It is Presidents Day today and Malcolm had holiday from school, so we took off to Hyak Snow Park up in the Cascades for a day of sledding (that's not my snap above -- forgot my camera this morning -- but that's Hyak close to where we were sledding).
It was a perfect day in the mountains: cloudless, sunny and still with warm sunshine and 8 - 12' of snow (yep, feet). We took our 'flexible flyers' (foam mats with slippy undersides, really, not the sturdy old metal and wood flexible flyers of yore) and drove the 50 miles or so from Seattle. Man, the mountains are impressive, but especially in winter with snow-covered peaks (at higher altitudes the snow sometimes lasts into July).
Hyak has a nice 300-or-so-foot run with a gentle incline and not too many bumps, good for the 4-8 year-old set. Malcolm was a little intimidated by it at first but it didn't take long for him to cotton to it, even though he ended up going down backwards on virtually every run and nearly got creamed by bigger kids at the bottom of the slope because he'd finish his run and just sit there in the snow.
We spent around two hours there before he got hungry. The little concession in the middle of the parking area was closed so we had to backtrack a little to some little place that served food (pizza) and had hot cocoa which we needed from all all the snow we'd taken on in our clothes. Malcolm had big blisters on his heels (the snow boots were from his cousin Ben and two sizes too big) and he started complaining around lunch so I took him home and bandaged the blisters.
I consider this a little intro before I try him at skiing. It's criminal to live in a place like this and not take advantage of the fantastic skiing in the winter, all kids here should grow up with an appreciation for winter in the mountains.
wow - snow. I think I forgot what that is. Sounds like a fine intro to me - and it looks beautiful there! I would just like for it to snow once before spring. It was 73 degrees yesterday. Something is wrong, terribly wrong....
Do you remember when we were kids and we used cardboard boxes to slide down the hill? Ahh, those were the days!
Posted by: susan | February 19, 2008 at 05:19 PM
hey cousin - yep I remember that! You can come out here and visit some time if you want snow, we'll supply sleds for your kids :).
Posted by: Michael Murray | February 20, 2008 at 11:30 PM