Why spring skiing should be taken seriously   

Standing atop Ajax on Wednesday convinced me spring skiing sometimes transcends powder days.

Skiers lounged upon Sundeck lawn chairs like Audrey Hepburn on South Beach. Though my favorite runs were carpeted with casseroles of mashed potatoes encrusted upon beds of coarse pebbles, phalanxes of instructors and their pupils practically diminished. Fifty-degree temps, a gentle breeze, and an iridescent, bluebird horizon cloaking snow-capped peaks greeted me at every lift.

The traditional side hits along Silver Bell were all mine. Shifty. Mute grab. Backside 180. Squirrels in pine-tree canopies were my only audience. Deadmau5, Pink Floyd, and The Breeders jammed in my earbuds.

Amid this nirvana, however, is the stark reminder that the season nears another end. Buttermilk closed this past weekend, while the DJs now prepare their turntables for the final aprés dance parties at Highlands, Snowmass, and, last but not least, Aspen Mountain. Before we know it, those magnificent Food & Wine tents will intersperse Wagner Park, and we’ll be listening to Andrew Zimmern talk exotic dishes.

More importantly, we transition into the dreaded fire season. 

Many inflamed catastrophes have come across my reporter’s desk within my 14 or so years of professional journalism. It’s hard to forget. The house fires, the prairie fires, the bar fires. Talking to the displaced victims — the distinct smell of char and soot emanating from their clothes right after they lost everything — has left an indelible mark upon my psyche.

It was only months after the Grizzly Creek Fire, having consumed nearly 33,000 acres of forestland in Glenwood Canyon, that I took a job at the Glenwood Springs Post Independent. The fire had subsided by then, but I was lucky enough to cover the ensuing mudslides the next summer. In comes Thursday, July 29, 2021. What weather observers called a “500-year” monsoonal event loosened many canyon burn scars, causing major debris slides. More than 100 motorists were trapped in Glenwood Canyon — 29 of whom were forced to seek refuge in Hanging Lake Tunnel.

More recently, how can I forget the Spring Creek Fire in Parachute of 2023? Every. Single. Day. We regurgitated dispatches from federal wildland fire teams and the Grand Valley Fire Protection District about that godforsaken inferno. Red fire retardant pierced the blue sky like a dusty hell. Locals worried the fire would catastrophically ignite the nearby gas wells. To make matters worse, a case of norovirus spread among the firefighters’ base camp.

This leads me back to the melting snow in Aspen.

Did you know? We’ve lost about 30 or so average ski season days since the 1980s because us humans cannot resist polluting our atmosphere, according to Heather Hansman’s book, “Powder Days,” but my goodness, there’s an unbeatable convenience when snow recedes like my hairline.

Colorado Highway 82 traffic becomes manageable. Restaurant workers get a well-deserved, much needed reprieve as we transition to off-season. The locals seem a bit more relaxed, and everything begins to slow down.

In my 36 years on this planet, I ask myself, how many more of these seasons remain? Have we in our human existence done irreparable damage? Will there be enough foundation left to spawn another Alex Ferraira, Bridger Gile, or Alice Mckennis Duran? Does Wiley Maple have to continue to lobby Congressmen in stiff suits? 

But in these strange and terrible times, I try to remind myself of the good that takes place all around us on a daily basis. The Pitkin County landfill has developed a waste diversion program aiming to offset 40,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2040. Aspen also aims to reduce organic waste in landfills by 25% by 2025 and achieve 70% total waste diversion by 2050. Meanwhile, a colossal prescribed burn on nearly 3,000 acres northeast of Mt. Sopris is slated to soon take place to mitigate wildfire danger.

These are the types of dichotomies I hope continue to amplify not just across the valley, but also the state, the nation, and the rest of the world. Perhaps only then will a spring-ski-loving goon such as yours truly grow into an old man while people plug their ears as I complain incessantly about there being too many powder days. 

Ray K. Erku can be reached at (970) 429-9120 or rerku@aspentimes.com.