A love letter to winter
ALL | The Aspen Times
Aspen will not soon forget winter 2007-08. From its sudden drought-to-dump beginning to … well, it’s not over yet.
Which is precisely the point.
This winter just kept on coming and coming and coming, delivering dump after glorious dump of delicious powder, with only an occasional pause from December to April. The numbers speak for themselves ” more than 400 inches of snowfall at Snowmass, a 135-inch base at Aspen Highlands, and more than 2 feet of new snow in the last week (yes, the second week of April!) at Aspen Mountain.
It’s been an unforgettable year for skiers and snowboarders, but memories of winter 2007-08 will linger for every Roaring Fork Valley resident who shoveled snow off their porch, drove the icy roads, chipped the ice dams from their eaves or couldn’t see out their window because of the accumulation.
The Cloud Nine restaurant at Highlands was unofficially renamed “The Igloo” this year because it was literally surrounded by snow. And we’ve all seen the roped-off areas beneath several local chairlifts, to prevent the heads of passing skiers from colliding with lift passengers’ skis.
As this edition went to press, the Aspen Skiing Co. was preparing to close Aspen Mountain and Snowmass. Out at Highlands, however, powderhounds from throughout the community were ripping it up ” for free ” to help Skico track up the new snow for a postseason reopening on April 19-20 and 26-27.
The death of 22-year-old Aspen native Wallace Westfeldt in a backcountry skiing accident April 4 still aches a week after the fact.
On the whole, however, it was a winter worth celebrating and remembering. And that’s what this edition of the Aspen Times Weekly is about. We hope you enjoy it. We sure did.
Your older brother may make the big bucks in San Francisco, but he still envies your high-end hobo’s existence in Aspen. When you talk on the phone, he always asks how much snow you’ve gotten before he gets around to how you’ve been.
This winter, after repeated phone calls, you stopped saying hello when answering the phone.
“Still snowing,” you’d blurt out, before he could get a word in. That, or “huge powder day today.” Or, even worse, a hurried “Can’t talk right now. Too much snow. About to get off the gondola.”
You knew these announcements were greeted with contempt ” as intended ” from more than 1,100 miles away. Ah, yes, your older brother. The well-off, successful, happily-married, home-owning firstborn. The one who finagled a three-month sabbatical from his employers after his wedding to travel the globe. The one with the brand-new Audi and the fat 401k.
And utterly jealous of you.
Perfect.
Somehow, some way, you earned a winning ticket in the cosmic lottery these past few months. You were the one in Aspen during the biggest winter in 25 years, swimming in powder while your older brother navigated the city and dreamed of missed face-shots.
It got so bad that your brother and sister-in-law broke down and bought plane tickets to make it out here for four days in January, bringing a troop of friends with them. Your brother was so antsy to get to all the snow, he risked driving his packed rental minivan over Loveland Pass in a midnight blizzard after the Eisenhower Tunnel shut down.
Those four days were your favorites in a winter full of unforgettable ones. Your brother, hellbent on skiing as much as possible before returning to California, willed the group through tired legs, whipping wind and frigid temperatures each day until the lifts closed.
At night, there were rowdy dinners in your tiny apartment, hearty feasts fueled by wine, beer, spicy pasta and plenty of strong opinions.
If that wasn’t enough, you had your best run of the season on the last day everyone was in town. You hiked Highland Bowl just after the gate opened and dropped into more than a foot of untracked powder, far more than the 7 inches the mountain reported that morning.
After your brother left, you didn’t hear from him for a couple of days. You knew, after getting a taste of what you’d gorged on all winter, that he hoped it couldn’t last. That the fairy tale would end.
No chance.
“It’s still snowing,” you announced, when he finally rang. “Another huge storm’s on the way, too. Can’t talk. I’m about to get off the lift.”
Heavy snow is falling and the pile on my street is beginning to resemble Kilimanjaro. Still, I can’t help feeling a tad uneasy.
Don’t get me wrong, I love everything about the snow. Keep it coming, I say. But, every flake this long winter brought me one second closer to another encounter with him ” at least I think it’s a him.
He is the snow-removal man, someone I’ve never met but who I’m sure is one of Satan’s bedfellows. I picture him grinning like Joan Rivers after a Botox injection as he reaches for the Funyuns stuffed between the seat cushions and jolts his rig into reverse at 4 a.m.
Right on time.
You’d think he sat idle in the middle of the street, waiting for my bedroom light to click off. Then, just as I’m about to doze off, he lowers his bucket and drags it across the pavement.
