Chris and I have been going skiing for years, and every time I see the adds for the snowcat ride to eat dinner on the mountain, and I think I'd love to do that one day. So for some reason I decided it would be a great idea to try it out with two little boys and two sisters. Let's just say it was not everything I imagined it would be.
We started out with an early (5pm) ride up the mountain. I got to ride inside the snowcat since I was with the boys.
Chris, Andrea, and Melanie got to enjoy the "sleigh" ride.
When we got inside the cabin, we found out they had overbooked and didn't really have enough room for everyone. It was a mix-up because you don't pay for kids under 3, but apparently they forgot to include all the under threes in the headcount. While they were trying to get things sorted out (and get me to scoot over so far I was practically in the doorway), one of the girls made a comment about it being ok because she was going to give us hot chocolate. Andrea said something to the effect of "Is that some sort of consolation prize? Were we not going to get hot chocolate if you had enough room for us?" ... and thus the look on Melanie's face! Andrea didn't want the hot chocolate any way because soon after we arrived we found out the only bathroom was a port-o-let. It was going to be a long night!
While we were waiting for dinner to be served, we had a family sing-a-long.
The boys enjoyed the singing. They did not enjoy the food (though the ring of food around their mouths might give you a different impression).
After an hour of singing before dinner and an hour of eating something they called family-style barbecue (which was definitely not barbecue) in a 100 year old cabin with a single wood burning stove in the corner, we were more than ready to go. And that's when they passed around the song book for phase 2 of the family sing-a-long. Andrea looked at the book and said "Oh, god! Eleven songs!" Yes, my friends we were in for a lot more singing. We started laughing so hard we were crying. And that's when they asked if the ladies in the corner could please hold it down. Yes, us. We should hold it down. Not the cabin full of screaming babies (yes, infants ... 3 month and 6 month old babies). Not the yodeling ladies holding us hostage in the 100 year old cabin with no bathroom. And just when we thought it couldn't get any worse, they announced that phase 2 of the family sing-a-long would include percussion ... provided by all of the children in the room and that even the parents should pick and instrument and play along.
By this point Chris had stepped outside. I think he was out there for an hour. At least he got a few cool pictures. Ha!
But things went downhill from there. Ben pooped in his diaper sometime during the third hour and had to be changed in the port-o-let. And that's when we found out that the light for the port-o-let was a kerosene lamp, and where it was hanging was melting the plastic wall of the port-o-let. So try to imagine it and pat Chris on the back the next time you see him ... dark, ten degrees outside, 2 year old with poop diaper, hot kerosene lamp melting wall of port-o-let.
Surely that's it, right? Nope.
I'm standing outside the port-o-let when the cabin door flies open and Sam comes running out screaming with Andrea right behind him. "I have to pee! I have to pee!" He turns and falls face first into a snow bank. (Go back and look at the first picture in the post of the front of the cabin and see how deep of a snow bank I'm talking about.) I pull him out and now he's covered in snow and really screaming. I just grabbed his pants and pulled them down and he made yellow snow.
After that we just packed our stuff and sat in the snowcat. We definitely made some memories, but it was definitely not what I had in mind! Needless to say, I would not recommend the snowcat ride if you were thinking about giving it a try.
