It’s the video I can’t stop watching.
My husband had the camera rolling as our daughter zipped down the bunny hill at Snow Valley Ski Club. First, she sticks her tongue out as she gets up to speed, then she turns and grins right at the camera. She flies to the bottom of the hill and makes a turning stop to greet her dad as he glides in beside her.
While I hope the video will be around long enough to show her kids, the image is one that will play in my mind over and over for years to come.
View from the top! Photo by Jill Footz
That’s what skiing is about for me – making memories. I absolutely love the active lifestyle aspects of it, and of course you can’t beat the chance to spend a gorgeous winter day outside, but truthfully, for me, it all comes down to the memories I make each time we’re on the hill. So many of my own childhood memories are tied to our annual Spring Break ski trips.
Snow Valley Ski Club, photo by Jill Footz
My family and I recently spent the day making memories at Snow Valley Ski Club, thanks to Go Ski Alberta, our province’s ski network for everything from urban hills to the very best the Canadian Rockies have to offer. It was the second time our kids had experienced downhill skiing, and given the reaction in the video, I can tell it will be far from the last.
Snow Valley is a gem in the Edmonton river valley – one my kids have pointed out to me with excitement on nearly every trip down the Whitemud.
A glorious day for skiing! Photo by Jill Footz
I love the convenience of a ski hill that’s just a short drive from my house. I love that the parking lot is just steps away from the hill and when my hands were cold, I could quickly switch to the warmer mitts I had stashed in the gear closet that is our car. I love that it’s a full service ski hill with everything from a high speed quad chair to high quality gear rentals. I love that the bunny hill is set up so thoughtfully for new skiers, like my kids, who love that they can go bottom-to-top-to-bottom “by myself!”.
Bunny hill expert. Photo by Jill Footz
We arrived on a sunny Sunday morning, and were through ticketing and gear rentals in under a half-hour! The girls were eager to hit the hill, so we did a few warm-up runs before we found their instructor for a lesson. The girls who wanted to bee-line straight down the hill were quickly transformed into airplane-turning, pizza-snow-ploughing, ski-machines under Jared’s tutelage.
Ski lesson time! Photo by Jill Footz
After the lesson and lunch, (we brought our own – thank you again, convenient parking lot! – but there is an onsite cafeteria too!) we returned to the hill to ski out the afternoon. I think the girls would have skied all night if we had let them, but as the sun started to dip, we decided to call it a day with the promise that we would return “soon”. (Likely not “tomorrow”, as my daughter insisted, but definitely “soon”!)
I think she likes it! Photo by Jill Footz
Make Memories with Go Ski Alberta:
Where: We skied at Snow Valley Ski Resort in Edmonton.
Website: goskialberta.com
Our ski day was a hosted experience courtesy of Go Ski Alberta and Snow Valley Ski Club. My opinions are my own and the organizations did not review nor edit this story.