I thought I was a sound sleeper ” I once snoozed right through a Category 3 hurricane. But the incessant, ear-splitting racket of that beeping bulldozer is enough to wake me out of a coma. Waterboarding’s got nothing on this guy.
Give me an unnecessary root canal or a night at the opera, but please make the beeping and scraping stop.
Head throbbing, I bury my head in pillows ” and bury those pillows in pillows. Nothing works. I’ve tried earplugs, tissues, even an old table fan to drown out the noise.
Nothing works.
In my fragile, sleep-deprived state, I have to resist the urge to wander out to the balcony to shout a few choice obscenities or launch a few snowballs at his windshield.
You’d think I wronged him, perhaps left him off the Christmas list or, in the manner one resident recently resolved a dispute, filled his cockpit to the roof with snow.
It sounds like he’s going forward and back on one 10-foot swath of road nearest my window, just to irk me. No sound has made me cringe this way since Celine Dion’s last album.
It’s enough to make me wish I lived in Phoenix.
OK, not really. What would I do with my skis?
One Sunday afternoon in mid-March, I came home with the usual dusting of snow on my boarding outfit, the usual dazed, beatific look on my face. My wife, a non-skier, asked how the day was.
“Unbelievable,” I said.
“You say that every week,” she answered.
I had to admit it was true. I had run into a problem of semantics. By my 20th or so day on the mountain, I had run out of ways to describe these mind-boggling episodes. My wife has heard of boarding days that were “amazing,” “insane,” “beyond belief,” “crazy-good,” “phenomenal,” “awesome” and “freakin’ ridankulous.” (I live by the guiding principle of never using the “E” word with regard to anything, I don’t care if the snow is up to my eyebrows.)
So now comes the challenge of finding just the right adjective to define this powder year of my dreams. Break out the thesaurus.
This was the year to ski the runs you usually avoid. With this kind of snow coverage, the lines that usually involve rocks, roots, stumps or other obstacles skied like creamy avenues of delight.
After dinging my skis repeatedly over the years on Franklin Dump at Aspen Mountain, I all but gave it up. But this year Franklin’s lived up to its potential as a steep and interesting alternative to hard-packed, overcrowded Little Nell.
And how about the East Wall of the Cirque at Snowmass? Or Lower Stein at Highlands? In recent years it’s been highly likely, depending on your chosen line, that this steeply bumped, double-diamond gully will take a chunk out of your skis. But not this year. I caught Lower Stein in all different conditions this season, had a great time (despite the climb to get out) and my prized Volkls survived unscathed.
I’ve also been guilty in recent years of avoiding the Y Zones. Like many others, when I hike Highland Bowl I make for the top; I’m in it almost as much for the workout as the turns, and the snow is usually better on the far side anyway (and it was always good this year).
But on one fluffy Saturday in February, as I ascended the ridge with two friends, the guy in the lead stopped at what I think was Mosh Pit, gazing down with a glint in his eye at a north-facing spine of untracked powder. We debated briefly, but as other hikers paused to consider what we were doing, we realized it was now or never.
Chuck took the left line, I took the right and Dina took the middle, one after the other, each of us surfing easily through 10-plus inches of meringue-like cream. Gathering at the bottom a minute-or-so later (one of those dreamlike, “did-that-just-happen?” minutes), we cackled and sputtered about how sweet it was and what a snow-smart choice Chuck had made.
Just one of many pleasant surprises in a winter that kept delivering.
As I write, it’s snowing again. What am I doing in the office?
This winter’s snow dumps made skiing on area mountains a joy, but parking near my Park Circle apartment building was downright perilous.
From the moment those first December snows covered the lines that delineate each space, I started jockeying with my neighbors for dwindling space in the lot. And the lot only became narrower as the snow piles grew.
Aspen Times photographer Paul Conrad parks his Jeep-like monstrosity in the narrow corner space next to mine. The truck, with its lift-kit, massive roo-bar on the front, extra lights and huge roof rack looks poised for the apocalypse, and Paul often seems to be rehearsing for a part in the next “Mad Max” film.
My plucky little Subaru, by comparison, cowers in the shadow of Paul’s Jeep from hell. As winter wore on, finding room for both of our vehicles became a true chess match.
It was partly the cabin fever, I think, because Paul and I usually get along just fine. But my frustrations grew.
