Tvan
Angel Diva
Mount Southington is a tiny little hill in the center of Connecticut with 14 trails and a vertical drop of 425 feet. It’s dead center in a residential neighborhood...ranch and split level homes surround the hill, and give it a Mrs. Cleaver “here’s your helmet now go play outside on the hill and be home by 5 for dinner” feeling. Definitely “old school” vibe. It’s tiny.
It’s also only 30 minutes from our offices in New Haven, CT, and thus made it the perfect location for an afternoon team-building excursion last week. We issued the invitation to the entire department, and had lots of interest from about 20 skiers. By the time schedules and immovable meetings had been sorted, only 6 of us managed to be able to join.
We arrived just after lunch to find only about five other skiers on the hill, including one adaptive skier and two assistants. Only one lift was running, the triple, and we piled into two chairs to head up. One of our folks had skied the hill before, and we christened him the “cruise director”. He declared that we were skiing every run, so we started with greens and worked our way through all 14 trails to the lone black run. With such a small vertical drop, there is nothing steep or intimidating on the hill, and our mixed ability group had no problem navigating, even through the half pipe and terrain park runs.
Conditions ranged from packed almost-powder to ice, but with such short runs, we were able to either go around or quickly over the dodgy parts. At 3, they started a second lift, which gave us easier access to the more advanced terrain. In two hours we had skied every run twice, and folks were starting to get cold, so we called it and headed home.
Overall, this was a great team experience. We made sure to ride lifts with people we don’t normally work with, and we skied together as a group all afternoon. Our “cruise director”, who is not usually in a lead role at work, got a chance to show his leadership skills, and we all benefitted from his knowledge. We texted photos back to those who were not able to join, and everyone agreed that we need to do this again when more can join us.
Mount Southington is not hill that I would drive to for my normal weekend skiing, when I have other local options with more vertical drop and more runs, but it’s an excellent feeder hill for beginners, and a unique backyard option for local families. It was also the perfect place for an inaugural company ski outing.
Here’s the team, working on our SMART goals for the year:
It’s also only 30 minutes from our offices in New Haven, CT, and thus made it the perfect location for an afternoon team-building excursion last week. We issued the invitation to the entire department, and had lots of interest from about 20 skiers. By the time schedules and immovable meetings had been sorted, only 6 of us managed to be able to join.
We arrived just after lunch to find only about five other skiers on the hill, including one adaptive skier and two assistants. Only one lift was running, the triple, and we piled into two chairs to head up. One of our folks had skied the hill before, and we christened him the “cruise director”. He declared that we were skiing every run, so we started with greens and worked our way through all 14 trails to the lone black run. With such a small vertical drop, there is nothing steep or intimidating on the hill, and our mixed ability group had no problem navigating, even through the half pipe and terrain park runs.
Conditions ranged from packed almost-powder to ice, but with such short runs, we were able to either go around or quickly over the dodgy parts. At 3, they started a second lift, which gave us easier access to the more advanced terrain. In two hours we had skied every run twice, and folks were starting to get cold, so we called it and headed home.
Overall, this was a great team experience. We made sure to ride lifts with people we don’t normally work with, and we skied together as a group all afternoon. Our “cruise director”, who is not usually in a lead role at work, got a chance to show his leadership skills, and we all benefitted from his knowledge. We texted photos back to those who were not able to join, and everyone agreed that we need to do this again when more can join us.
Mount Southington is not hill that I would drive to for my normal weekend skiing, when I have other local options with more vertical drop and more runs, but it’s an excellent feeder hill for beginners, and a unique backyard option for local families. It was also the perfect place for an inaugural company ski outing.
Here’s the team, working on our SMART goals for the year:
