You probably know already that we are getting quite keen on skiing. This is a photo at Alta, the resort where we've been learning.
However, for a change yesterday we went out to watch some other people ski. There were trials for the Winter Olympics taking place at the Olympic Park in Park City all weekend. We skipped the Nordic events, which just look like a hard slog, and went to watch the ski jumping. This will be the first time that women compete in the ski jumping, because OMG it is almost 2014 what bizarre sexism has been happening, so there was plenty to watch. This was a free event and was obviously very popular, cars were parked all along the road and there were shuttles taking people up to the park. Of course you could walk and a lot of people did (amazing, I thought Americans NEVER walked anywhere if they could help it), but that did involve a lot more scrambling in the snow than we had bargained for. The last part of the walk involved clinging onto a rope and hauling yourself up the hill.
The view from the top was pretty good though.
Here are the jumps, the one on the left is the one that was being used.
The only bad thing about being up in the mountains is as you drive back down and see the horrible cloud of smog which is the inversion sitting over the valley. This is what you breathe when you go outside. There are bans on various industrial furnaces and outdoor fires at the moment, and people who are vulnerable to respiratory illness are encouraged to stay indoors. Nice! Hopefully there will be a storm along soon to shift it.
