snow day

It was snowing on Christmas Eve Eve and for the first time all season, the snow was good!  Temperatures were reasonable (18-28 F) and the snow went on all day, with increasing winds and decreasing visibility as the day went on.  We weren't the only ones jonesing for some new snow, a brand new five inches to start the day with; the ski bus was crowded and people seemed stoked.  With only five inches at that point, there wasn't much new terrain open but this was the grand opening of the new Supreme lift, so the crowds seemed to migrate there.

It was great to ski in some soft snow again without hearing everyone's skis scratching across the hard stuff.  Some people - kids and non-skiers - struggled a bit because there hadn't been any grooming, but the snow wasn't heavy and even where it clumped up it was skiable.  We stayed at Collins at first, and were very pleased with the snow.  H was back on his telemark skis for the first time this season and I thought he looked good.

We finally went to check out New Supreme around 10:30 a.m. and found ourselves unimpressed with the new lift.  I will only say this once, because H says I need to stop complaining about it, but I think it's too bad they replaced the old triple.   The new lift is a quad, which means it is less favorable to single skiers, and is much faster, which means more people crowding the trails.  The base of the lift is right outside Alf's lodge, which means that you get a lot of beginners, and the run-out back to the lift is very long and flat.  I am comparing New Supreme to New Coke: we didn't need the change and it wasn't changed for the better.  Rant over.

Lunch was a little before noon at Alf's and we were happy to see our favorite cashier Carrie back again for her college break.  After lunch, the wind started to pick up and the cloud ceiling dropped; visibility got really difficult and it was as much from the clouds as it was from the still-falling snow.  Sugarloaf, which was skiing really well, was quite busy so we went back to Collins and did laps there until about 2 p.m.  Our legs were shot at this point, unused to skiing in actual snow (and H on his first day on teles to boot).

We found the saloon!

To mix things up a bit, we decided to check out the saloon on the second floor of the Goldminer's Daughter lodge - we had ridden a chair with one of the bartenders earlier.  The saloon was big, with huge windows looking out at Collins face, and casual, with people still in their ski boots tromping around.  We split a pitcher of Cutthroat and then went to catch our bus, which was 45 minutes late, because snowstorms always mess up the bus schedules.  Still, when it finally showed up we scored seats and simply appreciated the fact that we didn't have to drive down the canyon in the snow.  It had been such a fun day of skiing that we weren't about to get grumpy about a late bus.