Paul is also given to taking the entire machine apart ” dropping in a new axle, for example ” and he would walk around, covered in grease, dragging huge auto parts through the snow near my precious car.
I found myself passive-aggressively parking just a extra few inches closer to his spot to claim a little more real estate. Then I’d get frustrated when Paul parked at some new angle or closer to my tire tracks.
At one point we just couldn’t fit.
When confronted, Paul pointed to the neighboring cars inching in on us. It was a much larger conspiracy, apparently.
So I learned to let it go and park wherever and however I could.
A short trip to Florida at the end of March seemed to help too. When I returned, much of the snow had melted, the lines were revealed, and we are now all back in line.
At least until the next April dump.
From drought to doubt, chief of race Jim Hancock endured one predicament after another in the weeks before and during World Cup weekend.
As people in sandals and shorts wandered Aspen in early November, Hancock had his hands clasped and his eyes fixed on the sky. The base of Ajax remained bare, warm temperatures thwarted snowmakng efforts, and long-range forecasts were less than promising.
Blue event banners lined Main Street and snow guns lined the hill from Spring Pitch to Ruthie’s, but the prospect of hosting the first women’s downhill here since 1988 seemed inconceivable.
As late as a week and a half before the Dec. 7-9 races, Hancock and his crew were slogging through dirt on their snowmobiles.
“There’s nothing anybody can do except hope and pray,” Hancock told The Aspen Times in November. “I hope winter arrives one of these days.”
He got his wish, but it was a blessing and a curse. A storm Dec. 1-2 brought 20 inches, and one day before the scheduled downhill, another snowstorm inundated the valley. While skiers and snowboarders reveled in nearly 2 feet of fresh snow on race day, America’s Downhill was buried. Hancock and International Ski Federation officials, in a frustrating and ironic twist, were forced to postpone the race.
DEEPcember was in full swing.
“We were overmatched,” Hancock told The Aspen Times on Dec. 8. “When you get that much snow, it’s really no contest.”
Literally. While grandstands remained empty and the Jumbotron screen black, racers took a respite from competition.
“Is it bad that I’m not bummed at all?” U.S. Ski Team member Kaylin Richardson told The Denver Post. “I’ve never had face-shots like this.”
The weather finally cooperated. Hancock and his crew were able to pull off two of three scheduled races, an abbreviated downhill and a slalom. Americans Lindsey Vonn and Bode Miller went on to win World Cup overall titles ” the first American sweep of the sport’s top prizes since 1983. And locals experienced one of the area’s best winters on record.
Wednesday, Nov. 21, 2007: 12 inches at Snowmass, 9 inches at Aspen Mountain, 5 inches at Highlands and 3 inches at Buttermilk. On my driveway? I have no idea.
The ski season was 24 hours away when I began a careful log of winter as it unfolded. I intended it as a ski diary, but it turned into more of a snow diary. I tallied a lot of snowfall, but shamefully little skiing, at least of the in-bounds variety. I should have kept track of the far more impressive number of days I shoveled.
As a denizen of the midvalley, I have no way of knowing how much snow fell at my house. Granted, the numbers at 12,000 or so feet, where ski-area measurements are taken, were far higher than the depths on my sidewalk, at least until one factors in the quantities deposited on my stretch of concrete by the Eagle County plow crew. Often I shoveled the same snow twice ” back onto the street where it came from, at which point the plow guy would shift it back onto the sidewalk, forcing me to relocate it again. We reached an uneasy truce once a large berm of snow on the curb separated our efforts.
Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2008: Snowmass and Highlands, 11 inches. Aspen Mountain, 10 inches. The snowpack is unprecedented ” on our roof. The daily shoveling regimen has rounded the plastic blade of my shovel, not to mention my shoulders, but 3 feet of snow above our heads inspires nightmares of structural failure that trump our aching backs. We clear a mound of snow from the shed doors in the backyard and retrieve the ladder.
After a multiday effort, piles of snow, heavy as concrete, ring the house. One of the dogs takes to answering nature’s call on the shoveled back patio rather than seeking a spot in the belly-deep snow in the yard. I’m hard-pressed to blame her.
A household squabble over whether or not to plunk down money for a snowblower is resolved when a Glenwood Springs retailer informs us there’s not one to be had on the Western Slope.
Monday, April 7, 2008: “What the hell is that?”
A mix of snow, sleet, rain and graupel pelts the kitchen window, prompting the outburst and covering the grass (that’s what we call the brown, flattened mass that has emerged from winter’s heavy blanket) in this, the winter that never ends. On the slopes, 2 inches of new snow, according to the morning report.
