We tend to think of our home ski hills in terms of specific days: the late-winter day it dumped an unforecast 14 inches; the day an old-timer revealed a new-to-you powder stash; the t-shirts-and tall-boys bluebird day in improbably late May. But for many skiers and snowboarders, home hills end up marking the milestones of life: the beginning and growth of families, the creation of traditions. In other words, home.
Kyle Lucas and Sarah Lucas Parker met in the fall of 2013 and fell in love that winter on the skin track and slopes. Both were avid skiers since childhood: Kyle grew up skiing his home hill of Turner Mountain, near Libby, Montana; Sarah began lapping Mount Spokane not long after she started walking. When they met, both held season passes at Schweitzer Mountain Resort, and they figured it would make a fitting wedding location.
“It was a natural decision for us to get married, in the winter, at the top of a mountain,” says Kyle, adding, with his typically dry humor, “The fact that this mountain in particular has chairlifts made it easier on our guests.”
The dismal winter of 2014/2015 threw a curveball familiar to any newlyweds-to-be planning an outdoor ceremony with a ski wedding twist. “Our photographer asked us two weeks before the wedding what our plan was if there was no snow,” says Sarah. “I had planned for rain, wind, fog, snow storm, but not for no snow!” Luckily, the day they tied the knot, the skies, and ski runs, opened up for a ceremony with a bluebird view of Lake Pend Oreille below.
At the mountain halfway between their childhood hills, the couple decided to raise some junior skiers of their own. With their first child, Libby, stepping into skis for the first time, Kyle and Sarah decided to take the next step in their lift-assisted love story: buying an on-mountain condo. But they have no regrets about settling down and making it official with just one ski area—“At least you don’t have to worry about where to get a season pass for the next 30 years,” Kyle says.
“We both love skiing and realized to maintain our mountain lifestyle and be able to share it with our kids we had to make it as convenient as possible,” Sarah explains. “We bought Libby a season pass last year, and, with Kinder Camp, she gets to hang out with other skier kids, while Kyle and I get time together and don’t have to flip a coin for who gets the powder first.”
With Libby’s skills progressing and another child on the way, Kyle and Sarah are already eyeing bigger terrain on the mountain for the kids to work toward. Because in skiing, as in life, there’s always another day. //
