High Points: April showers (hopefully)

And just like that, it’s April.

This past Tuesday, under a full moon that was obscured by welcome clouds, we said goodbye to one of the strangest months in our history. March went out like a lamb after roaring like a heated and demented lion for the best part of three weeks. It wasn’t just the lack of snow that made March so unusual, though there was that. But mostly, it was the consistently unrelenting, scorching temperatures that caused the premature closing of ski runs and resorts in the valley and across the parched state.

If you were here, I don’t have to tell you how hot it was in March. But I will.

Just for kicks, I went back through the March issues on the online archives of The Aspen Times for the last two weeks and looked at the high temperatures recorded from each previous day. Next to each high temperature, there was a telltale “R” noting when the temperature had set a daily record for the day. From March 19, when the high temperature hit 69 degrees, until March 30, a total of 12 consecutive days we had record highs. All in the high 60s or low 70s. Even with the now acknowledged heating of the planet, we are generally subject to a day or two of heat records a month, but this was unprecedented, and it took its toll on the ski season.  

Sunlight closed two weeks ahead of schedule on March 22; Buttermilk, the lowest of Aspen One’s four ski hills in terms of elevation, called it quits on Wednesday, March 25, when the Aspen high temperature reached 76 degrees for the second time in the month — an all-time March high. It tied the record set less than a week earlier on March 21. Aspen Highlands held out until March 29, when it too was forced to close two weeks early. And now we have Snowmass shutting down its remaining lifts on Easter Sunday, April 5.

Then the calendar turned to the page that said “April,” and just like that, it began to snow above 9,000 feet and rain in the valleys below. It was as though Mother Nature was saying on April Fool’s Day that she was sorry for the tricks she played on all of us here in the West in March. It felt like a gentle and mild spring storm. There were 4 inches-plus of wet snow on Snowmass and at the Sundeck on Aspen Mountain. And downvalley where we got a lovely, lilting rainfall as the trees and grasses turned an emerald green for the first time this spring.

April is always a transition month in the valley, but it can be very giving. And for the past couple of years the month has provided both fresh snow and some great turns. “April is the new March!” I remember hearing someone exclaim last season on the final day of skiing on Aspen Mountain following a storm that made top-to-bottom skiing not just possible but a joy. My last turn of the year created a wave of slush on the skiers’ left at the bottom of the gondola that actually crested and soaked the people who were sitting in the big Adirondack chairs in shorts and tees, smiling as they watched their friends come down and close the ski season out.

Time will tell if the upcoming days of April will be more like March than July, but the beginning salvo of snow is a good omen. Personally, I wouldn’t mind if it snowed and rained every day this month and created a mud season unlike any other.

A fellow can dream, can’t he?