My Idea Of A Perfect Winter Day

My daughter and I are back in the mountains for a couple of days to enjoy the five feet or so of snow that has fallen here in the last week.  Our cabin is blanketed in snow and looks so welcoming with lights at the windows and fragrant wood smoke curling up through the trees.   When we ski, it's an early start.  The drive up the mountain that takes 30minutes in the summer takes twice as long when you are driving on a snow packed, icy road.   However well it has been plowed and gritted, you still can't take any chances.  I'm thankful for my 4wheel drive SUV and the slower pace that gives me a chance to enjoy the beauty of the snow in the trees.  It hasn't been windy so the trees all wear their frosty cloaks still.  

It was an awesome powder day with an extra few inches that drifted in last night.  The light changed all day.  Some of the time we could hardly see our feet for the fog or low cloud.  We had a couple of magical chair lift rides where the sun shone faintly through the cloud while it snowed around us, lighting up tiny, perfect, glittery flakes. It was like being in our own snow globe and we joked there should be a "snowbow"!  Then it was blue sky again and then it wasn't.  

There was expensive hot chocolate with marshmallows and whipped cream to warm us up (it was 18f or -8C) and when the lift lines got too long we relished our last run and went home.  

Later in the afternoon, I wrapped up again and ventured out in my tall boots - not tall enough it turns out!  I got snow down my boots over and over again but it was so powdery and dry it just brushed off and I stayed dry.  Again, the light filtered through the trees and changed minute by minute.  

Don't you think this (below) looks like a troupe of dwarves trekking across the land behind my cabin?  I think they are on a quest, following the edge frozen creek, somewhere between my daydreams and their magical realm.

Tomorrow we plan to ski again and then we will make our way back down the mountain and the dog, cats and other family members will be happy to see us home.