You mention that your yard slopes. Do you know how much? Most yards in our area have a slight slope away from the house which gave us an 18" difference for a 24' above ground.

We've got an AquaLeader Illusion. It seems to be a nice pool. We backfilled with the blackdirt that was removed for the pool. Our installer mentioned that backfilling a normal slope like this would be ok...but he did mention that we do not use sand for backfill.

have fun,
dan