snow tubing feb 19, 2009

The picture on the left is the first frame of a video. If you click the triangle in the lower left of the frame, the video will play. This week we went snow tubing at Snow Roundtop in Lewisberry, PA. The resorts require kids to be at least 5 years old in order to rent tubes for the big hill, so this was our first year. Since Casey's shoulder surgery was only a few months ago he decided he'd sit this one out. I thought we'd go in the morning so we wouldn't be too worn out before we had to drive home, and that we'd go on a weekday when it isn't too crowded. It turns out that tubing hours are 4p-10p on weekdays so we had to change our plans the morning of. One of Alex and Chloe's friends had tried tubing on New Year’s Day and thought it was too fast and didn't want to do it anymore, so I was a little worried that the twins would get scared. We Googled "snow tubing videos" and found that most of the local resort allow multiple tubers at one time, as long each person has their own tube and you hold onto each other's tubes. The twins thought they'd be brave enough as long as I held on to them and "kept them safe" (their words). We "rafted up" (linked together) for the first run and when we got to the bottom the kids both said that it was fun, not scary, and they wanted to do the next run individually. When going individually the resort rules are that the person at the top of the hill must wait for the person at the bottom of the hill to "clear the lane" (get out of the way) before starting their descent. I hadn't really briefed the kids on where to meet up before we went down separately, so Chloe just headed back over to the people mover. This sent Alex into a panic and he started screaming Streetcar-Named-Desire-Style "CWOE! CWOE!" (still can't say those 'L's). I kept trying to calm him down because he was practically in tears. I guess he didn't see how the tubing area was different than getting separated at the mall or a carnival or something. Anyway, Chloe waited for us at the top of the hill and all was well. Aside from our initial trepidation the afternoon went really well. As the sun and the temperature went down conditions got icier the tubes slid faster. The kids tried all the runs to see which was the fastest. We’d take about 10 minutes per run between one minute waiting at the top for a lane to clear, one minute to slide down the slope, one minute to walk over the people-mover, and 5-7 minutes standing on the people mover to get back up to the top. The length of time spent on the people mover was the least favorite part for the kids who complained “when will get to the top?” and “I can’t wait!”. Given that was the worst part of our trip, I’d say it went very well.