brian head

For Christmas, My parents got Devin and I a one night stay at the Cedar Breaks Lodge near Cedar City, so we could spend some time skiing at Brian Head. We had them schedule it for the weekend of February 10th - Valentine's weekend. Plus, it was far enough away that we could plan anything else that came up around it.

Ironically, on Devin's first day of school, his backpacking teacher announced a mandatory backpacking trip for that same weekend. His teacher said if you don't come on this trip then you might as well drop the class. Bummer, dude.

Luckily, Devin called the Lodge and switched the date, no problem, and just for me, added an extra night. So we went the very end of January. And let me tell you, it was exactly what we needed!

On Friday, Devin managed to get off work early in the afternoon, and for the next few hours until I got home, he cleaned the house and packed the car and did a good-american-citizen thing and watched The State of the Union Address.

I got home around 4:30 as usual, and we topped off on gas and were off. We were worried about driving in the dark all the way up to the resort, so we only made one short stop at Carl's Jr for dinner in Fillmore and were back on the road again. My new favorite thing to do on long car trips has been to plug in the laptop with our power converter and watch movies. This trip? Sherlock Holmes (it's in my top 5). I am almost positive I quoted so much of it that it was driving Devin nuts, but in no time at all, we were taking the Parawon exit, weaving our way through the stoplight-less town, and heading up highway 143 toward our destination.

We got to the Lodge around 8:30 and checked in. They gave us all kinds of information before we headed to our room. Cedar Breaks Lodge is split up into 3 different building. The main building has the lobby/front desk, pool/hot tubs/steam and sauna rooms, conference rooms, and the day spa. The other 2 buildings are the guest suites. With complimentary underground parking, which was a gem.

Our room was awesome, with the exception of a very strange handicapped "roll-in" shower, which we just didn't understand. Best part though? 

 

[sleeping by the fire in the comfiest hotel bed]

Fire place. Right at the foot of our bed. I don't think we ever turned it off the whole time we were there. Half an hour after we checked in, the guy at the front desk called to make sure everything was good. How cool is that?

We pretty much went straight to sleep, being so tired from the drive. We were both surprised with how comfortable the bed was in that room. Hotels just don't do that! It was awesome! Everybody's kids were running up and down the halls until around midnight, and that's when all the drunks were coming out of the Lodge Bar, so we didn't get any real quiet until probably 3:00 a.m., but it didn't matter. I woke up at 6:30 and couldn't fall back asleep - I was too excited for skiing!

We woke up, got dressed in our ski gear and headed to the main Lodge building for breakfast at the cafe before heading over to Brian Head Ski Resort, which was less than a minute away. After Devin's biscuits and gravy, and my french toast, we grabbed our gear and drove over to the resort.

 

[waiting for breakfast]

 

Neither of us had been to this resort before and were blown away with how huge it was! 65 runs, 650 acres of skiing terrain and at least 8 different chair lifts, all split up on two different mountains. 

 

[layered up and ready to ski]

[beautiful. not crowded at all. fresh groomed snow.]

 

[yup]

 

[some rossignol advertising]

 

[he skis in style. especially compared to me!]

 

We skied for almost 6 hours! We had a trail map and did a bunch of fun runs, even got lost a few times, and had a blast all day long. 

   

[a natural, i tell you]

[in motion]

    

Stopped for lunch in the little resort cafe and had some burgers. It was so nice to have put aside the entire day for skiing. We weren't in any rush, and just relaxed and played all day long. 

 

[lunch]

 

[bright sun. favorite picture from trip.]

 

[sliding downhill while the nice man takes our picture. squishy face from goggles. getting impatient.]

 

We never got cold (which was my biggest concern), and Devin skied his first black diamond! I asked him if he wanted to go down a black diamond, and he said sure. He did awesome, had great control, and fell only once I think. Later, we did the same black diamond pitch, and he got his confidence up and found one on the trail map he wanted to try. It was a hard little pitch with really deep powder and he fell a few times, so did I, but it was awesome! And we did it! I am so impressed that I feel like Devin and I are at the same skiing level when I have been skiing since I was 2, and he has been skiing around 10 times. He's a natural. We got some sun/wind burned cheeks and noses, but it faded after a few days. And it was worth it! 

  

[devin's 3rd ever black diamond pitch. he rocked it! it was a rough one]

 

[hilarious]

As soon as we got back to our room, just after 4, we headed straight for the hot tub for awhile and had dinner at the fancy lodge restaurant called The Double Black Diamond Steakhouse -- easily the most expensive dinner I've ever had. We figured it was probably because we were in the middle of nowhere, so they can charge whatever they want, because what else are we gonna eat? We were seated right next to a fire place and had venison wrapped in bacon for an appetizer, and Devin got a fillet mignon and I had swordfish! Where on earth can you order swordfish? It was delicious. I was surprised I was so willing to try it, but I'm glad I did.

Torte for dessert to go, and were back in the hotel room, totally exhausted from our 6 hour ski day. Fell asleep almost as soon as we laid down to watch a movie!

 

[dinner by the fire. delicious bread.]

 

[swordfish with tarragon and lime. amazing]

 

[weird people at dinner]

We woke up on Sunday morning and had breakfast in the lodge cafe again and drove up to Cedar Breaks National Monument before heading back home. It was so beautiful. I had never seen red rock caked in snow like that!

It was the perfect weekend vacation, and also, it may become a Christmas tradition for us. I'm so glad that skiing is another activity we can add to the long list of things we can do together. It's so much fun. We took some video too, which we will edit and i'll upload later.

 

[prettiest place.]

[most handsome husband.]