Putting a stop to the ski season

Yesterday was just one day short of the beginning of summer, but happened to be the last day of our lift-served ski season - at least here in Utah. At first, I wasn't sure if I would participate, but I couldn't fight what's in my DNA and drove the 39 miles that separated my home from the last turns of a long season. While the weather was just perfect, the conditions weren't great around 8:30 am, as the snow was bullet-proof and made it quite hard for most skiers to get around.

The snow was also generously peppered with rocks of all sizes and was a good test on everyone's maneuvering skills. At first the crowds were thin, but began to show up just after 11am which was a good enough signal for me to get ready to leave. All the skiing was around the "Little Cloud" chair and was discouraged all the way to the bottom, but on my last day, I didn't want to be a woos and ride the tram down to the resort; instead I decided to ski down, which for two-third of the way sounded like an excellent idea.

Very soon, however, it began to feel like a succession of frequent taking-off-and-putting-skis-back-on, until I literally ran out of snow to slide on and had to scramble down the last steep 600 vertical feet among tree, bushes and muddy paths all the way to the parking lot and my car. This by far was the most challenging and dangerous portion of the day, but as any nut skier would say “still well worth it.” See you again on snow in less than five month!