Corliss Group Travel: How to Make a Romantic Ski Vacation Work When One Person is a Beg... - 1 views
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Shawn Cedric Marley on 18 Jan 14ASPEN, Colo. - This winter I put my relationship to the ultimate test: a romantic ski vacation. Many couples ski together, but my fiancee Sheri Askinazi is just learning while I've been skiing for more than two decades. We'd done group ski trips, but never skied alone. To make this trip work, we needed some advance planning and clear expectations. I wanted to ski with Sheri but also desired time to speed down the harder trails. We chose four days at Aspen/Snowmass in Colorado because it offered a little bit for each of us. "I am a little nervous about the trip. It's a lot of time skiing," Sheri confessed to me a month before we left. When I mentioned that I had found ski buddies for a day, she asked: "A whole day?" The conversation continued at dinner a few nights later. One of our friends flat-out said: "He has to ski with you. That's it." We chatted through our desires and made a plan. Sheri would take two days of lessons. The first was at Snowmass. Elk Camp Meadows, a new beginner's area there, is fenced off from the rest of the resort so experts don't race through on their way to the lift. She quickly advanced to other parts of the mountain. I took a refresher course - it's never too late to learn something new - and we met up for lunch. The next day, she took a lesson at nearby Buttermilk Mountain. It's geared toward beginners but has some great intermediate trails that she mastered by the end of the day. I met up with some friends and got my adrenaline fix on the harder Aspen Mountain. Lessons were key - it was much better for Sheri to get tips from a professional instead of me. "Taking feedback from someone you love can be the hardest thing. You start to personalize it," says Katie Ertl, who oversees the ski and snowboard schools at the four mountains of Aspen/Snowmass. (Warning: Skiing isn't cheap. If purchased a week in advance, a four-day lift ticket costs $396. Adult group lessons start at $139; full-day private lessons start at $660.)
