Woodbury Ski and Racket, Woodbury, CT

So before my quest truly was born, I embarked on a smaller mission - to ski every ski resort in Connecticut. At the time, there were five in operation: Mohawk, Sundown, Mount Southington, Woodbury Ski and Racket and Powder Ridge. I had been skiing/snowboarding Mohawk Mountain every weekend for a few years and decided that I should at least try the other ski resorts just in case I liked them better.

So one evening, I enlisted my friend, Julie, to join me in visiting Woodbury Ski and Racket. It was early March so I checked the web-site to confirm that they were still open in the evenings - all signs said it was a go.

We drove down after work in the dark. It seemed to take forever to get there and when we arrived, we were greeted with a dark slope. Not a good sign. Light spilled out of a little window in a building off the parking lot. I marched over to the light and turned the doorknob which to my delight gave way and stepped inside. A solitary figure was perched on a chair behind a counter.

I greeted him rather brusquely, "I thought you were open tonight, checked the web-site and my friend and I just drove over an hour to get here......"

"Oh, I'm sorry" was his reply. "There was nobody here, so I sent my chairlift operator home for the night."

"Drat," I said, looking dejected.

"Well, hey I can fire up the rope tow if you are interested?"

My face brightened and I plopped the money down on the counter and stepped outside to get geared up.

Like magic, the slopes went from darkness to full glory as he snapped on the lights. We were in business.

Rule number one: if you are over the age of 30, rope-tows do not play well with snowboards. Laughing and sweating while our muscles were tortured by the pull of the rope, Julie and I made our way up the hill on our snowboards . When the rope tow ended we continued walking up the hill into the darkness to get a better look at this ski area.

Basically one chair lift and a rope tow with tons of features to jump and slide and hurt oneself. Definitely the place for enthusiasts who perform stunts on their boards.

The snow was more of a concrete consistency, but our boards had sharp edges so we had fun bumping down the slope and being dragged back up on the rope tow. As we tired out, our friendly host came over and asked us if we would like to try the tubing park. "Sure!" we said in unison. Ditching our boards we ran over to the tubing park and joined our host and his friend in whirling down the snow in over-sized tubes, careening off icy banks of snow accompanied with hoots and hollers.

After getting our fill of excitement, we thanked our host for his hospitality.

"Are you all through for the night?" he asked.

"Yes, thank you very much" we said.

And he turned the lights off.