Downhill Skiing with Harlem Lacrosse
Harlem Lacrosse takes on downhill skiing @ Blue Hills!
The EY team recently organized a trip for the kids from Harlem Lacrosse to try another type of skiing, just a few weeks after they went on their XC skiing trip at Weston Ski Track!
Downhill skiing requires an entirely different style and skill set from XC skiing, and yet these kids were able to pick up this skill throughout the day as well.
We started the day with a lesson from some of the ski instructors at Blue Hills - and we’re so happy we did!
The 12 HL students were split up into a few groups with a few adults each for the ski lessons. Lots of the adults who were there were also new to skiing so we all took turns learning and falling and trying all the moves they taught us.
They showed us some beginner tips and tricks for how to start, stop, slow down, turn, and even how to move uphill with skis on!
Blue hills has a couple of beginner hills with attached “magic carpet rides” to the top which is basically a non slip conveyor belt that you hop onto with your skis (or snowboard) and it brings you to the top of the hill which is really helpful especially when you're just starting to learn.
For the larger more advanced ski trails, you can take the ski lift up to the top which is also pretty fun as its own activity - as long as you're ready for skiing down afterwards.
We got really lucky with the crowd size that Saturday because Blue Hills ski area can get pretty packed on the weekends but we were really surprised to find it so quiet that day especially because we went during a long weekend.
That was great for us because we were able to spread out and try out everything this ski area had to offer.
After our lessons in the morning we had some quick lunch and then we were given free reign.
Although everyone started out the day on the smaller hills, most of our kids actually made it up to the larger hills via the ski lift at some point throughout the day, and to us that's a huge accomplishment.
The bigger hill options (although they are relatively small in the grand scheme of skiing) are actually pretty steep and can be challenging, especially for people new to downhill skiing. So we were pretty stoked to see how well these kids did at learning those moves and turns to get them down the longer trails in one piece!
It was another awesome day with Harlem Lacrosse and we’re really looking forward to more skiing to finish out this season. And who knows - maybe next time we will be bringing these kids to an even larger mountain to try the next level of downhill skiing ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
