We got up super early to get everyone ready and out the door by 5:30am. We did pretty well and actually left the house at 5:50am. Since I-70 was a mess we choose to drive the back way through Breckenridge. The roads and weather were actually pretty good until we got closer to the pass before Breckenridge. The roads became snowier and everyone seemed to be very cautious, so it took longer to get to Vail. We got to the parking garage around 9:30am only to find that it was full. Luckily, the Solaris parking garage was open and only $10 more per day so we opted to park there. We must have gotten there at the perfect time because we were able to park close to the front of the garage. We got on our gear and headed to the line at Gondola One. The line was extremely long, and it probably took us at least 20-30 minutes to get on the gondola. At the top, Mike took Abby and Madeline while I headed off with Peter and Emma to see if we could ski some of Blue Sky Basin on the backside of the mountain. By the time we got all the way to Poppyfields, I could tell this time would be very different than our last ski trip. There was so much snow it was almost harder to ski. I felt very uneasy skiing on so much powder with so many people that didn’t seem to know how to ski on powder. We opted to ski all the way down to the Tea Cup Express but were surprised to see the line was uncharacteristically long. We actually took off our skis and walked around to get in line since the “official” line before the bottleneck wasn’t moving. It was kind of a nightmare but after a few minutes of waiting in that we heard lots of cheering and massive amounts of people in line left to head over to the Skyline Express Lift because apparently Blue Sky Basin was opening up. It was marvelous to not have to wait so long to get on the lift. We headed back up to the top and then skied down Sourdough to try and find Mike and the girls. After getting in touch with them we realized that we could ski all the way down Flapjack and up the Highline Express lift and then meet them at the top for lunch. Apparently, Madeline and Abby had been having a great time skiing on the front side of the mountain. Madeline didn’t seem to have any trouble with more snow on the runs and at one point she fell and before she got up, she said to Mike, “I think I broke my legs.” She was ok and didn’t even cry but it was funny what came out of her mouth. We all met at Two Elks Lodge and had to eat outside because we missed making an inside reservation. We all skied together the rest of the afternoon and had a great time. We ended our day skiing down Swingsville a few times. Peter and Emma took Riva Ridge down the mountain for their last run and Mike and I took Abby and Madeline down the gondola. However, Abby got separated from us and when we got to the top of the gondola steps, she wasn’t there. We headed down the gondola thinking she had already left but when we got to the bottom she wasn’t there. Mike headed back up the gondola and found her at the top waiting. The rest of us headed to the car and started to pack up our ski gear. Then we headed to our hotel for the night and got settled, ate dinner, and watched Ponyo together.
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