Hello from the land of no snow. Not yet. Sure, a skiff or two, few and far between, and snow in the shady areas, but no early season dumps, no freshie pow, no riding on pillowey softness. No driving on ice, either, but we are ready for that, if it would just snow.

I had the day off (the first in several weeks), so i took my board to Keystone. Keystone, of the new gondola and three runs, a fairly impressive terrain park with the first "legit jump" in Colorado. I was riding a new, larger board, and was catching my edges a bit until I settled into a new sensation, so I left the jibs and jumps for another day. I do not jib anyway, not really. Not since I biffed that box two years ago. If I look closely, I can still see the marks on my shins from that one. I still feel a little sick when I remember the pain of coming down across that metal rail shins-first.

When man-made snow is piled on the runs, then groomed, it creates wonderful little kickers along the sides of the runs. An adventurous snowboarder dips down, off the ribbon of snow, into the thin snow, gathers speed, then shoots back up onto the run, catching air and a backside board grab as they hit the snow piled on the run. If one finds all of these little bonus jumps, one can ride from one to the other, all the way down, never catching a scary amount of air, but working on well-rounded launch and landing skills.

One of our new employees, Austin (I'll get to that later) met me halfway through the day and we spent several hours snowboarding together, following each other through the crud and the chop to find the kickers and bumps that would challenge us. We quit about 2:00, hunger finally sending me home. I am pleasantly tired now, well fed, a fire cracking in the stove, a documentary on the TV, sitting on the couch wrapped in a blanket, still wearing my base layer. Days off are good.

Just before Austin arrived, I had gone back to the condo I had used to change and store my gear in, and switched out snowboard and snowboard boots for skis and ski boots. I was just walking back to the gondola when he called, and I decided to just make a run or two on my skis in spite of the fact that he was on a board, until I saw the line at the gondola. a hundred? two hundred people? Once on the hill, everyone can spread out between the Montezuma Chair and the new gondola mid-station, but the base of the gondola is the only way to get on the mountain. I muttered to myself, then walked back to the condo to exchange skis for snowboard, not willing to come back down the the bottom again once I was on the mountain. So far this year, I have only walked in my ski boots, but I haven't skied yet.

Back when BBD spent a whole chunk of money on a new snowmobile, I got a sort of carte blanc, a result of his feeling a bit cheesy about spending such a chunk, to spend on something I really wanted. (I quote, "I know honey... you don't spend as much on toys as I do, it just seems like it because you spend it more often. But if you really want something you should get it.") The plan then was to buy fat skis, skins, AT bindings, and lightweight boots for the backcountry. By now, he has long forgotten about that, and the thought of backcountry gear tends to make him panic and pull out the bank statements. So I gave up on that, but I found a used snowboard, much larger than my trusty Gnu, for pennies on it's original cost, and set it up with on-sale bindings for my powder board. It is longer and wider, and will hopefully add a bit of float to powder riding. (Now, if we'd just have the powder to ride it in...) In the meantime, i have been riding it on-piste, and have fallen in love. My old board rode like a sports car, responsive, flexible, quick and manueverable. My new board is a tank. It can take it all. Solid, sturdy, heavy, and smooth, it lands jumps matter-of-factly, holds an edge like a meat-cleaver, and stays under me so well, it almost gets forgotten. And occasionally betrays me by catching an edge with it's longer tail. Who says you can't love twice at the same time?

On the work front, we now have two new employees. Austin and Sandra arrived nine days ago from western Kansas, settling into an apartment with a six month lease, and reporting to work. Sandra will be our second inspector, and Austin will be our maintenance man. Watching them, we experience a bit of deja vue. Newlywed flatland kids in Summit County, him a bit of a nomad, her a western kansas farmgirl, in a brand new experience, learning a new job, in a new home, she learning how to snowboard and drive in the ice and ski season traffic. I have forgotten how much is simply remembered in this job. Locations of condos, owner's fetishes and pet peeves, all the things that can slip past the staff, only to be noticed by our guests, weak points in individual condos (that bathroom freezes every time it gets cold, you have to make sure the in-floor heat is cranked...that light socket comes and goes, changing the bulb won't help...this owner does not want us to use ice melt...that light's on a timer, so it won't turn on during the day...don't park there, ice can fall on your vehicle's hood...one parking permit allowed for this building, two for that one, none for that one, and a special one for that one...a master key gets me into this one, a lockbox into that one, I have to take a separate key for that one, a garage code for that one...and please, oh, please read the guestbooks once in a while and tear out the naughty pages...how am i ever going to remember all this!?) Austin and B have spent the week driving aroung together, fixing things, getting the units ready for check-in maintenance-wise, in addition to helping deliver new furniture and remove the old, and Sandra and I have been driving around together getting units ready for check-in presentation and clean-wise.

