Even if you live in Park City or its environs and somehow don’t go in for skiing or some other cherished form of snow-sliding, it is impossible to miss the excitement in the air, like the mist on the mountains from snowmaking, when Park City Mountain is opening — early, as in today this year — with Deer Valley just around the corner. You hear it when people are talking about the snowless weather forecast for the coming week and console themselves that it is at least likely to stay cold enough to … make more snow.
In southern Florida, it’s not unusual to hear local weather forecasters also include the weather in New York and New Jersey, as a way of saying, “See what you’re not missing?” The problem there, if it is one, is that the southern part of Florida can seem partly filled by people who moved from New York or New Jersey for the warm weather alone. There is only so much tanning they can do, although they give that a good go. From our lofty perspective, they can seem adrift in the pursuit of practically nothing more than weather that suits their clothes.
We’d like to believe that people here lead more purpose-driven lives. Is sliding down a mountain more important than lying on a beach? Yes — if only because it’s doing something, and people were meant to be up and about and doing, as practically any retiree can attest, even if it’s indoor pickleball.
Parkites are doubly blessed to be up and doing and surrounded by so many other exemplary athletes and recreationists and doers. And then we are triply blessed to live where so many people visit, to do still more.
We’ve had plenty to say about the series of unfortunate circumstances that marred the last ski season, and about apportioning responsibility; and we are waiting to see how things will improve this time around, for improve they must, while we keep an eye on lift lines and traffic and other possible snags — but that’s not what this week is about. We’re still here, and are ready for our close-ups and another turn of the snowmaking machinery.