It was raining.
It was opening day at Fernie Alpine Resort. A ski area.
And it was raining.
I grew up skiing the Sierra’s and then moved to the Colorado Rockies. In either locale, skiing and rain will not be found in the same sentence. Then, I moved to the Northwest. Skiing in Southern BC, Washington and Oregon, rain became an unfortunate part of the ski vocabulary. For a time, Mt. Bachelor handed out the ubiquitous plastic poncho/bags \ printed with a corporate tagline, “Mt. Bachelor, Good to the last drop.” Personally, I found humor in the blindness of the statement, not the “fact.” When it rained, I retire to the lodge.
I found rain a dis-interesting part of the skiing experience.
In the latter days of last week, the word filtered out from FAR employees preparing for the opening– the rain reached the top Polar Peak.
Ugh.
But it was opening day. And it was skiing, after a fashion.
Parking in the lot and walking up to the Pro Room almost had me turning around. The base area looked more like two weeks after the end of the season than the first day. Broad patches of mud interspersed small patches of seemingly remnant snow pack. I couldn’t remember the combination to open the door of the Pro Room and wondered if this was an omen. As I walked around to the back door, I said to myself, If it’s locked, it’s an omen and I’m going home.
The door opened and I was committed. Rain or no rain, I was going skiing.
Back out of the Pro Room, I stepped over the muddy tire tracks in the summer road crossing below the building and stepped into my skis. I nothing else, I planned on skiing to the bottom of the Elk. The task promised to be a challenge in route finding.
Halfway down I gave up on preserving any notion of avoiding rocks. You just couldn’t care about your skis. Take a six-pack of been in to the shop when you drop your sis off in a week or two and say, ”I’m sorry, will you please tune my skis?”
Nothing else to do.
Once on the Elk, things started looking a little more like winter. The drop down tot he bottom of the Bear was littered with fist sized rocks, but most were avoidable.
Once on the Bear, life looked up considerably. A patrol member shoveled out part of the snow plot. Snow swirled at the top creating a whiteout. This was the Fernie I knew and loved.
And lo and behold, the snow was pretty OK. A little sticky. Once you found the right speed, the sweet spot between being caught and being tossed, it was great skiing. There were not rocks on top. No mud. Just snow and more snow.
But then there was the ski down. We’ll just leave that alone and be done.
December Second
And today. A new day. A new season.
I woke this morning to light snow. In the half-light, I could see the outline of the shingles on the house across the way. Small linear indentations in the white layering the roof. The snow continued. By full light the roof became a flat expanse of snow. The underlying details effectively hidden under the still growing white blanket.
C. J Mueller sends me Mt. Bachelor’s Facebook morning post and photo. “Mt Bachelor receives 16” in 14 hours overnight.”
‘Tis all good.
At the hill there are no more mud patches. “Early Season Conditions” still prevail, but it’s snowing. And as we all know snow heals a multitude of ills.
Welcome to the season.
It’s here.
It’s snowing.
And in the end, it’s all skiing. It’s all good– right down to the last drop.