Tomorrow, we will hit it hard again, preparing for another wave of Thanksgiving guests. We got everything ready for the guests checking in for the entire week, had a day with no check-ins, and now we start on those arriving Wednesday for the actual holiday. We are crossing our fingers, holding our breaths, and saying our prayers that it snows soon, (preferably during a Broncos game, so all those football fans see fat snowflakes in Colorado) and bookings pick up. Yeah, we'd be lying to say we are not feeling the pinch of an economic scare, reflected in less and shorter vacation bookings. But we are hopeful that the rich will still ski, regardless.

Obviously, the irregularity of my posts are reflecting how busy we are these days. All the work of winter, but still no snow to play in... We barely remember last April, when we were so covered up we could not remember what the ground looked like.

Hello and welcome to the land of burning thighs, early dark, and widespread, mounting excitement. It is truly beginning to feel like winter. My snowboard has taken up residence in the entryway, my skis just inside the living room door. Last night, during our weekly get together with our diverse group of friends, words like "ollie" and "couloir", "first descent" and "base camp" floated about the conversation like wayward snowflakes. We had a good time, and after several helpings of barley vegetable soup, my own dinner rolls, and mouthfuls of sheer ecstasy in the form of vegan German chocolate cake, Mel announced we would be having a ski conditioning circuit training session for those of us interested in sticking around for it.

I had no idea the level of intensity such an innocent sounding workout would require. Thirty minutes of jumping, squatting, push ups, crunches, all modified to wring the most agony out of quivering muscles, stopping, catching one's breath not allowed. I thought my legs could take it, after all, I have spent the summer powering up hills on my bike and sprinting up them in my new Chaco trail runners. Oh, I was so painfully wrong. My quads are screaming at me today, as are hams, glutes and muscles in the inner thigh I did not know existed. I am reminded that there is a reason skiers have legs like they do. To loosely quote a fitness mag I recently read, "(Athlete in question) would have had a hard time taking gold at the Winter Olympics had she not possessed trunks roughly the size of a Buick LeSabre's". Here in the high country, where it is suspected that Maslow's hierarchy of needs left out a major one- winter sports- the malnourished, anorexic standard of beauty our generation of softies expects women to look like does not apply. The legs of these women will never adorn fashion runways and glossy pages advertising lingerie or razors, but they will take them where they want to go- 14,000 feet and higher, 45 degrees and steeper, ultra marathons and beyond. Here, being told one has skinny legs is almost an insult.

As of last Thursday, we are missing a member of our Wednesday bunch. Roxy, the great pyrenees/german shepherd/who knows what else, with one perpetually cocked ear and frenzied wagging tail, became ill last week. Within two days she went from a puppyish six year old dog, beggar of belly rubs and ear scratches, to an unresponsive patient at a Denver animal hospital, to lying under a fresh mound of dirt in our friend's backyard. Tears have been just under the surface for the last week as her family and friends try to adjust to life without her. The downside to the dog culture here is the true grief felt when one must say goodbye to one's non-human family members.

As the evenings get longer and the workdays stretch past dark, I have begun a new art project. I begged an epic ski shot from a friend who has spent much more time in the back country than I, a photo of a snowboarder exploding out of the powder, over a rock outcropping, against the backdrop of a bluebird sky and a panorama of rocks and snow. I have access to more king sized sheets than I know what to do with, sheets no longer usable by our lodging company, and a quilting frame, and I keep going bigger when I paint, just because I can. I want to create a mural-sized painting based on the photo, without the disadvantage of a mural- the fact that it is stuck wherever I paint it. Bedsheets work well enough to paint on, not as well as canvas, but much cheaper. I sat up late last night, drawing the snowboarder two feet tall on a sheet of paper, to be perfected before being transferred to the "canvas". Now I need to get to Frisco to buy paint and big brushes. I am getting a little giddy about it, as I always do on the brink of a new project. This is the fun stage, when it is visualized and there is none of the logistical problems to work around, no screw ups to have to cover or modify, when I can see it as a masterpiece instead of it's mediocre reality.