Thursday morning ski report

Two facts:
1) on Thursdays I have no classes this semester.
2) Crested Butte is offering free skiing until Dec. 15th.

Okay…what do you think I did yesterday?

Why, yes, I did sit in my office and worked. Um. Yea.

So anyway, I borrowed one of Dr. Bones’ cars and headed for the hills. The drive from Gunni to Crested Butte is about 30 minutes and quite lovely. Again, hard to work a camera whilst driving, but there are a couple of points where one comes to a stop and can safely snap a picture. Most of these stops are expected…this one – not so much.










Once I got to Crested Butte, the first stop was Crested Butte Mountain Sports to check out the boot selection. SpudBro and SpudSIL got me a gift certificate for the shop for my birthday, and I have desperately needed new ski boots for years. My last pair was purchased during the first Clinton administration, and while they certainly remind me of happier political times, there’s only so much abuse polythene padding can handle. I tried on a couple of pairs and wound up with Technicas that the guy in the shop (the super-helpful and friendly Steve) had sold to a friend who used them once and didn’t care for them. Since they were technically used, I got a great price. More importantly, they hold my delicate little heels in place – something I’ve always found troublesome in most ski boots.

Here are my be-booted and be-skied lower extremities riding the lift. (The rest of me was also riding the lift, but is less photogenic.)

As you can tell from the picture, there’s not a great deal of snow yet. Actually, there’s only enough snow for skiing on the runs – the surrounding area is pretty bare, especially anything South-facing.

However, as they say, the worst day skiing is still better than the best day at the office. Granted, this is probably said by those who have neither experienced massive head trauma nor received a Lasker prize, but I can confidently say that I’ve paid well over a day’s wages to ski on substantially lousier snow that was available yesterday for free. There were a couple of slippery spots, but the fall lines down the edges were superb. Having heard a lot of chatter from my students about the prospects of a new run opening up today, I expected to see at least one of them on the mountain, and I wasn’t disappointed. Not sure if it helps or hurts my classroom cred to be seen sporting pigtails whilst wearing Gortex, but I’m willing to risk it.

Here's a prettier view farther up the mountain - still not much snow.