I apologize, I know there is another TL TR thread out there, but mine has a different angle and this Topic needed some action.

This past weekend we had friends w/kids up to our place in Tline. My friends kids - a girl 8 and boy 12, my daughter 5. The skiing was fantastic, but the weather ranged from expedition weight to warm bluebird over the weekend. It snowed some 36 hours straight - Saturday afternoon through Monday morning, puking 18" of the WV's finest lake fluff.

Saturday we skied pretty much together. My friend's son has really taken off with skiing after only 4 weekend ski trips. His daughter really caught on this weekend too. My daughter is just flying down blues and calmly handling all the blacks at Tline. We even skied with Jimmy!

Sunday was cold and blizzardly. The girls didn't make it too long. After taking my girls home, I head back to Tline around noon and ended up skiing till almost 5 with my buddy's son. His parents could not keep up with him on the mountain. This kid was able to ski everything. We end up hitting every slope at Timberline - including twice each on the Drop and OTW. We dropped innumerable times into Silver Streak from the Lift tower. We spent countless runs in a snowstorm through the trees in Pearly Glades and Glade Runner. We did Thunderdraft until my legs screamed "no more". Skiing with this kid really helped me push myself and do a lot of challenging skiing that I normally would pass on. He was completely up for anything - as long as it went downhill fast and had snow on it. What an experience - a great day for both of us.

Monday was one of those completely beautiful bluebird days in the Alpps. Bright sunshine, blue sky, warm temps in the 30s, and lots (8" overnight) of fresh powder. My friend had left and it was just my wife, daughter, and I. We ski Dew Drop, Thunderstruck, Silver Streak and White Lightning. My daughter is absolutely flying now. I ski down Dew Drop in front of her and look back, fearing I may be going too fast, only to find her tracking right on the trail of my skis. Faster we go. No problem she's got it. No crashes all weekend long! We end the day hitting Dew Drop down to Pearly Glades and Little Pearl. She wants to do this over and over and over. We're hitting kickers and drop offs, following the lines threading down through the trees. finding stashes of untracked powder. She handles this tree skiing better than I do. We go until 4PM, run after run with no breaks.

This weekend I found how much fun skiing with kids becomes as children become skilled and strong enough to ski the whole mountain. Once let loose on the snow these kids really know how to have fun. I skied more trees, bumps, whales, jumps, and drop-offs this weekend than ever before at Timberline. Needless to say, it made me feel like a kid again, thoroughly enjoying every moment of the experience.

Tom

There you Go! Luv to hear from the front lines!...On the subject of kids..wouldn't you just love to know that over the years TL will modernize, Canaan will redesign & be one gem of a ski area...& then just as your kids are feeling a little Vert deprived, Along comes MPC & "Almost Heaven" just around the corner to compliment the existing areas? What a ski destination the area could turn into...Surfers who grew up here at Wrightsville beach search the world for waves but they will always come back HOME to surf & resettle at their HOME beach.....Wouldn't the Canaan area be such a great place to come home to for your kids?....1 more ski area & then we can ski off into the sunset!!!