Today Is The Last Day Of The Season

I actually said my "goodbye's" to the mountain yesterday ... since all the data pointed to it being the last soft day - which might turn out to be the case. I's currently 8am and snowing pretty hard. I assume it's in the thirties at ground level in Ophir here, but is most certainly below freezing higher up. So, looks like the snowpack will settle up. For the day to turn out better than simply a "dust on crust" day, it's gonna need to keep puking big-time for the remainder fo the day or turn sunny and warm sooner than later. Nonetheless, I'll probably strap in and get in a last lift-served ride on the mountain in Telluride.

Yesterday, I definitely was getting a little frazzled on my last lift ride up through the thunder and lightning. In fact, it was my last ride up for the day ... since they closed the lifts (temporarily) and I decided to call it a day after getting in a few quality slush runs.

As it is, we're riding/skiing on "borrowed time" in the sense that the mountain was closed at this time of year last season. Our extended closing date of April 8 is six days past the closing date of Aug. 2 of '06 ... so it was definitely rewarding to alter my mindset to this perspective and pretend Telski - out of the goodness of their hearts - opted to keep the mountain open after it closed. This is always a rumor at the end of the season when the snowpack is good, but I've yet to see it ever happen .... with the exception of Aspen Mountain re-opening in May about 5 years ago (which by the way was the first time I was able to snowboard on the mountain - they didn't have much choice to let us knuckle-draggers take part).

Anyhow, the snow has defininitely intensified during the time it took to write the above ... so who knows? It might be a legitimate powder day this afternoon!

Aside from a herniated disc, the season is been fairly good - even in light of a relatively low number of days logged (@64 if I go up today).

There will be more hike-to turns and hopefully a trip out to A-Basin later in the spring ...