And the forecast calls for a late-week snowstorm.
Enough already.
Highlights from the ski diary:
Dec. 2, 2007: Powder shots with the truck on Highway 82 east of Aspen, as we head to the Independence Pass gate, where only an intrepid Subaru driver has gone before. Well more than a foot of fresh snow for the inaugural ski tour of the season.
Jan. 6, 2008: Morning snow report at Aspen Highlands says 18 inches of new snow. We ski Robinson’s Run and have untracked powder virtually all to ourselves at midmorning.
Jan. 12, 2008: Picturesque ski tour through deep snow in East Elk Creek outside of New Castle. We have the place to ourselves.
First there was DEEPcember, coined by the Aspen Skiing Co. to describe the first big month of winter 2007-08. Then it was JanuBURIED (another Skico term), followed by FebRIDICULOUS (Was this an Aspen Times’ creation? Who remembers? Who cares?)
In a winter where it seemed like every month broke a new record for snow, nearly every one got a new name.
Which got us thinking here in the newsroom about some other names to capture the chronology of an epic winter. Here are some of the titles that never made it into the Aspen Skiing Co.’s marketing campaigns.
– NoSNOWvember
– DecemBURRRR …
– JIGANTUARY
– FeBRONANZA
– March of the Gapers
– A-pril it ever end?
Rich Burkley probably skis and sees the slopes of Aspen and Snowmass as much as anyone, and this season has blown the Aspen Skiing Co.’s vice president of mountain operations’ mind.
One recent day atop Aspen Mountain, Burkley gazed toward the east with a faraway look in his eye while engaged in conversation. A moment later he noted with interest that from his vantage point, he was higher than the Silver Queen Gondola cabins whizzing by. That was only possible, he said, because of the beefy snow base. (The Skico reported a base of 86 inches at the top of Ajax this week.)
In a previous conversation, Burkley listed a number of ways the season’s bounty amazed him:
– The Pump House on Aspen Mountain is completely buried in snow. It usually protrudes.
– The snow piles are even with or higher than the decks of some mountain restaurants. Cloud Nine Restaurant at Aspen Highlands was dubbed “The Igloo” this season because it was literally surrounded by snow.
– Some buildings, such as the ski patrol “bunker” near High Alpine restaurant at Snowmass, are covered with huge pillows of powder that resemble mushrooms from “Alice in Wonderland.”
– Terrain at various spots at Aspen Mountain, Snowmass and Highlands was roped off beneath chairlifts to avoid collisions between a skier’s head and a lift passenger’s ski. Nevertheless, the Skico used fewer bamboo poles to mark obstacles this season because the snow covered so many obstacles.
Burkley said one of his most memorable experiences of the winter came off the slopes. Walking along Waters Avenue, in the southeast end of town beneath Aspen Mountain, was a strange experience during the heart of winter because the street was reduced to a narrow path flanked by towering snowbanks. It felt more like a tunnel than a road, he said.
Those of us fortunate enough not to have much responsibility outside of our jobs were able to log an unprecedented number of powder days this season.
But for many of those attached to the balls and chains ” significant others and children ” this season has been less than epic. It seems there have been almost as many school snow-days as there have been powder days. It’s left many parents stuck with their curtain climbin’, rug crawlin’, crumb snatchin’ little angels all day while those of us who live in freedom track up all the pow.
A friend called me on my cell phone one powder day in March. Thinking she might be on Ajax, I stopped in the middle of Knowlton’s and picked up the call. “What are you doing?” she asked.
“I’m skiing, what else would I be doing?” I annoyingly replied.
She went on to chastise me for skiing while she and the rest of the responsible people relished what was so much more important ” spending time with their children. As a single person, I just don’t get it.
A few days later on the chairlift she confessed she was bitter to have been stuck at home when the daycare once again closed because of snow.
She then proposed what I think is a brilliant idea: Forming a coalition called Parents for Powder Days (PPD). The idea is that a teacher would be available and parents would agree to open their homes on a rotating schedule so there would be daycare on powder days. In order to participate and hold yourself a place, parents would pay a deposit that would be refundable at the end of the season. They would pay the teacher a daily rate for his or her commitment to care for their children while they tear it up on the mountain.
It would work for parents who ski or don’t because snow days also stick mothers and fathers with their children when they are supposed to be at work. As for us singles, it’s annoying when coworkers play the kid card and skip work. What’s worse, they sometimes bring the kids to the office and then work really doesn’t get done.
