The last time I had skis on my feet was at the bottom of “Face Olympique de Bellevarde” in Espace Killy at Val d’Isére, tucked in the French Alps, about six years ago. If you follow the link it’ll give you the resort map, which does include a couple of towns inside the ski area itself. Look closely if you want to — that run is marked with a black trail and it’s in the cliffs above the town. I didn’t realize at the time that runs that we mark with black (difficult) here, are marked in red there. The one’s that are marked in black there are for people who have no capacity for fear.

Let me tell you, as a whole that was a huge learning experience.

Espace Killy is ridiculously large and the sheer cliffs of the Alps in the area were breathtaking, and just a wee bit intimidating for someone who had been on skis maybe three or four times about six years prior to going to Europe. Before I skied in France I had gone to Wolf Creek a couple of times in middle school as part of a joint program between the school and the ski area.

So, having a total of about six days of skiing over the last 12 or so years under my belt, I took advantage of the opportunity last week to go shoot some new winter photos. I’m no slouch – I love to play sports and believe that I’m athletic, so I wasn’t intimidated by the thought of skiing our local mountain with my 30-pound camera bag strapped to my back.

Last week, when I went up, it turned out to be a great day to strap some skis on and see what muscle memory I had left. We got some great powder in the morning and some sun in the afternoon. I didn’t fall the entire day and had a great time thanks to the wonderful people who made the day possible — Nolan and Cameron in the rental shop and Jon, John and Debbee on the slopes. We played in the trees and in the powder, debated skiing versus snowboarding, and shot some fun photos.