It wasn’t the ski season ending I wanted — but maybe it was the one I needed. A graceless encore to cap off a season of endless shotskis, a smattering of pow days and way too many après cosmos in the hot tub at the Beehive, including one unforgettable moment when I mistook a slender TV remote for a friend’s weed pen.

Park City Mountain was throwing its annual end-of-the-season rager. Pixie and the Partygrass Boys on stage in the Mountain Village. Goggle-tanned 30-somethings deadhead-dancing in ski boots, bucket hats and Hawaiian shirts around crumbled-up Kona Wave beer cans. One giant, collective group hug to send off the 2024-25 ski season.

I hopped on my e-bike after work to catch the last few rays of the day and unwind with a cold one. I pulled up just outside the Corner Store, scanning the crowd for my friends, trying to look like I hadn’t just emerged from a half-day of Zoom calls about medical devices.

It was the usual closing-day scene. There was someone in a Day-Glo mesh crop top and Chamonix headband performing what could only be described as interpretive dance. A circle of Pit-Viper bros egging on a drunk dude in camo knickers and Smartwool socks who was slam-dancing into the crowd like he was personally trying to resurrect the mosh pit. I’m pretty sure he’s the one who launched the full bucket of Cheese Puffs that soon covered the dance floor like a pile of orange moon dust.

I went  to lock my e-bike to a ski rack, and that’s when things went sideways — literally. The bike lunged forward and took me with it, knocking over an entire row of skis in the process. And just like that, I became my own end-of-season casualty. Not on McConkey’s. Not while sending a jump in the Party Trees. Just ass over handlebars into a rack of Rossignols. Body intact, ego bruised. If I was looking for a sign that it was time to shift gears, this was it.

An unexpected, yet much-needed segue into Park City’s most sacred season of all: shoulder season.

That glorious reset between winter chaos and summer madness. When the lifts stop spinning, the snowpack melts into babbling brooks and the tourists finally peace out. When you can find a parking spot on Main, get a bar stool at High West and make it from Kimball to Old Town in 10 minutes instead of 45. When we get our town back — if only for a minute.

Suddenly, you’re swapping your pow skis for mountain bike tires and watching the Round Valley trail conditions like a Labradoodle waiting for a crumb to drop. And this year, I’m honoring it in the only way that feels right.

Couchella. My shoulder-season festival of the horizontal kind.

No wristbands. No lines. Minimal risk of bodily injury. Just me, my pup and the world’s ugliest sectional. Highlighted by a carefully curated soundtrack of the domestic bangers you only start to notice when everything else calms down.

Opening the show on the Laundry Room Stage: Sam Sung with Schoop Dawg Schubert — the literal house music my dryer plays every time a cycle finishes. If you happen to pass out face down in the sofa cushions, don’t worry. This EDM earworm loops louder and longer than your iPhone alarm clock. According to Shazam, it’s Franz Schubert’s Piano Quintet in A Major. What I’ll never understand is why an appliance maker chose Austrian Baroque beats to alert me that it’s time to fold my undies.

Next up is DJ HoldSpace, live from the xfinite wait times of Xfinity customer service. Featuring electronic hand claps, synth loops and existential despair,the set goes on for hours with endless encores. Every now and then, a polite voice returns: Would you mind if I continue to place you on a brief hold? Sure, no problem. I am fully present. I am centered on your aura. I am eternally holding space. For you. In hell.

But the Couchella sleeper act? They stormed unexpectedly onto the Park Avenue LoPa Stage around noon. My Neighbor’s Chihauhau 20-Ton Dump Truck — an aggressively territorial, percussive jam that vibrates through your pelvic floor and leaves your porch furniture covered in construction dust.

But Couchella isn’t just about the heavy bass lines, mind-numbing riffs and sick beats. We’re also serving up some dope lewks.

My headliner outfit is giving serious J. Crew Outlet flannel with a side of Pigpen 25th anniversary shot-and-a-shirt vibes. #GRWM as I apply my signature no-makeup makeup look— last night’s MAC Russian Red set off with a smudge of day-old mascara.

While Katy Perry floated weightless on her girl-boss Blue Origin space flight, I floated braless on my beige sofa, hovering somewhere between the final episode of “White Lotus” and rewatching the last four seasons of “Girls.” Still on hold with the cable company, still caught up in an endless Muzak loop of Nickelback and Jane’s Addiction, I realize hold space is just like outer space — no one can hear you scream.

Here’s the thing. Couchella may never promise you a VIP rosé garden. But it does offer the perfect shoulder-season intermission. Permission to relax. To recover. To take as many granny naps as you want. At the end of the day, being horizontal on your couch with no plans whatsoever might just be the best damn festival there is.