December 09, 1999

Staff Day

Tomorrow is opening day and today the staff were allowed to ride the lifts and get a preview sample of the seasons offerings. I suppose this allows the ski hill to check everything out on tame guinea pigs, while being a nice little perk for their employees. It does leave the rest of us a tad envious though.

While others rode, I schlepped my way back to the base of Boom on my brand new X-country skis. I am a complete novice at this by the way and the results are rather comical. Somehow I never appreciated what precipices lower Elk and the Mighty Moose really are. :-) In any event the folks hopping on the Boom chair seemed suitably happy and conditions on the very low part of the mountain that I was on, generally seemed fine. The creek I had mentioned crossing the bunny run was indeed now gone, helped on its way no doubt by two roaring snow making machines.

At the bottom of the Mighty Moose, I found they have put the foundations in place for the new carpet lift they are putting in for tot training. When completed this will be some sort of moving carpet at snow level that the kids can just stand on. It doesn't even make it all the way up to the Cornerstone Lodge, but should be a pretty cool deal for teaching young kids.

It has been snowing all day and while there is probably only a couple or three centimeters in my driveway so far, it is a good omen for the opening as there is undoubtedly much more up top on the hill. The weather remains warm, but is at least staying below freezing, with the thermometer on my porch reading -2 C at 10 to 2 in the afternoon.