Half-Days
November.
Our new locker room occupies a hastily built-out corner of the Grand Colorado’s garage. Window- and bathrooms-less, it smells of exhaust and feet. Returning pros squabble about where to put the computers and the vending machines, but everyone agrees there are not enough benches or places to put the skis.
A construction site behind the Magic Carpet swallowed our old home over the summer. Broken ground leaks of diesel plumes inot the learning area. When the wind turns north, they carry all the way up to Trygve's Platter, which isn’t running yet anyway. Through peepholes in the construction fence we glimpse bones being laid for the resort’s first five-star hotel: The Imperial Hotel and Alpine Chalet Residences. Embedded in its 70,000 foot sprawl will be the “Sky Domes,” glass geodesic houses where high-net worth individuals can dine and stargaze. For now, though, it’s just a big dirty hole.
The sups lug in a coffee maker and some jugs of water. Donut day still happens, sometimes. The laughter and rituals carry over, but our common table is gone. Blue jackets swing on hooks. Boot dryers hum, filling the air with their familiar musk. The pros trickle in but the snow does not. A week is all it takes to shred the “White Ribbon of Death” to a shoelace. It feels more like April than November.
I return from another lower-mountain lesson, sixth toe burning, wearing only a thin base layer beneath my uniform, unsure what the uniform is for.
December.
Thirty-seven of 193 lifts open. An 18” base. Daytime temperatures squat above freezing at base elevation, refreezing weakly at night, if at all. Snowmaking fills narrow wet-bulb windows, laying down dense, artificial ribbons that abrade quickly under holiday traffic. Natural snowfall hasn’t built depth; it sublimates, melts, or compacts back into dirt.
The hollow statue of the Norse god Ullr stands motionless at the base of Peak 8. His bow drawn, his arrow aims at a widening patch of dirt beneath the Colorado SuperChair. Kids slither around sharks—rocks hidden like prizes between moguls—and micro-forests that push up defiantly through the white stuff we’ve paid dearly to make. Dirt persists between Trygve's Platter, eliminating our beginner progression terrain at Peak 8. But enormous kickers, a quarter pipe rise, and a maze of rails shine to skier’s left of the de-prioritized learning area. For one glorious weekend, the features are lit up by snowboard luminaries, some of whom are on track to compete in this year’s Olympics. The stars leave but their infrastructure remains. Rumors circulate that a million dollars of our snowmaking budget has gone into polishing this pro-level park that almost none of our guests (also staff) can safely ride.
Exasperated instructors confiscate skis and send one-footed groups down the greens. The sups laud creative pedagogy, but the parents are not impressed. Lesson prices have gone up. A full-day private now starts at around $1300. A half day at $900.
“We’re in a donut,” lament the locals in bars. “The snow is hitting everywhere all around us. East, West, they’re all getting pounded. But not us.”
In Broomfield, the corporate wizards reach for euphemism: variable, packed powder, early-season conditions. But it isn’t early season. It’s Christmas week—the first peak rush of what’s supposed to be winter. A persistent ridge of high pressure has diverted more storm tracks north. On Christmas Day, rain falls on Main Street. We know that the folks in Broomfield, the ones in the dark blue jackets, know even deeper than us: “variable” isn’t just a euphemism for bad snow. It’s overworked bodies. Dwindling jobs. Faltering facilities.
January.
The donut shows no signs of abating. The apps show a 30” base at Breck, 70” at Hunter. Let’s not even mention what’s occurring at Jay Peak or in Vermont. The resort’s social media team burns overtime. As the weeks slip, they go from posting white rooms money shots taken last season (presumably to entice March bookings) to addressing the blight directly. Look! We are so authentic! Come and have fun with us despite the shit conditions! Skiing’s not about quality or quantity! It’s all about who you slide with. Look! Here’s an adorable avy dog in training! Aren’t the views, like, so pretty?
In a week, the resort will have used all its state allocated water for snowmaking. While the local news quietly covers the debate about opening a thirsty new data center on the Western Slope, passholders are told not to worry about the snowmaking. The resort will buy reserves from the town. And where (everyone thinks but dares not ask), when that runs out, will the town buy its reserves from?
One Thursday, I ride the gondola down with a Boomer instructor after another day of no lessons. His beard is the color of refrozen snow and his Carhartts have holes in them; he wears the uniform of the veteran ski bum well. He smiles correctively at me when he asks how my season is going and I respond honestly.
“Don’t be so dower, dear. It’s great to have all this time to free ski! I took the day off to telly.”
He grins at me like a guy who bought real estate here in the 80s.
The gondola swings to an unannounced halt, though there’s not a breath of wind. We bounce on the final stretch of cable, just out of reach of the terminal. I glimpse my Subaru with its kayak rack stretching toward our sky bubble like elk antlers. Dead grass and parking lot puddles quilt a valley floor blanket of beiges and grays. Kindling and slop. I miss Maine. The steady dampness of the East Coast. The iodine scent of the coast. The up and down of the ocean.
“You know,” he continues, “there was a winter like this once. Back in the early ’80s, before snowmaking. Breck shut down for a month. Then it dumped. Absolutely nuked. And when it did, we had the biggest spring I can remember.”
Of all the words skiers use to talk about snow, that one— nuke—is the one I hate most.
One by one, my regulars cancel.
“So sorry,” they apologize, “but we’ve decided to go to Mexico this year. Hope you get some snow soon!”
“So sorry about the conditions this year. I totally understand,” I apologize right back. “Have an awesome time at the beach…”
Beginners take their place. My schedule fills up with the half-day privates that are all the rage these days. Value is squeezed like blood from stone in a sport synonymous with money. The culture around skiing seems to have shifted with the climate but here both subjects are mostly verboten. There is only Stoke, Send, and Slut Strands.
The Magic Carpet churns while prayers for inches resound through the county at night. The bars fill up and the restaurants report a boost in earnings. Across Vail Pass, in Eagle County, the southern facing aspects soak up so much sun they’ve stayed completely bald. Squirrels and chipmunks chatter on the treed fringes of blue groomers, and confused moose stumble out onto the runs at Peak 9. Birdsong, not normally heard til closing week, trills in the air.
February.
The Olympic torch burns through Cortina. And just like that, the world is enamored with winter sports again. Lindsey nearly loses a leg and Mikaela reclaims the glory that eluded her in Beijing. The natural order of GOATs and old, useless ligaments is restored in the FIS narrative. Breezy Johnson says “yes” at the finish, a cross-country skier cries about cheating on his girlfriend, and Kilde beams from the sidelines. Everywhere but here, it seems, the skiing skies on.
Suddenly, the water for snowmaking is all gone. The sun gnaws what’s left into afternoon slush, which promptly congeals overnight. Patrol shuts down runs previously opened. Collisions after collision make local headlines. One bro at Keystone rushes a tree so hard that he loses an eyeball, then promptly sues the goggle company.
Prayers for powder dissolve into hushed chatter about summer. The experts say the threshold has already been passed to generate enough snowpack to see us safely through fire season. The runoff will limp along. Whatever does slip into the river beds will disappear quick. Lake Dillon, which hydrates the Denver metro area and didn’t freeze until this month, sleeps fitfully under her thin cover. She tosses beneath her thin sheets of ice like a child with a fever. It is announced that Frisco will close the marina’s dock and public boat ramps for the summer.
Just in time for President’s Day, patrol drops rope on T-Bar. There’s dirt in the track on the way up, and crowns of rock complicating all entrances to the bowl.
“Can we go ski up there?” the kids ask.
I shake my head. “Not today.”
Even the old timer isn’t taking days off to telly anymore.