March 14, 2001A Soothing SalveI have to thank my friend Bernie for getting me up on the ski hill reasonably
early today. To say that is not my custom would be something of an understatement
and while a salvo of blasts on the hill can sometimes get me fired up, the couple
of millimeters of frozen gruel in the driveway this morning acted as an effective
antidote. However Bernie, in his guise as one of Fernie's ski hosts, was going
to show a writer from Travelocity Magazine around the hill and had invited me
to tag along. Hazards continued to abound and were sometimes only thinly disguised by the new snow. However the improvement over what has recently been available was amazing given how little snow actually fell. We had pretty sweet (normal for this year disclaimer, blah, blah) runs in Cedar and Easter bowls as well as on Milky Way and the 123s. The hard stuff was never too far away, but with a little imagination you could just about pretend it wasn't there. One ominous note was that on our last run down, which was a little after noon, the moguls down low and on the skiers left of Gilmar's had acquired a mashed potato consistency. Still vastly preferable to ice in my humble opinion, but a reminder that this is definitely spring. This little white Band-Aid will probably only be able to add a day or two to the season's shaky life expectancy, but every little bit helps and a few more days like this and a few fewer solar bake downs might just let it stumble through until the end of the month. The optimists in the crowd are still pulling for a regular Fernie dump or two in the meter range and I suppose that is still certainly possible. However after telling myself and others that all season, my faith in miracles is running pretty low. I would now just settle for a reasonable supply of Band-Aids. At 3:30 it is 2 C and mainly cloudy at the house. |
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