Last ski day at Snowbird

Yesterday was one of those perfect days out on snow. Cold for the season, but with blue skies and few people on that last Monday of April. For those who don't know Snowbird, or the “Bird” as it's known by its fans, just picture this: A wonderful skiing place, just 10 miles away from a one million plus people metropolis and to boot it's open each year for snow business from November through the end of May; sometimes later, I've seen it close down on July 4th.

This is true alpine terrain, with its own classic, “Pipeline” couloir and lots of chutes along with multiple steep and long-lasting runs. Hard to find a match for that anywhere in the world, from Grenoble to Teheran! The folks that filled the tram on each ride had more ski-DNA in their blood than one could imagine and most of them were of the true ski-bum type.

These guys' skis were very wide, perhaps as a way to express their shredding power, reminding me about that French saying: “Plus l'pantalon est large, plus l'homme est fort...” which means something like “The larger the pants, the stronger the man...” and that certainly should be extended to the skis we saw all over yesterday that are now getting to be wider than they're long and all contorted as if they had sustained the most severe post-molding convulsions, but that alone should be set aside for an entirely different discussion.

At any rate, we had a wonderful day, this was my 93rd day skiing (actually 99th on skis, if I count my volunteering work) and the one that thrust me over the 2 million vertical feet skied for the season (my lifetime record...) I'm now ready for something else, perhaps some “skinning” but we'll see...