Beyond our back yard is the some of the common area in our development, including one of two twin hills after which our development is named. The hill is not very high, but it’s quite high enough to see the roofs of the nearby houses and off into the surrounding rolling hills characteristic of our region. When the snow is just right, it makes for an excellent sledding hill.
The above video was taken a few weeks ago when Riley and I went out with our new snow tubes to try them on the hill. We have yet to find something that consistently works well for sledding. Depending on the depth of the snow and the potential ice layer on top, different sleds are more useful. For example, in the snow that’s outside today, which is reasonably deep but covered in a sheen of ice, a hard plastic sled with a large footprint will usually do well. For days like the one shown, where the snow is an inch or two deep and is still dusty, the tube seems to work really well.
The tubes we used were ones I got on Amazon, a Sportstuff Rally snow sled. It’s a colorful version of the traditional innertube, but made with more rigid rubber and an unpadded/uninflated covered center (no hole). We found that the tubes themselves don’t hole air too well, and blowing them up without a pump (which has gone missing from our camping gear – again) is a pain in the butt. But when they are filled properly, they work pretty well.
I was able to take my snowboard out on the hill once recently, too. Practicing control on a gradual slope with nobody speeding past you is a lot more relaxing than trying to remember how to slow down on a steep grade with skiers whizzing past. That was actually pretty fun, in spite of the lack of lift.
I hope that the winter is soon to come to a close. While I’m not excited about the mud party that will occur in our yard when all the melted snow comes dripping down into it, I will be happy for not having the snow everywhere. Still, it would be nice to have a few more weekends where our investment in skiing and snowboarding could pay off.
