My wife and I decided to take a trip into the mountains this weekend, so we bundled up the kids and headed up a snowy Snoqualmie Pass on Friday to Suncadia Lodge near Cle Elum, WA. We routinely pass this resort on the way to Lisa’s parents place, and finally decided to give it a try.

Suncadia is set along the Cle Elum River, and, as you can see by the picture below, has a lot more snow than we have here in the Puget Sound region. Typically, they have  inner-tube hills, skating, snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and snowmobiling, but twenty four hours before we arrived, the snow was almost completely gone, so many of the activities weren’t available.

Luckily, a major storm rolled through the area the night before our arrival and dumped about 6 inches of packing-snow on the area. It wasn’t enough to get the inner-tube hill opened back up, and the people going snowshoeing and skiing were disappointed because there was far too much moisture in the snow to be good for that either, but for 6 year olds, wanting to make snowmen, it was pretty much perfect.

The did get to try on ice-skates for the first time. Both were a little tentative at first, but by the end of the first hour, Reece was getting up good speed, and was determined not to give up. Lorelai enjoyed it too, but she hit the ice a few more times, and was a little sore this morning. I stayed off the ice. Falling hurts a lot more now than it did as a kid, and I don’t need any further injuries, this year.

We also had a good time in the indoor pool which has two water slides. The kids loved the slides. I did one of them—once. I found the experience a little more painful than fun, as the joints in the slide tend to hurt those who are a little heavier and don’t stay up on plane.

As for the lodge itself, it’s huge. The walk from the lobby to our room was about as long as the walk from our front door to our mailbox down the street. I did more walking this weekend than I’ve done in probably two years (since before my first foot surgery). My calves are aching today, and my broken toe doesn’t feel great either. But I’ll survive.

We rented a 1 bedroom penthouse condo, and it was nice, but not as perfect as I’d hoped. The fan for the furnace was horribly loud and ran all night. The bed wasn’t great—at least not as nice as the one we have a home—we’re bed snobs I guess. The kids, who are used to sleeping on the floor at Grandma’s house, complained about how bad the mattress was on the sleeper sofa.

The food was a bit pricey, but decent—I’d say a 7.5/10 on taste. I’d eat there again, but definitely not for every meal. We were prepared for that cost though. We brought yogurt and granola and some treats for breakfast and snacks, and that helped to defray the costs a bit. On Saturday, we took the short drive into Cle Elum for lunch, where we paid about 1/3 of what we would have paid at the resort.

If there was one thing I was absolutely shocked at, was the price of watching a movie on pay-per-view. We wanted to snuggle up with the kids on Friday night and watch something, but most PPV movies were between $13 and $16 each. That just seems excessive. They don’t have DVD players in the room (you can bring your own to plug in, but we didn’t—our mistake). We watched TV instead.

Overall, we had a good time. The kids loved the snow, and for a while, we talked about what it would be like to have a condo up there we could visit frequently. It’s probably not worth it at this point, as we can rent a condo a couple of times a year and still pay far less than it would cost to own and furnish our own. Besides, there are a lot more places in Washington State we haven’t seen yet, and I’m not ready to settle down and say this is where I want to spend all of my vacation time in the future. We’ll definitely go back, but we’ll make sure the kids have a real bed, and we’ll bring something to plug into the TV so we can watch some movies.

Now, I need a day of rest to recover from my vacation.