The lift operator at the base of the plater pull was nowhere in sight. I glanced into the lift house; pulling on his gloves, he barged towards the “GO-STOP” sign, but didn’t walk over to hand me the pole. He seemed a little concerned.
In a South American accent, he said, “It’s very windy up top.”
“That’s OK. I’m not staying there.” Meaning, I did not intend to wait around on top. I was headed for the Cirque Headwall.
True, it was snowing. And the temperature up here at timberline was now 8F, having dropped all day leading into our current snow squall. Visibility was intermittent, with a west wind scowling across the lift path.
He shrugged, indicating either it was my funeral, or he thought I was crazy. Reluctantly, he gave me the pole, and up I went.
I reminded myself there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing. But I was missing one key item, apparently – the neoprene face mask which would have covered my only exposed skin, between my upper lip and the bottom of my goggles. After all, I have been doing this for over 40 years, and have seen and skied in all sorts of weather, including some worse than this. It’s not like I would be trapped on the lift, exposed to the wind with no escape. I could literally get off anytime I wanted, just flip the pole forward and track left or right, heading back downhill.
But I had already gone down Hanging Valley Headwall into the glades twice today, and walked up to Longshot for more off track. First thing, I had dropped into upper Garret Gulch, and skied out over to Sheer Bliss, then a run or two in the Burn trees. But I was still grumpy. The promised new snow (we’ve had none for ten days now) was almost a joke – the report of 2 inches was generous. And it wasn’t even building up in the wind protected gullies like Garrett or KT. But while I’d ridden the 5000 vertical feet up from Two Creeks to timberline, at the top of the Sheer Bliss lift, the snow had picked up, one of those fulfilling snows that leaves you brushing your clothes of at the end of the lift ride.
I hadn’t really counted on the wind picking up as I rode to the very top, another 700 feet up above timberline. Once the snow started falling steady, the wind was calmer, but up here above the trees, exposed as we were to the jet stream, it was a different story. Not a steady breeze, but a series of prolonged gusts, with little let up in between. BLowing steady from my right to left as I was pulled upward. No one else on the lift, at least that I could see, which was only two or three platters in front. Half way up, the snow cats had piled a berm to the right, blocking the wind for a time. But as I neared the left hand bend in the lift line, things turned into a full blown white out. I was starting to be a bit worried. I’d hate for my family to have to read about a 59 year old skier lost over the edge at Snowmass.
Finally (after only five minutes) I was at the top. I glanced over at the closure gate into the Headwall. The sign at the base of the lift indicated it was open. Up here, the wind had blown it askew. Hanging by only one hook, it warbled between “Open” and “Closed”, as the gusts hit it left and right.
I really didn’t want to go over the edge if the run really was closed – not only is it dangerous, it’s also illegal, and, even worse, I’d lose my season pass. So, I backed up and banged on the lift box (too small to call a house). The door opened into the wind, and the poor guy stuck his head into the zephyr.
“Is the headwall open?” I hollered.
“They haven’t really come up to close it, so it’s your choice!”
“What I really want to know, is it officially still open?”
When he realized I would be deterred only by a dictum from the ski patrol, that a little wind and low visibility was not going to stop me, he admitted “It’s still open”.
So off I went, following the orange disks out into the tundra wilderness, scrapping over the wind packed snowfield down to the headwall drop off. As I skittered left and right, pushed on by the west wind at my back, I started to question my decision (not that there was any easy way out at this point), and again speculated on whether this was going to be worth the mild torture I was still enduring to get to what might be only marginal conditions. As I waited out one particularly strong whirlwind (?snow devil) at the top of the actual headwall, waiting until at least the first orange directional disk was visible down below me, I tried to conjure up a ski run even more sketchy, weather-wise, than this one.
Several times at Snowbird, 30 years earlier, I had been on a raw exposed, steepening slope like this, with NO trees, or clouds, or sun, or ANYTHING to give me a sense of up or down. I’d make a turn, and worry about going either too fast (and hurtle down an unseen slope) or two slow (and creep to a stop as I turned uphill. I’d made it down those times, with no vertigo, relying on my sense of what the slope SHOULD have looked like (I skied 100 days at Snowbird that winter), to get me safely down to the relative safety of the trees.
The wind eased for a moment, and through the ground blizzard across the headwall, I could clearly see the outflow gully down below, with the first ragged trees struggling to stay even horizontal in the wind.
The snow below the drop in was soft, and full. The slope was gentle, compared to the Wall I’d skied earlier in the day. And the ragged mogul tops, still exposed in the 4” or so of new snow across the face, provided some measure of texture to guide me down. I whipped each turn down, up, and around, looking ever downward, reaching out below with a tentative pole tap to set up my next plunge downward, ever downward.
The snow was soft, I was out of the wind, and, off the ridge line, there was now clear definition, enough visibility so that I could forget about navigating, and just ski. I was all alone ( who else would be foolish enough to ride that lift up here now?), gently skating and floating in the hardened mush, covered by a bit of fluff, rolling down the curve of the slope into the rolling Dikes below. After all the runs I’d done in Hanging Valley, in the Glades and on the Wall, down Powderhorn, in the Burn trees – all the places I looked for pure enjoyment on this mountain – I’d come back to my finest pure ski run.
(To Be Continued)