As promised, photos from what is now titled Women’s Weekend in Winter Park. Apparently the addition of “wild” on the front of the title made spam filters ditch important e-mail notices about the events for the weekend.

The first photo is Mari Bergstrom skate skiing at Devil's Thumb Ranch. Eons ago, we taught downhill skiing lessons at a now closed resort called “Ski Estes Park” (aka “Hidden Valley”). There are two sets of groomed trails that can be seen, the corduroy-looking path is for skate skiing and the two-track path laid down next to the corduroy is for classic skiing. Skate skiing, as you might imagine, is similar to an ice skating movement. The motion for classic skiing is mostly in two paths parallel to the line of your hip, knee and ankle.

We did take a lesson, which helps speed the learning process significantly. I didn’t need any special clothes for the sport, I just wore a combination of gear I have for running, mountain biking and winter road riding. (Below).

The third photo shows the Saturday snowmobile gang, all dressed up in special gear. The place we rented snowmobiles (On The Trail Snowmobile Rental) set me up with a snowmobile suit (just like the black suits some of the women are wearing), boots, helmet and goggles. Some of the women have their own snowmobile gear, reserved for that sport because you do get a little stinky from the exhaust. Much of what we rode was packed-snow roads that lead us to play areas.

Some of the play areas were huge meadows and one of the play areas at the top (dang, I can’t remember the name) was for high marking that I mentioned in yesterday’s blog. It is hard to get a perspective of how steep and high the mountain is in the photo below, so I’ve given you a few marks. Mari is standing about eight feet left of me. The group of people in the foreground are about 150 to 200 yards in front of us. The white arrow at the top of the photo (I think you can click on the photo to get it to enlarge) is pointing to a tiny spot that is a snowmobiler doing the high marking maneuver. The cornices of snow on the right side of the photo mark the area where winter avalanches have punished high-markers. (No, none of us went to the top of the mountain to high mark.)

The final photo is the Friday night tapas meal. With one personal chef in the group and at least two other women that looooooove to

cook, it wasn’t hard to find great food. I was happy to be a food sampler (particularly the mango chutney ribs), because we all know what happens when too many cooks are in the kitchen. ..

(Left to right is Barb, Pat, Mari, Christie, LaDawn, Mo and Ingrid. )