Tucson Snow

One of the reasons I love Tucson is Mt. Lemmon. Besides giving us a snowy playground in the winter, and relief from the summers heat Mt. Lemmon holds many special memories for both Jared and I. Growing up we both have years of memories on that mountain. Our first date was on Mt. Lemmon, and the second time he asked me to marry him was on Mt. Lemmon,(but the first time I knew his proposal was serious). It has been so fun sharing our mountain with our children, helping them to begin building their own memories of a place we love.

This past Saturday we went sledding off the Mount Bigelow trail. Sean and his family joined us and we had a blast. Noah loves the snow. Friday I surprised them with a sled. Noah though it was a surf board at first, and I explained it was a sled which extracted the same amount of enthusiasm from him. Saturday we headed up the mountain after picking up Sean, Amy and Zane. Our chances for seeing snow seemed pretty slim as the valley temp the past week had been in the 70's. As we climbed in elevation still no snow. We passed windy point and climbed further in elevation. To my relief we began to see clumps of melting snow. There was hope.

By the time we reached Mt. Bigelow the ground was covered. We found our favorite sledding spot and no sooner had we settled the hot cocoa into safe harbor Noah had grabbed the sled and was ready to go. He took off down the hill with a scream that sent us all doubling over in hysterics. By the time he reached the bottom his screams of horror had turned into unstoppable laughter as he trekked up the hill ready to go again. We had FUN!

After awhile a few more families joined us on the mountain and we decided it was time to go. We explored Summerhaven and Ski Valley. We stopped by the Cookie Cabin and ordered a pizza for the trip down the mountain. The pizza was great, they actually offered to customize the slices on the pizza for us.

Ski Valley was busy with skiers and snowboarders. The cabins built to replace the ones that burned a couple years ago are beautiful. It's nice to see the area doing so well after the fires.

-Mel