A second day of skiing can be a tricky thing,  We kind of just did the same thing yesterday.  We know the mountain a little bit so a lot of the surpises have been revealed.   Our legs are very sore.

It’s easy to look like a champ with this backdrop.

Still, if there’s one thing the Winter Olympics have shown us, it’s that in the face of adversity like this, people can dig down deep and show tremendous character simply by sliding around on frozen stuff.  Today, almost every one of us did something of championship calibre.

Eliza skied her first black diamond — out of necessity, because the adjacent blue trail was closed — and immediately said she wanted to go back up and ski it again, on purpose this time.

Trisha skied the same green pea trail over and over again, then said she was ready for an easy blue square.  She skied it like a pro, then decided she was happy going back to the green pea trail a few more times, si vou plait.  She would end the day on one of the trickiest trails any of us has seen here, and she did it without complaint.

Lanie edges Eliza in the Get Ready After Lunch Derby.

Lanie won the “get ready after lunch” derby.  She had her ski pants on and was working on her boots before most of us had put our dishes in the dishwasher. (It should be said that all the kids — and adults — were eager to get back to the mountain after lunch today.  It was nice to see.)

Not only did Nadia go back out after lunch today, she was filled with energy all day long, encouraging several of us to try a new trail for our last run.  It turned out to be a horrible decision that had us skiing down a frozen waterfall several stories high, but she still showed good initiative.

More diamonds than a Liberace concert

Jen looked graceful on all trails, even some really tough ones, and didn’t even seem to lose her poise when the North Side Express lift was getting ready to close and several of the kids hadn’t come out of the Enchanted Forest yet.

Zoe stuck with Eliza and talked her through the steepest part of her first black diamond, snatching a victory from the jaws of defeat.

Emma, who is nursing a knee injury, combined self-control and true Olympic grit.  She seemed to know just when to turn in for lunch, so she could make it through the afternoon until last run.  She also stuck around at the exit of the Enchanted Forest the last time until all her comrades made it out, which required quite a bit of waiting.  The Enchanted Forest is lovely, but also very bumpy.

Chris spoke clear, if urgent, French to some ski patrollers while trying to explain that some of his kids might still be out on a closed trail at the end of the day.  Although, he admits he might have said some of his children were under the trail or perhaps that some of his children lived on the trial, Chris eventually got his message across.

Yes, Halifaxians, they serve Keith’s at Mt. Ste. Anne.

I ate three big helpings of leftover burrito bowl for lunch — loads more than anyone else — and I also honored the Province of Nova Scotia by ordering an Alexander Kieth’s once our two-for one beer tickets had run out.  (FYI, the two-for-one Tuesday lift ticket special is great; the two-for-one beer special is also great, particularly if you like Corona — that’s the only beer that the special applies to.)

More snow is coming.  A lot more tomorrow night.  This may have not been our last ski day after all.

When we left you last, reader, it was snowing. It was lovely to watch from inside our condo and anticipate the impact the flakes would have on the slopes just beyond our vision.

You’ll remember that we’d had a day and a half of not skiing, even though the trails were right there, behind two rows of other condos, looming over us. It was difficult to wait.

Lanie was in the first wave to get to the hill.

Actually, we didn’t all wait. Jen, Chris and I did some cross country skiing yesterday on a neighboring golf course, and after a particularly steep climb and a glide through a sled-dog kennel, we found ourselves on one the the Mt. Ste. Anne downhill trails, and hour after the lifts stopped running. It was cool, but also stressful, because cross country skis and downhill slopes don’t mix well, in my opinion.

Today, though, everything fell into place. We had the right skis on the right hills. The right snow had fallen on the right trails. We finally got to ski.

First gondola trip up

Although some of us were ready well before the 9 am first lift call, we didn’t actually find ourselves on the lovely Mt. Ste. Anne gondolas until 9:10 or so. Much praise for Trisha, who decided to straight to the top and not mess around with the magic carpet and training hill. Our trail map suggested that there are several green pea trails that lead down from the summit, some of them quite long, one of them in the neighborhood of 3 1/2 miles long. (!) Trisha was ready to tackle them.

Trisha and Eliza skied for miles today.

The stars all lined up: we had new snow but no lift lines (not too many New Hampshirites came up here to celebrate school vacation, apparently). We had reasonable temperatures — no one asked for hand or boot warmers. There was a fair amount of sun and good visibiltiy, except for the brief blizzard that caused a little havoc right around lunchtime. We had the crock pot full of Jen’s chicken burrito bowl recipe waiting for us at the end of the day.

Beaupre is steep for a blue square, though it might not look like it here.

We had lots of fun. Most of us made it back out for afternoon runs after lunch and were rewarded with very forgiving snow and very little ice. This was particularly true on the north side of the mountain, the one we didn’t even know existed until we looked closely at the map.

The girls found several glades to explore and displayed enough competence that eventually the adults no longer felt obligated to follow them into the woods.

This crew, and the guy who took the picture, made it until the very end..

Our legs became sore, but we stuck it out to the very end. There couldn’t have been more than a handful of paying customers still on the mountain when we finished up and headed home for burrito bowl.

Tomorrow looks like another good day for skiing.  We’re encouraged by the weather forcast and also the two-for-one ticket deal on Tuesdays here.  Rumor has it the deal extends to drinks at the bar, as well.  This might make for an interesting blog post.  Stay tuned.