Please Pass the Vitamin D

As well as just being plain nice in the winter, sunshine—and the vitamin D that comes along with it—has clear benefits. Vitamin D is produced by your skin when exposed to sunlight.  If you are curious, it's a fat-soluble vitamin in a family of compounds that includes vitamins D-1, D-2, and D-3. Sunlight itself is the best way to get the ol' vitamin D but certain foods and supplements also do the trick.

Positively twinkly recent day. The new chair towers really bring out the sunshine (and may even amplify the vitamin D factor).

So what are the benefits experienced by everyone? Maybe the clear winner is the fact that Vitamin D helps regulate the absorption of calcium and phosphorous and helps with the normal functioning of your immune system. I'm no doctor, but this stuff sure sounds important. If you don't get enough vitamin D, your bones are at risk of getting soft or brittle. Not good.

And what are the benefits of vitamin D to those of us who ski Whitewater? (thanks for your patience in my getting to this)...As well as fighting off weak bones and boosting our immune system, sunny, vitamin D-ey days mean we get to look around us and appreciate all the natural beauty and shreddable terrain we can access. 

Sunny, vitamin D, days also promote high levels of teen goofiness. Bring it on.

We all love skiing stormy powder days but we also know that skiing deep snow often requires deep cloudy. Whatever the case, it sure is nice for the sun to come out, provide us with viability and, of course, our whenever-possible dose of vitamin D.