What a fantastic day!! Kinda strange riding a lift up the mountain over totally bare ground and quite a bit of green grass while holding your skis in your lap and even stranger riding it back down at the end of the day. They had to operate the mid station shuttle at one quarter impulse power to allow people to jump on and off in ski boots and not get knocked over in the process. They had one trail and one trail only open, the venerable Wilderness. It's a dang good thing they have widened it over the years or it would have been a lot more crowded than it was. I guess they had been working on that trail for quite some time to prepare for a big televised bumps and jumps contest scheduled for real soon. Well it aint gonna happen. But if it weren't for that misfortune there would have been zilch, nada, nothing. The snow was very firm manmade with no powder consistency at all. This is not a criticism but more of an observation due to the warm days and cool nights that have been transpiring for some time. The snow was very well distributed and because of the even consistency it was not very hard to get back in a groove after the long summer/fall layoff. It took tremendous will power to leave the brand new Volkl's at home but over the course of the 10 runs I took I eventually found some not too deeply buried rocks and thin spots. Within a couple of hours the off ramp area and the corral input areas were getting very thin. I would rate it very fantastic spring skiing but not on corn. They did a great job covering what they did but lets face it, it appears it's all going to be gone real soon. I think I'm going to zip on over again early tomorrow AM just to say I did and try to take another 10 runs or so. I don't think they will be able to open even Sunday and it appears it's going to be a while before things are going to cool off enough to start making it again. <BR> <BR>First run was rusty, real rusty. Most every first day out I have warmed up on greens or blues and at least got the feel for balancing and edging. This was like, kaplunk, down you go and jump right out there on a nasty black diamond and don't get run over if you are lucky. I concentrated on carving little donut turns on my Elans and never realized how far ahead of me Shirley was getting. It wasn't very long ago she wouldn't even go down any black and here she was running with the big dogs and beat me to the bottom.......for the first run. 
There is a lot to be said for bombing and skidding. Second run was a tie and third run I really had the legs back in the groove. I found the most delightful loose manmade crud on either side of the trail and had extreme fun challenging the sides and trying to avoid the more scraped off center of the trail. Towards noon more and more bony stuff was popping up along the sides. All in all it was a fun first day. Shirley got in a total of five runs and I toughed out ten. Strangely enough I had plenty of lung endurance but the leg and low back/hip area was giving out. Fifty five degree temperatures and soft snow are tough enough after 40 or 50 days of skiing but even more so after six months off. The usual first day scenario is long cruiser runs on blues and greens because they want to be able to accommodate every level of skier and this year completely the opposite. Any way you look at it Shirley and I had an awesome first day. Can we all just meditate on cold and snow together now?
There is a lot to be said for bombing and skidding. Second run was a tie and third run I really had the legs back in the groove. I found the most delightful loose manmade crud on either side of the trail and had extreme fun challenging the sides and trying to avoid the more scraped off center of the trail. Towards noon more and more bony stuff was popping up along the sides. All in all it was a fun first day. Shirley got in a total of five runs and I toughed out ten. Strangely enough I had plenty of lung endurance but the leg and low back/hip area was giving out. Fifty five degree temperatures and soft snow are tough enough after 40 or 50 days of skiing but even more so after six months off. The usual first day scenario is long cruiser runs on blues and greens because they want to be able to accommodate every level of skier and this year completely the opposite. Any way you look at it Shirley and I had an awesome first day. Can we all just meditate on cold and snow together now?