Celebrating Easter

Yesterday I woke before the sunrise and was able to watch the sun creep over the Wasatch Mountains on my drive to church. Blue skies, slow-covered peaks, and absolutely no one on the roads made for a very peaceful morning.

Easter is my most favorite holiday! I think it is the most significant of all.

I was lucky enough to sing in my church choir on Easter morning, which was a lot of fun. There were five of us total, which I think is hilarious, but we had fun nonetheless. The sermon at my church was about the freedom that we have in salvation. Which I thought was an interesting take on an Easter sermon. I liked it. 

After church, Landon and I packed up our ski gear and headed down to the Cottonwood canyons beside Salt Lake City. Landon and Kevin had been on some beautiful little adventures in these canyons last weekend, and Landon wanted me to see them first hand. 

putting my skins on the bottom of my skis

skinning up the mountain

We slipped our skins on our skis and headed into the back country. The snow was deep and fresh. And because we started our ski trip late in the day, it was actually so soft that it was sticking to the bottom of our skis and making the treck with heavy skis and boots uphill even more of a challenge because we were dragging snow beneath us. 

doons skinning up the mountain

we came to a beautiful valley and we took our skis off to scrape the snow off of the skins

But the woods were beautiful. Absolutely beautiful, which made our time worth every effort. 

Landon wanted to skin all the way up this ridge so that we could have an epic ride downhill. But after a little over a mile into the mountains I was sore from the two previous powder days we've had at Snowbasin and Landon thought that we should turn around once he noticed I was seriously dragging. Ha. It's funny to me, he has been teaching me all these outdoor activities and wants so desperately for me to continue to love them so he really is sensitive to how I am enjoying my time while we're out. He imagined a world where I bring up this Easter day where our skins wouldn't glide and my legs hurt and I fell the whole way down the mountain and therefore was never planning on hitting the backcountry with him ever again. And in order to avoid this possible world, he suggested that we tear our skins off and head back down. Which we did. 

It was fun soaring through the Aspen groves. I actually fell more on our hike in than our ride out. And I smiled the entire time. 

Landon says that backcountry skiing is our new family Easter tradition. What is more appropriate in remembering our salvation in Christ than to be in the snow all day - "he washed us white as snow"?