The winter season of 2015 – 2016 didn’t start too well in the Northeast. Warm temperatures and a lack of precipitation of the white kind meant a very late start to the season. I know parents who sent their kids to Colorado for training camps because there was no snow in New England. At  age 9 that wasn’t going to be for my son. Our Christmas vacation was a bit of a bust. The traditional Christmas camp was cancelled since the mountain wasn’t open yet. On the weekends they did get the kids together to do dryland training which consisted of hiking up the mountain as well as playing soccer at the base. There was a tuning clinic, watching World Cup videos and a few other indoor drills to pass the time. The rest of the week was spent reading, playing games and a host of things that we don’t normally do since we are skiing. We even made a gingerbread house. In some respects it was a nice change of pace. On December 31, my son and I went further north to find a mountain that had opened already and we skied for the first day of the season. It was the latest first day for the two of us. My wife stayed home and read more. That was ok, it was a good time bonding with my son. The conditions on the other hand were awful. It was ice with a bit of rocks and twigs thrown in. But at least we got our ski legs back.