I haven’t liked The Slot for the past 30 years. Ever since I did a barrel roll trying to jump the lip of a cat track, only to discover another cat track immediately below it. I was trying to impress Cheryl. I’m not sure why; we’d been married already for five years, together for more than eight, so any attempts to impress by this point were more likely than not to leave a negative impression.
I’d been trying to learn how to gracefully jump, lifting my knees at the high point of a bump, to sail along, almost like flying, weightless, parallel to the snow below. The trick is not in the elevation, nor the flight, but in the landing. As long as the snow surface is angled the same as your skis, you’ll do just fine. Tips up, and you get flung backwards, usually producing a yard sale – all loosely attached clothing gets strewn behind you on the slope. Tips forward – that’s more dangerous. A face plant awaits. With the unseen flat cat track looming, I was doomed to that trajectory. Once I realised, I torqued my body towards the right, hoping to tuck and roll an my side, around to my back, rather than take the full brunt on my nose and chin.
It didn’t happen, at least not the way I planned. Oh, I started to roll just fine. But somehow, my left arm got trapped and twisted at the shoulder during impact. Cheryl skied down, concerned that I wasn’t getting up fast enough. I moaned and pissed so much, she almost called the ski patrol. Eventually, I got up, but my left arm wasn’t working. I couldn’t lift it, couldn’t plant a pole. So we wound up at the medical clinic, where “Rotator Cuff” was the diagnosis. No skiing, weight lifting, swimming, etc, until I could move my arm above my shoulder without pain. For a couple of weeks, I wore a sling. Three weeks total with no exercise, drove me nuts.
And started my hate affair with The Slot. At first, I avoided it just because there were many other nice runs on either side, including Zugspitze, which took the same line down hill, but with much less traffic – for some reason, EVERYone skied The Slot, and NO one skied Zugspitze. Except me. Over the years, as Snowmass doubled down over and over again on slope grooming, Slot became their go to run for grooming. Seemingly every other day, cats would wind up and down, smoothing, grind, crushing the snow. Ski School loved it, as did cruiser. Not only did it become the most crowded black diamond slope, it also developed a bad case of scraped snow syndrome – SSS.
SSS slope have no moguls, no soft snow, and very little hope of being fun unless you get first tracks on the morning corduroy or get lucky with powder. I don;’t like slick slopes, I don’t like crowds, I don’t like all semblance of soft snow being subsumed to a divot and obstacle free surface. So I avoid it whenever possible.
Until this morning. My first day back this season. I’ve done this over 40 times now (47th year of skiing), and I know the drill by heart. First, the struggle to marry my feet to my boots once again. Then, a recognition that the muscles along the bottom of my foot will start to cramp with the first attempts at turning. A residual fear that this will be year year that I forget how to ski. A set of linked turns on the first difficult slope is associated with the start of soreness along the outer and inner aspects of my thighs, especially the right. A stop to tighten buckles. Then, finally, the realization that snow is fun, gravity is my friend, and bouncing through the bumps is strictly ballroom.
I was ready for all that, as I exited the Village Express, turn right, and checked out Campground. Nope, it hadn’t been groomed, so I figured I’d keep rolling skier’s right and drop into Promenade, that slide a little left half way down to hit the bottom of Zugspitze. After a few turns, I kept waiting for the snow to soften up. Two inches new last night, enough fluff to ease the pressure on the outside of each turn. But I found myself sliding around, unable to grab a purchase. It was only when I got more than half way down, and found to exit to Zugspitze, that I realised I had been skiing The Slot.
Oh, horrors! The best I could do at this point was aim far right, to the mogul patch which grows at the base of the old lift line. I found good snow there, and wiggled my way down to the Sam’s Knob lift, back up for another try at an opening run.
From there on, the day got better and better. I wanted to do a short first day, as a major MAJOR storm is heading our way in about 24 hours, promising to dump 1-2 feet from Wednesday afternoon thru Friday morning. I didn’t want to enter that storm cycle tired and sore. So I looked for the cream of the crop.
A list of my “favorite runs” at Snowmass would take me at least three full days of skiing just to get them all in, so I went with what the day offered. Lower Slot (a continuation of The Slot, but entirely different in complexion), Monkshood, Banzai to Coney Glade lift over Trestle to The SIde Hill, then up Sheer Bliss, and down a classic open Burn run. The main burn lift was closed, leaving this side pretty much free of skiers, who had all crammed themselves on the groomed slope under the Sheer Bliss lift. Then down into the Timberline bumps under a silent Burn lift. Maybe five people had skied there all day. The light snow fall filled the valleys, leaving the tops wind scoured. A good solid line all the way down, stopping three times to catch my breath there above 10,000’.
Down Monkshood/Banzai again, this time back up all the way to the top, aiming for The Cirque.
But on the way up, I rode with a youngish guy, who was looking for some advice about what to ski up there, his first time on that lift. Advice – I do advice on Skiing Snowmass. I had a captive audience, so I sold him on a classic Burn run, down Dallas Freeway on the open face. I regaled him with the history of the Burn, how Dallas Freeway got its name, and threw in some stories about Sheer Bliss and a few other runs as well. I probably seemed like a character top him, a grizzled old timer, skiing there since 1968. But it warmed me up for the Poma ride to the top.
Just before getting on, the guy in front, even younger than my chair companion, asked what was open. I told him the sign said it all was, and off he went. On top, he stopped me at the gate into the “Front Country”, and, telling me I looked like I might know something about what lay ahead, asked about the conditions and where to go.
Using the map as a visual aid, we discussed the High Pass Traverse, the Cirque, Roberto’s , Hanging Valley, and Green Cabin. Using words like “treeless avalanche chute”, “hidden rocks”, “deep, icy moguls”, and “steep and narrow funnel gully”, I tried to steer him to Upper Green Cabin, and made sure he understood to go left instead of right at the appropriate time, to watch out for signs directing him. He seemed relieved to learn of his options, and that there was an “easy” way down thru the Front Country. I juiced things up a bit, but telling him that Saturday would probably be an awesome day to try those other spots, after our big snow, and the probable closures on Friday for avalanche work.
Then I sped off along the Traverse, and down into the Cirque. It did not disappoint. Steep and slick on top, wind blown freshies into the trees, and then a rock free route through the dikes over to KT Gully, down the cliff and across to the tight moguls at the base of Rock Island, finishing with a swoop through Skateboard Alley and the bottom of Camp Three. Not bad for now snow for two weeks, then two inches last night.
For dessert, up Alpine Springs and over to the old lift line. No pause at the cat track, which featured a blind drop of about eight feet into a mogul pit. I couldn’t hold the turn and went laughing into the soft snow on the side, ending up entwined with a small fir tree. Not hurt one bit, but stuck a bit nonetheless, I twisted out after a minute, and finished up the day with a grand bomb to the base, just making it to the #8 bus a minute before he left. By that time, I was pleasantly tired, but all of the soreness and grumpy cramping muscles had melted away.
Once again, I had remembered how to ski.