When I arrived home mid Sunday afternoon on June 12th after spending the morning ski touring I was giddy with excitement. I described in detail to my wife and daughters how great the skiing had been and how much fun I had. My wife shook her head at me with a laugh and a smile. She said, “Do you realize this is the third weekend in a row you have been skiing. Isn’t ski season over yet.”
As I spent the late afternoon playing at the lake with my family, watching my daughters build a raft of driftwood while chasing each other up and down the beach, I thought back to my first day of skiing this season. It was long ago, back in mid November. I chuckled about how I had skinned up a forest service road looking for snow. I was yearning for winter to start. I had parked my car when I reached a point where there was about 8″ of snow. When I neared my turn around point there was about 8″ of nice light powder with utterly no snow underneath. I had enjoyed being out and didn’t mind the lack of turns as I skated and poled back down the road.
Back to reality, my wife and daughters were enjoying summer. The girls played and splashed in the frigid water that was once snow. I speculated that I had possibly skied upon that water in its previous form earlier in the year. I reflected about all of the days I had spent on skis the last eight months. The views, the laughs, the pleasure of being in the mountains. I smiled about the variety of things the mountains continue to give me every time I am among them. The pure joy I feel as I am flying down a mountain with skis under my feet.
I could see a similar happiness on my kids faces as they played in the water and ran around. It is the feeling we get when we are outside with our heart pounding. A sense of limitless freedom. I then began to count the number of days I had spent skiing the past season. I’m sure my wife wondered why I was smiling and counting on my fingers. As we sat next to each other on the beach and watched our kids play in the water I turned to her and said, “30 days.” ”What?” she said. ”30 days,” I said, “I have skied at least 30 days this year.”
Now, I must defend myself a little here. I am not a total scum bag that goes off skiing every weekend, leaving my family at home. This is two months over a half of a year. A dozen of those days were at ski areas with my family. Then you throw in a few days of lowland skiing in mid winter where I was only gone for a few hours. It really isn’t as bad as it sounds. It has to be less than that I slowly stated, ”You guys have hardly missed me, right?” My wife paused for a few moments and simply stated, “You do realize, you have the best wife in the world.” I nodded my head and agreed that was undoubtedly true.
As the summer sun began to fall toward the horizon I looked toward the mountains, wishing for the clouds to come and the temperature to drop and snow to start falling. I gazed at the still deep snow on the peaks. My kids were having fun playing in the cold water and enjoying summer, soon the lake will start to warm but I am not ready for the snow to be gone. It just offers way too much delight for me. I have no compassion for those who are ready for the heat. Give us clear cold nights and moderate clear days. Give us spring skiing for a while.
Spring has been resistant in coming to the mountains this year. We have been stuck between late winter glop and spring corn. Skiing on Memorial Day Weekend and the first two weekends in June, I have finally skied corn snow. The snow pack seems to finally be evolving to spring. Is there a chance there will be more skiing to come? On June 12th at a trail head in the North Cascades it finally felt like spring to me. Neither the temperature nor environment felt like a week shy of Summer. The air was cold and the snow was deep. As I applied my skins to my skis, the tips were barely above the snow bank along the highway.
If Summer doesn’t apply its warmth to the snow and we continue to have some cool nights in the mountains, maybe the snow will be skiable the next time I have the guts to depart my family for a day on skis. Don’t get me wrong I cant wait for a good day in the mountains strolling through a nice meadow, climbing a rocky slope or sitting next to an alpine lake with my family. I’m just not sure I’m ready to let the ski season go just yet.