I got my fill of powder this season; in fact it almost became a chore.
I came to Aspen from the East Coast in 2006 to learn the newspaper biz, but I fell in love with skiing again and quickly learned to appreciate the finer things in town, like Aspen’s champagne powder, bluebird skies and crowd-free slopes.
And from that first dump in December this year, I charged the hill, brimming with gratitude to Ullr or whatever stroke of meteorological good fortune that blanketed us in fluffy whiteness again and again.
All season I ignored snow reports, and instead would set my alarm for 7:30 a.m. so I could peek out the window and see what was stacked on my grill out on the deck.
Some mornings, it was the passing snowplows that told me if it was worth skiing: A hard, metallic scraping plow meant not enough snow; a plow that went “whoosh” as it passed over the top layer of deep snow meant up-and-at-’em.
The entry to my apartment became like a volunteer fireman’s staging area, and I could fall into my gear in a matter of moments. I’d just stuff my face with whatever food was at arm’s length before running out the door to catch the Hunter Creek bus.
I’d rush to my favorite stashes ” a few lines on Face of Bell to the FIS lift, then a mine dump or over to Gentleman’s Ridge ” all the while minding the clock to make sure I wasn’t too late to work.
Then I’d stumble into the office with rubber legs, a beard encrusted with ice and a stupid grin on my face.
As the season wore on and the snow totals broke records, however, there were mornings I’d say I just didn’t want to do it.
Like the “time to make the donuts” guy limping to work every day, it was all I could do to drag my carcass out for another morning in a seemingly endless succession.
Usually, though, it was a matter of realigning priorities. “Who knows how many more powder days we’ll have?” I’d tell myself. Or what if life someday takes me away from Aspen?
So, I’d ball up my so-called problems and soldier it out into the sickness, knowing that someday when I’m plucking a banjo on the wraparound porch of a retirement home, I’ll wear a little smirk remembering this winter.
One of my more memorable ski days could have happened any season, I guess, but it wouldn’t have been the same without copious amounts of snow.
Four of us met at Woody Creek and drove up to Lenado in light snow on a Saturday in February. We piled out of the car and skinned a couple of miles up Woody Creek before turning up the Spruce Creek drainage.
We were roughly an hour behind our trail-blazer, who had a little more ambition than us that morning. We figured we would catch him since he was alone and breaking trail in four to six inches of fresh powder.
By the time we passed a junction to the Margy’s Hut we still hadn’t spotted our fearless leader. And now he was off the established trail and picking his way east through vast meadows of virgin powder and dark timber.
Our guide picked a route up an unnamed ridge that topped out at about 12,200 feet. We caught him right at tree line, after about three hours of brisk skinning. Amazingly, he had broken trail for those 4 miles with hardly any fuel ” he had forgotten his lunch on his kitchen counter. Some in our group shared their food with our gracious guide, then we prepared for the steep push up the final half-mile.
No sooner had we collected at the summit when our gentle snowstorm gave way to a full-fledged blizzard. The temperature plunged and strong winds whipped the snow. We hastily peeled the skins off our skis, threw on extra layers and scrambled down toward the protection of the trees.
Had it been a clear day, we would have soaked in views of the Williams Mountains and high peaks of the Holy Cross Wilderness, along with the vast backcountry surrounding Lenado and Aspen. As it was, we were lucky to see five feet ahead of us.
The wind whipped the snow with such force, some of us thought we were moving fast when we were hardly moving at all. It can make you dizzy.
When our fearless leader made a move to ski down, I was on his tail. If his orienteering skills were good enough to get us up there, I reasoned, I’d place my faith in him getting me down. He didn’t disappoint, although even he had to stop several times to orient himself and wipe off snow that the wind kept pasting to his face.
Our group soon gathered in the trees, where the blizzard mellowed to a gentler snowfall. One skier had a touch of frostbite from the ridge, and the rest of us weren’t far behind.
Truth be told, it was refreshing to feel the brief fury of a full-fledged Rocky Mountain blizzard in this most glorious of winters. Mother Nature has a distinctive way of reminding you who is queen.
It’s the snow that gets us all a little crazy.
Take a few hundred eager skiers, load Aspen Mountain with snow, and make them wait for more than an hour past the usual 9 a.m. gondola loading time while ski patrollers clear the mountain, and funny things can happen.
Or so it was on one day in February.
