On a phone call with a colleague from Austria in late October, my friend was cruising the autobahn south of Salzburg through the Ennstal valley remarking about the 10 cm of new snow that had fallen on the peaks. That’s what we do as skiers! We look at every single inch this time of year. And give us an inch in October and we’ll make it sound like nearly a foot in November!
It’s the ritual of fall for anyone who loves to ski or ride.
As the colors of autumn fade into leaves blanketing the ground, we look for telltale signs that Mother Nature is ready to spread her cushion of fluffy white powder.
While at Stein Eriksen Lodge for Jan’s Winter Welcome, I gazed longingly at the snow guns pumping out inch after inch of ground cover at Deer Valley Resort’s Silver Lake base area, creating massive whales of snow.
Up above Canyons Village, narrow swaths of white stood out from the mountain’s ski runs, with distant highways of white mapping our the runs we hope to ski by Thanksgiving.
November is a time of stick figure trees, frost on the windshield and chilly mornings as I walk out to the barn for my ritual rescuing of our cat, Tiger Lily, every morning.
I run searches for El Niño and start paying more attention to @WasatchSnow and @ProfessorPowder, anxiously awaiting any promising shred of intel that can motivate the cortex of my brain to think that snow is on its way. Visits to @PowderBuoy become all the more frequent.
Dusting off my Open Snow app, I stared longingly at our Utah snow counts, thinking the longer I look at the screen the more likely new snow will materialize. “The short term is lame,” it said — forecaster Evan Thayer getting right to the point. At least he carried some optimism into Thanksgiving.
During Ski Utah’s Pray for Snow celebration at Woodward Park City, we raised cans of Wasatch Brewing’s Last One Down lager in hopes that the God of Powder would hear our pleas and grant us one of those powder dumps like we had a year ago at this time.
When we lived in Wisconsin, my gardener wife would gauge the upcoming winter season by the size of the bands on woolly worms — prognosticator caterpillars.
Fall is also the time when you realize you had to schedule that boot fitting you just never got in during the summer. Searches are mounted through the garage and barn as I try to assemble my skis and get them to Rennstall for a preseason tune — something that could have easily been accomplished when I hung them up last April. Or maybe that’s where they are now?
Then it’s time to think about all the new gear I had planned to order. Yah, I probably need that new “around town” jacket from Stio, or a pair of the new Bode Miller Peak Skis 88s for ripping turns on groomers.
Speaking of groomers, we didn’t get a lot of that last winter, did we?
The weatherman has continued to tease us. In the morning, a nice blanket of white covers the mountains, hiding the swaths of man-made snow. But as the day progresses, it melts away, leaving those narrow strips of white.
This is the time of year when our tribes get together to pray to the heavens above to cut loose. The Utah Ski Archives’ Ski Affair is a seminal bash that starts it all. We toasted again last week with a Ski Utah party at Stio on historic Main Street.
Looking back, I guess this is also the time of year we all become snow scientists, interpreting the weather forecasts just as we want them to be. Meanwhile, @ProfessorPowder tries to calm me down by letting me know that neither El Niño or La Niña have any notable impact on northern Utah snowfall.
No matter. This is the season to dream. And I’m happy to be back for season 5 of Ridgelines, where we’ll explore fun stories up on our unique mountains each week.
Pray for snow!