The crowd was a little thin. The love fades for most as the daffodils bloom. Seasoned hardcores know better...the lawn can wait because corn awaits.
At least the lot wasn't totally empty, but if more people came, they might stay open longer. The rain doesn't help.
Diane and Dylan prep for an awesome day of shredding.
The snow report was 36 degrees and Beware of Bears. We didn't see any bears, and it didn't stay 36 degrees for long. The bears, however, would have made for an interesting adventure. It wouldn't be hard to outski a bear...
Diane tears down By George.
Dylan relaxes and enjoys the spring weather.
By nearly every measure it was a killer season. Here's the season by the numbers:
Total snowfall: 388"
Snowpack on April 18:
At Lodge: 46"
At Midway: 66"
At Peak 2: 126"
Days on the mountain: 30
Powder days: 14 (that's a 47% pow/pack ratio!)
Vertical feet: ~600,000
Number of runs: ~425
Number of Wednesday night snowstorms in a row: 7
Number of Thursday hookey days: 1 (not enough!)
Fourteen powder days out of 30. La Nina delivered the goods. Over and over. Except for that month-long drought in February.
Despite those numbers, we could have skied more. Too much work getting in the way of skiing.
But not today.
I.
II.
III.
Dylan rides the log.
It was suggested, by an outside observer, that this blog might be a shrine to Dylan. Interesting take, but, 'fraid not. While I have yet to articulate my aims for doing this, that definitely is not one of them. I may put in the effort to do that one day. Maybe. Maybe not. Until then, readers can guess.
What this is a shrine to is snowsports. Specifically, my personal obsession with skiing. The numerous pictures of Dylan? Simply a function of me being the one with the camera and Dylan's general reluctance to take it--especially when it is snowing. That said, he got some good pix of me this season.
Diane and Dylan scope out By George.
I think Diane is crazy for wanting to snowboard. She kept at it a few days and then smashed her knee pretty good. That took a few weeks to heal (I'm not sure it is done yet). Boards of Terror, Maim, and Dismemberment!
Skiing is where it's at kids. See ya on the funway!
The end-of-season finality is setting in. It's sad that it is over, and I'm not sure what we'll do with the weekends. Of course, that is not true--yardwork, movies, hikes, bike rides, band rehearsal. But it is not the same as skiing. On the flip side, it's a bit of a relief--I don't have to worry about getting up at 7am to check the snow report on the weekend.
Most important, perhaps, is that I need a break. Skiing isn't as pain free as it once was (not that it was ever entirely pain free). In fact, 43 years of skiing hard is beginning take its toll; skiing is a kind of painful activity for me. Not as much as running, but certainly more than walking. It all started in January 2005 when I had the bright idea to learn how to snowboard. It was all going well until I fell on my ass. It didn't seem that bad...but then I started getting numbness in my feet.
So I went to the doctor. They did some x-rays and then signed me up for a MRI. The results came back and they told me I have an "annular fissure" of my disc at L5-S1. Yep, it's painful. The part that got my attention was when he started talking about surgery. That didn't sound like fun. It's going to have to hurt a lot more before I'm going to have surgery.
So, my back hurts. But, so do my knees. And now my hips. I rack it up to getting old, but I'm pretty sure skiing hasn't helped. Diane told me to quit acting like I was still 25. Bah.
At any rate, I'm not going to quit. Not yet, anyway. We all make choices; I choose to ski. I may have to choose to slow down.
Despite the management, The Pass still incents smiles.
See you next season!
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