that I’ll have to push it to ski with my kids. That someday in the not-too-distant future, they’ll be the ones waiting for me at the bottom of the run.

For a few painful days when my older two were 3 years old and in their first ski season without a harness, I thought I would die of frustration before they learned to turn or stop on their own. Then one day, magically, they got it, and there’s been no looking back since.

This winter, finally, I can taste the skiing freedom soon to come. My kids, ages 6 and almost 4, are skiing faster and better. They confidently ski all the intermediate trails that are familiar to them and are starting to be comfortable in skiing adventures further afield than the Tuckerbrook Chairlift. They lead me through kid-sized glades and hurl themselves gleefully over the jumps in the mini park.

Already, my kids are becoming my favorite ski buddies. I’ve even started skiing with my poles again, because my little rippers are becoming self-sufficient on the slopes. I don’t always get to ski my favorite runs with them, and I certainly don’t get to go as fast as I’d like. But their joy is contagious. Their love of skiing warms a ski mom’s snow-loving heart.

I don’t care if my kids become ski racers, although if they want to, that’s fine. I don’t expect them to compete in the Olympics in 2026. I will miss them if, a dozen or more years from now, any of them decides to head 2,000 miles west – as I did as a 20-something – and pursue a life of ski bum happiness in a Rocky Mountain town. But you can bet that if they do, I’ll be out there to ski every winter. I just hope they don’t mind waiting for me at the bottom.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, published on her Blog: Writings from a full life.