The Optimist – 100 days to winter

My wife did not want me to write this column. In her view, writing this column will make winter real and might even accelerate its arrival. She’s not ready. Summer is too good here. I, on the other hand, felt that last winter was too short. Too many warm days in December, three days that nearly touched 60 degrees in January. The amazing Nordic trail team that builds and maintains our free Nordic system had shovels in hand far too much of the winter. They performed miracles keeping the trails skiable.

In our warming world, winter feels scarce, a little more precious than the other seasons. As the leaves turn golden and high country storms dust Daly and Pyramid peaks with their first snows, it’s time to get fired up that winter is coming. Growing up in Miami, where our highest peak was literally Mt. Trashmore (exactly what you think it is) winter was a mythical creature. For people in the northern US, palm trees and warm waters must have seemed exotic. For a kid growing up in South Florida, watching TV and seeing those mountain towns with twinkling lights and powdered sugar snow seemed impossibly magical.

In 1992, I remember coming home from early season baseball practice to watch Alberto Tomba gallivant through the Albertville Olympics — both on the course and around the town. Though it was only February, mosquitos already buzzed mercilessly in the Florida evenings. But on TV, cowbells serenaded Tomba as he danced through the gates during the day and with French and Italian models in the evening. Now that was a sport and athlete with panache!

Over time, I have modified the Christopher Walken “More Cowbell” theory to assess the excellence of a sport. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please go to YouTube and search for “More Cowbell.”) If a sport involves cowbell, it is fundamentally excellent. If spectators line a race course maniacally clanging an old-fashioned cowbell, well, you have yourself a sport. The Tour de France? Cowbell … especially on the mountain climbs, which are the best part. Every discipline of downhill skiing? Cowbell, lots of it. Nordic skiing? Just listen to the Norwegian or German fans go crazy with those cowbells. Essentially, the entire winter (and increasingly summer) Olympics are a giant symphony of clanging cowbell. It’s no accident that winter sports have the highest concentration of cowbell. Some people prefer grown men assaulting each other with pads, helmets and an oblong ball made of porcine skin. But I ask, where is the cowbell?

Beside the inherent greatness of winter sports, we always have some new goodies heading our way each winter. This year, Coney Express in Snowmass will offload some of the Base Village traffic that hits the gondola and VX on busy mornings. Nice work by the SkiCo branding team in dropping the Coneygame name. It sounded like something a hobbit would eat for second breakfast. Hero’s will see improved glades and hopefully safer early season skiing.

But it’s the things that don’t change that we look forward to the most. Highland Bowl, Tiehack and Hanging Valley on a powder day. Dallas Freeway or Expedition-to-Nugget at 9:01 for corduroy the day after a powder day, the skis carving the snow like a thin layer of soft butter. SkiCo will once again offer its incredible youth passes for any kid in the valley enrolled in local schools or AVSC. And of course, the single best deal in Aspen is our Nordic system — 60 miles of free cross-country trails, with a Nordic trail no more than a 10-minute drive from any location past Old Snowmass. There might be five places on this lovely, rare planet of ours that have four ski mountains and 60 miles of Nordic track in such close proximity. I know we are one of them. I’m just not sure who the others would be.

Power of Four and Ski for the Pass will be back in February. X Games and Palm Tree will bring the party, while the morning uphill crew will bring the pain on Ajax before the sun is out. And you can be certain of a daily sighting of a Gucci ski suit-wearing influencer with a Louis Vuitton fanny pack snowplowing their way down Spar Gulch. Never gets old, does it? We would miss them if they were gone. Really.

Even the dogs are better off when the season turns to winter. Suddenly, our canine friends have thousands of acres previously monopolized by us humans or our cars — Lab Lane and Bernese Boulevard on the golf courses, Highway 82 past the winter gate, Maroon Creek Road past T-Lazy. Is there anything better than seeing a dog bounce through foot deep snow? They love it as much as we do. The only ask, dog owners, is to keep the Nordic trails and classic tracks in good shape by keeping the dogs (and their walking owners) on the assigned trails.

So, enjoy those fall trail runs and mountain bike rides. It’s magical now too. Get those ballots filled out and returned before Nov. 5. Escape to somewhere warm before the snows and visitors descend. Because winter is coming — about 100 days until the official start, but maybe Mother Nature will smile early. How lucky would that be?

Greg Goldfarb lives in Aspen.