Skiing
By: Byron
This vacation I have learned so much about my ability only being able to use one hand. During winter break my dad and I flew to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, which has some of the hardest skiing terrain in the United States. The 26th was our first full day here and my third time ever skiing. As I looked up at the Teton’s and seeing the trails my private instructor would eventually take me down made me incredibly nervous. My dad tried to calm my nerves by saying that he felt like that at one point but that was over 40 years ago. Because he has been skiing here every year for the past 40 years he went off to the tram to take him to the top of the mountain as soon as I meet my instructor. It was nice because I would then not have my dad looming over me while I was trying to learn to ski in this type of environment. As days progressed, my instructor took me to harder and harder terrain, which scared me out of my mind at first I eventually made it down the mountain and was extremely proud of myself when I got down. At this point you may be wondering how I ski if I can only use one hand. The answer is that I use something called an outrigger, which has a ski on the bottom and a brake on the back. So essentially I am using 3 skies while I am skiing, the two normal ones and the outrigger.
Today we took a day off from skiing and snowmobiled into Yellowstone National Park to see Old Faithful, which is the Geyser that goes off every hour. A bus picked us up in Teton Village where Jackson Hole resort is at 6 AM and drove us two miles outside of Yellowstone. They provided breakfast and then we were off. It was an awesome experience but because it was 0 degrees outside and we were going 40+ miles an hour I got a little cold. Other than Old Faithful, the most interesting thing on the tour was seeing all the Bisons around us. They were so use to snowmobiles that they didn’t even phase us. They looked and then casually walked away. So far the trip has been a blast and I’m looking forward to our final day of skiing tomorrow.