I don’t really know how many Powder Days I’ve had skiing. Two hundred fifty seven is certainly in the ball park, though. I’m not someone who has kept track all his life of every single day I ever skied, so I don’t know how many days that is. One winter, 1978/9, I did make a shot 1-2 line note about each day when I drove daily from The Avenues in Salt Lake City to Snowbird. I recorded the weather, snow condition, new snow, and how many trams I’d ridden. Snowbird has a top to bottom tram, carrying 120 skiers at a time, covering 2900 vertical feet at a pop. A good day there would be 7 trams, +/-, which adds up to 20,300 feet, so I’ve used that number as a benchmark – hit 20K feet, the rest of the day is a bonus. And on Snowbird powder days – 40% of the 105 days I skied were thus defined – getting 4 or 5 trams of at least a set of fresh turns somewhere on the run marked a quality outing.
So what’s a Powder Day, then? If I can make a few linked turns in untracked snow during more than one of my runs (a run is defined as going from the top of a chair lift to the bottom of a chair – could be two different chairs) – that’s a powder day. Also, a day on which it snows, and I’m skiing while it’s snowing, even if the tracks aren’t fresh, that’s a powder day.
In 1976/7, the American West experienced it’s worst ski season ever. Most places, lifts didn’t open until mid-January, and the skiing wasn’t worth going out for until around President’s Day. I remember all this vividly, because I was in my third year of Ob-Gyn residency. The closest skiing was at Mammoth Mountain, a six hour drive away. I’d gone up on several weekends each of the previous years, but it was catch as catch can finding decent accommodations at a reasonable price for my budget then.
Bicentennial year, a bunch of the residents, mostly the guys in the year ahead of me, who were in their last year and thus had a bit more time available, decided to go together and rent a house for the season. I don’t remember the price, but it actually seemed reasonable if I were to go up once or twice a month from Dec-April.
And then, it didn’t snow. It didn’t snow in November. It didn’t snow in December. It really didn’t snow in January, at least not enough to cover the rocks and bushes. Finally, sometime towards the end of February, we put the boards on anyway, hang the rocks, and then had a few good days in March. But no Powder Days, not one, the whole year.
In Aspen/Snowmass, it was the same story. The lifts didn’t open until mid January, no safe skiing until the last month or so. That was the year we all learned the phrase, “El Nino.”
This year, there was some early snow, pre-Thanksgiving, then a couple of widely spaced storms, the last one before Christmas. By last week, people in Aspen were starting to get scared. Not because the beds weren’t full – things are actually more crowded than the past two years, which had phenomenal snow seasons – but because when it doesn’t snow, and the skis are cloudless day after day after day, the world seems out of joint. Around here, we get fluffy white clouds which build during the day. In the winter, they bring afternoon and evening snow showers; in the summer, thunderstorms. Every now and then a truly epic dump of 1-2 feet of new snow comes along, and sometimes we even get a couple of those strung together with lingering daily snow showers over a week or so. All’s right with the world, and the reason we are here – to enjoy the soft cocooning feel of snow falling around the face while floating on a crystalline cushion – gets reinforced.
Annie and I, for the past four years, have planned our ski trip around her college vacation. She’s free from the week before Christmas to MLK day. So we head up here after New Year’s and take what we get. January is usually cold and dry, but we’ve been getting enough Powder Days to make the trip seem worthwhile.
This year, I watched the Aspen/Snowmass app on my iPad with increasing apprehension and despair, as the base dropped from 37”” to 20”, and day after day, week after week, 0” appeared in the new snow column. We were looking to 7 days here of repetitive runs down increasingly cheesy roto-tiled snow, with brush and branches showing thru, maybe even some straw around the lifts.
I stopped checking the weather reports last week, and gave up on the app, so when we drove out of the Eagle, CO, rest area, two hours from Aspen, and heard the NOAA weather radio report I chanced on when I hit the “Seek” button on the Chevy Cruze I’d rented from Alamo, I was stunned. We listened to it twice thru, and heard “5-10 inches” in the mountains predicted for noon the following day thru midnight.
NOAA has earned a putrid reputation over the past two years around town, though, after the lead forecaster left, and the newbies tried to predict based on computer models, classroom knowledge, and a distinct lack of experience with what really happens when weather hits our little valley and its piled up mountains. They would routinely predict massive amounts of snow, endless Powder Days, which never happened or fell far short of the double-digit totals they’d lay out.
That lead forecaster apparently went private, though, and he’s gone into business as “aspenweather.net”. And he’s brought a measure of reliability again to local forecasts. He also said “5-10”, so we were heading out on our first day – yesterday – with a measure of confidence that the broiling clouds, foggy ceiling, and light dusting we were seeing would evolve into something real, and Save Our Vacation.
By 2 PM, the snow had picked up. Poor Annie had been fighting a cold, and jet lag, so she backed out after 12.5 K of rides. I saw the flakes get big and close, falling straight down, so I coerced Cody into coming out with me for just another run, even though it was after 3. We headed up Village Express, and found one side of Powder Heaven. The snow fell thick and fast, at least an inch an hour, and we bombed down Banzai Ridge over Ute Chute to Velvet Falls – soft footing underneath the whole way, not like the hardpack treachery we’d been on just an hour before.
So good we had to do it again, this time from the Ridge to Banzai, then over to Cabin and home. A real bonus.
But the best was yet to come. By the time we got to the car, there was at least 6 inches built up, and it kept snowing until 8 last night – far past the 5:30 that I’d expected. We had nine inches on the deck ledge. And the weathernet dude has said the next morning would dry right out into clear skies, 10-20 on the slopes. A Real Powder Day!
Well, almost. Because of the poor cover, many runs were not open, and the entire backcountry, even though listed as open, would be death to ski bottoms. Some of the best steep runs on the main ski slope were not open, and we’d be confined to the Big Burn, and Alpine Springs area.
Up at six, make sure the driveway is clear, head out before 8, zoom down to the lift at the base, wait for it to open, race off the top to the Burn lift at full speed, and get up to tree line with the first pack.
My initial run is always directly under the lift. Two reasons: first, it’s the most time efficient – it’s the direct route down, the fastest way to get back on and up again for Round Two. Second, I like to show off. I’ve got a lot of years and mileage invested in my ability to ski powder with grace and speed and reckless courage, and I figure 90+ % of the people on the lift need to see that. It helps them get juiced up for their run, and shows them what the conditions are like, and that anyone can ski them. Sets the tone for others for the day. It’s why I ski. I wear a bright red jacket, so I can’t be missed.
Besides, I like to show off.