Snow Day

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Originally uploaded by empyrean_squire

Last Thursday ten of us went up to Mountain High to go skiing. The trip had been planned for two weeks and we weren't going to be stopped by the stormy conditions we woke to. The snow levels had dropped to about 3,000ft the night before, and the white frosting nearly touched the valley floor. I checked the snow conditions online, and the resort's website reported that they'd received 18 inches of fresh powder the night before and were expecting another ten inches to fall during the day. Perfect. I arrived at the D's around 8am, and after testing out a pair of snow chains we loaded the fifteen passenger van and headed up the mountain. The drive up was absolutely amazing. The snow lay lightly in the branches of trees and delicately covered the other desert plants. The way the sun hit the embalmed plants made it seem like they were covered in tiny pieces of glass. About halfway up we had to stop and put the chains on the van, and before we reached the top the sky had clouded over and more snow was coming down in big thick flakes. The wind on top of the mountain was blowing about thirty miles per hour, making the 28 degree temperature feel more like 5. We were all dressed for it though. The wind whipped over the summit and carried the powder snow with it in thick clouds. In the mid afternoon Mario and I took the tram over to the East resort and found it all but abandoned. There were only half a dozen other skiers up there, which meant we had the 1.3 mile run all to ourselves. It was quite an experience, as the wind was blowing even harder up there, and sometimes the powder clouds would completely envelope everything, reducing visibility to about 5 feet. It also made it impossible to tell how fast I was going. There were a few times I was blasting along at almost the same speed as the flying snow, and watching the eddies swirl in slow motion around my feet like an affectionate house cat. All of a sudden a pinecone would appear on the ground some feet in front of me, and just as quickly it would be lost in the mist behind like it had been fired from a catapult. The brief reference point would give me an idea of how fast I was actually going. Fortunately no one got hurt. I was sitting at the lodge later that afternoon watching a tractor clear the snow away from the picnic area. Mario had gone inside to get a drink, and as I waited for him to come back out the deep resonating sound of the tractor suddenly made me think of the Discovery channel programs I'd watched on avalanches. I remembered the big avalanche that happened above Devil's Punchbowl a few years ago. I hiked up there with Jed and Levi a couple of weeks afterward, and we were all amazed at the field of rubble that lay all around us. Big chunks of snow and ice interspersed with tree branches and logs over forty feet deep and more than a half mile long. The whole mess was permeated with sawdust. A reminder of the trees that had been ground to pulp beneath the weight of it all. I reassured myself that if there ever had been avalanches at the resort I would have heard about it. It wasn't worth worrying about. The rest of the day was wonderful. The next day on the news they reported that there had been two avalanches up there and three people had been killed.