By Bryan

Kari Ann and I share many interests, which is why we get along so well, but we’ve found one thing that we differ on: mountains vs beaches. She prefers warm weather and beaches and I prefer cool weather and mountains.

That’s not to say that she doesn’t like mountains or that I don’t like beaches, it’s just less of a preference.

A few months ago, we drove up to Mt. Hood, which is a gigantic mountain an hour outside of Portland. The car was packed full of ski equipment and we were ready for our first ski day of the year. I was incredibly excited and Kari Ann was a good sport to be spending a Saturday in snow.

We got up to Timberline lodge, bought our passes, and clicked into our skis. We slowly made our way down the easy slope — Kari Ann has only been skiing 3 times in her life, so she likes to start off slow. Little by little, run by run, she started building up confidence and we even went down a ”blue” run together. She was improving all day and by the time the lifts closed, she was consistently going down intermediate runs and her form looked great.

Even more impressively, she was actually enjoying it! So, we bought a season pass for each of us.

A few weeks later, we drove up again, but as we pulled into the parking lot for Timberline, we were told that the mountain was closed because of dangerous winds. So we trudged up to the historic Lodge there and spent the morning reading the newspaper by a roaring fireplace and watching the wind whip the snow in little white tornadoes outside the pre-war windows.

Last weekend, we tried again and it was the best skiing yet. The weather was warm, the snow was good and everything was open. We started out slowly winding our way to the bottom, down the easier runs and Kari Ann decided that she wanted to try the top of the mountain, which has most of the “black diamond” or expert runs. What a brave woman she is.

Working our way up the mountains through different lifts, we finally get to the top, look down from the bowl and can see all of Oregon unroll before us. We were up high, near the peak of the mountain, the weather was much colder and Kari Ann peered over the edge to see a steep decline. She was incredibly nervous, having only skied 4 times before, never skied an expert run, and was staring down her fear. She took a moment to work up the courage and went for it, slowly but gracefully making her way down the steep grade of slope, carving back and forth, following me down to a stop. I was incredibly proud of her!

From that point onward, she wanted to ski nothing but the black diamonds. We spent the better part of the day practicing our form going down the toughest part of the mountain. She learned quickly and was soon going down those difficult runs like a natural.

It was an impressive performance, she conquered her fears, improved dramatically, and actually really enjoyed it.

Next weekend, we’re on our way back for more!