Day 96: Losing motivation
When the alarm went off this morning I hit "snooze" for 45 minutes. I was thus a little late getting out of the house. As I loaded up my car with ski gear my neighbor Billy was loading his truck. I was in ski clothes. Billy, himself an avid skier, was in Bermuda shorts, a T-shirt, flip flops and a straw hat. While I was loading ski gear, Billy was loading fishing rods. Such is the way of life in June in Utah.
I did everything I could to try to get motivated. I stopped at Java Express for a tall one. I cranked The Reverend Horton Heat's "Big Red Rocket of Love" (http://pepperentertainment.com/mp3s/Love.mp3 - a great tune, check it out) in the car. Even that had only a marginal effect.
This happens to me every season around mid-June. Sometimes it's because the snowpack is melting out, which certainly isn't the case this season -- Snowbird is still open boundary to boundary, from the summit of Hidden Peak to the very bottom of Baby Thunder. Even the south-facing side of Little Cottonwood Canyon has an unbroken snowpack. Sometimes it's because the surface is getting sun-cupped, which isn't the case this year either. This year for me it's just plain burnout. After today I've got four more days to hit the big century mark and four weeks left with which to do it.
That's one of the reasons why I went to the desert last weekend. Partially for a change of scenery and a change of pace, but also because I really wasn't into skiing anymore last weekend and I now know that I can hit 100 days without trying too hard. In fact I had planned to go up to Snowbird for a few runs in the morning last Saturday before heading for the desert just to get #96, but instead I just jerked around the house that morning with a cup of coffee until it just wasn't worth heading up the canyon anymore.
Once on snow today, though, I managed to pull it together. The skiing was rather fine today despite the fact that we had no overnight refreeze. Snow was a little bit rotten in places, but by and large it skied quite well. The trick was to stay on something steep enough. What I couldn't understand, however, was that despite the lack of a refreeze there was absolutely zero "white velcro" out there this morning. Nothing sticky, nothing grabby at all. That made the biggest difference for me.
With Bobby up at Snowbasin it was Telejon, Skidog and myself at Snowbird today. And we've got the Tram back after $100,000-worth of new windows in both cabins. They've fitted them with a protective film that I suppose must be akin to the material Zagg uses for its "Invisible Shields" for mobile devices. It's an effort to help keep skis from scratching the plexiglass. We'll see how that works out.
With the Tram back in service we just ran Tram laps this morning. Great Scott skied beautifully, and North Chute is still unaffected by the rock band that sits completely buried at the choke. Our first few runs had no more than a couple of dozen people in each cabin but as the morning wore on the cabins started filling up. While mostly passholders there were more than a few day ticket purchasers there, too, including one guy who flew out from Chicago with his two sons for the weekend. Now that's dedication! =D>
We finished up with a hike up the Peruvian Ridgeline to the highest High Baldy Traverse for a run down Buttress Chute.
Halfway down North Baldy, however, the snow changed dramatically. It was finally getting manky. You had to ski with a delicate touch to keep from punching through six inches of corn, so that's when I called it a morning. I'll be curious to hear how Bobby made out with the lower elevation runs at Snowbasin after a night with no refreeze.
When the alarm went off this morning I hit "snooze" for 45 minutes. I was thus a little late getting out of the house. As I loaded up my car with ski gear my neighbor Billy was loading his truck. I was in ski clothes. Billy, himself an avid skier, was in Bermuda shorts, a T-shirt, flip flops and a straw hat. While I was loading ski gear, Billy was loading fishing rods. Such is the way of life in June in Utah.
I did everything I could to try to get motivated. I stopped at Java Express for a tall one. I cranked The Reverend Horton Heat's "Big Red Rocket of Love" (http://pepperentertainment.com/mp3s/Love.mp3 - a great tune, check it out) in the car. Even that had only a marginal effect.
This happens to me every season around mid-June. Sometimes it's because the snowpack is melting out, which certainly isn't the case this season -- Snowbird is still open boundary to boundary, from the summit of Hidden Peak to the very bottom of Baby Thunder. Even the south-facing side of Little Cottonwood Canyon has an unbroken snowpack. Sometimes it's because the surface is getting sun-cupped, which isn't the case this year either. This year for me it's just plain burnout. After today I've got four more days to hit the big century mark and four weeks left with which to do it.
That's one of the reasons why I went to the desert last weekend. Partially for a change of scenery and a change of pace, but also because I really wasn't into skiing anymore last weekend and I now know that I can hit 100 days without trying too hard. In fact I had planned to go up to Snowbird for a few runs in the morning last Saturday before heading for the desert just to get #96, but instead I just jerked around the house that morning with a cup of coffee until it just wasn't worth heading up the canyon anymore.
Once on snow today, though, I managed to pull it together. The skiing was rather fine today despite the fact that we had no overnight refreeze. Snow was a little bit rotten in places, but by and large it skied quite well. The trick was to stay on something steep enough. What I couldn't understand, however, was that despite the lack of a refreeze there was absolutely zero "white velcro" out there this morning. Nothing sticky, nothing grabby at all. That made the biggest difference for me.
With Bobby up at Snowbasin it was Telejon, Skidog and myself at Snowbird today. And we've got the Tram back after $100,000-worth of new windows in both cabins. They've fitted them with a protective film that I suppose must be akin to the material Zagg uses for its "Invisible Shields" for mobile devices. It's an effort to help keep skis from scratching the plexiglass. We'll see how that works out.
With the Tram back in service we just ran Tram laps this morning. Great Scott skied beautifully, and North Chute is still unaffected by the rock band that sits completely buried at the choke. Our first few runs had no more than a couple of dozen people in each cabin but as the morning wore on the cabins started filling up. While mostly passholders there were more than a few day ticket purchasers there, too, including one guy who flew out from Chicago with his two sons for the weekend. Now that's dedication! =D>
We finished up with a hike up the Peruvian Ridgeline to the highest High Baldy Traverse for a run down Buttress Chute.
Halfway down North Baldy, however, the snow changed dramatically. It was finally getting manky. You had to ski with a delicate touch to keep from punching through six inches of corn, so that's when I called it a morning. I'll be curious to hear how Bobby made out with the lower elevation runs at Snowbasin after a night with no refreeze.