I’d been in the cue since 8:15 a.m. and was near the front of the line, dying with anticipation of more fresh tracks in a season of endless powder days.
The line of skiers extended down the steps and far into gondola plaza, and the grumbling grew ugly.
I was embarrassed by the pushing, shoving and yelling when Skico opened the floodgates, and I jockeyed to my seat on the gondola with a few skiers who’d been in the heart of the fray and were still fuming.
Then they started smoking pot.
Nothing wrong with that, bro. I don’t partake, but I’m not against anyone enjoying the herb, as long as it’s not in a closet-sized space with no ventilation hanging from a wire a few hundred feet in the air.
I was kind of the sixth wheel among a group of friends to whom stoking the pipe seemed as normal as popping a Chiclet, and I watched as the guy who first sparked it up passed the pipe to the guy next to me.
What do I do? I thought.
This is rude, and I don’t want to go through my day smelling like I’ve just come from a Grateful Dead show, or getting a contact high and acting stupid.
So, feeling like an uptight 1950s “square,” I spoke up to the second toker.
“Hey, man,” I said, trying to sound like I was hip to their lingo. “Could you hold off on smoking that until we’re out of the gondola?”
The guy looked at me with a sinister stare, then paused and lit the pipe defiantly, taking a deep inhale that told me to go to hell.
He stood up to blow the smoke out the window, but the wind blew the smoke right in my face.
I’m not a violent person, but I’ve got a bit of Popeye in me and this Brutus was starting me looking for my can of spinach.
Could I beat the crap out of this guy in a gondola? Should I call the cops?
My mind reeled, but I did nothing.
The guy carried on toking and blowing it out the window defiantly, and I couldn’t help wondering if the pot was actually working ” isn’t the stuff supposed to mellow you out?
I was happy when the door of the gondola opened, and I grabbed my skis and hurried away before someone grabbed my arm.
It was the guy who lit the bowl first. He apologized for not asking if he could spark up and said his friend had been rude.
It made my day.
Satisfied that I hadn’t started a gondola brawl, I walked away with a little faith in people, and took a deep hit of fresh air before charging the freshies.
As I write this, I am giggling inside because as I look outside I see that it is dumping ” again.
Most people are over it. But as long as the mountain is open, I say bring it on.
As of April11, we’d received nearly 3 feet of snow in the last week, mere days before the scheduled closing of Aspen and Snowmass.
What a perfect ending to a perfect season. Close to 400 inches of snow on top of the mountains and endless powder days that just keep coming.
I always loved April in the Rockies, when both my golf clubs and my ski boots are in the trunk and are often used in the same day. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, that hasn’t been the case this year. I can’t even get to my golf clubs because of all the snow in front of the shed in the back yard.
On April 1, I came off the mountain (a powder day!) and went directly to the Aspen Recreation office at the Red Brick and bought my season golf pass. It was the deadline before the prices went up and also the last day I could enter the contest to guess what day the municipal golf course would open. Whoever comes closest to guessing the right day and the first tee time will win a free season pass for 2009.
Looking at the extended forecast and getting a few expert opinions, I guessed May 24.
I hope I’m wrong. But if I’m not, then I hope next ski season isn’t this good. Because I’ll be golfing for free in ’09.
The best thing about running five or six days a week is the day of rest at the end. Or, in Aspen this winter, a day of downhilling with equipment actually designed for snow.
In the winter of 2007-08, which was a mighty one at that, the seventh day of rest ” or, in my case, snowboarding ” could not be denied. The first five or six days of running, however, were a battle.
Let’s see ” do I go for an eight-mile run in the snow and ice and risk breaking my neck, or spend a few hours riding champagne powder so I can wear a caviar smile all day? There are those types who actually do both in the same day, but this writer is not one of them.
Waking up knowing that it’s single digits outside and slick trails and roads await is certainly a good reason to hit the snooze button. Which I did, more than a few times.
Did I fall and bust my ass running this winter? Absolutely, multiple times. Did I see others bust theirs too? You bet, which had its own therapeutic value.
On one of the few sunny days in late February, a fellow harrier and I crossed paths, exchanging words about now nice the day was. But there was a caveat: “Watch out under that bridge,” he told me. “It’s nasty over there.”
And it was. Despite his advice, I fell.
This winter dished out some of the most deplorable running conditions I’ve ever experienced, but it was always nice to know that seventh day of the week would provide some scrumptious dessert, which always tastes better when you eat your vegetables.
