First turns

It's snowing again. It's sloppy, and the roads are slick, and crusted with salt and sand. It's starting. But the good thing is, the Basin is open. I begged for an hour the other day, stuffed my gear in the back of the jeep, and made my way up there on really bad roads. I only got two runs in, and there were several hundred people on the only run open. The only chair open was the Exhibition lift, taking us halfway up, dropping us off only a few turns from the bottom. But it was good, feeling snow under my board, slipping from edge to edge under a bluebird sky. Scarlett and I went back today. Since we have some extra help in the county right now, we all had the entire day off. The last several Sundays, we have gone to church before work, but today, after nearly thirty days of work for Mr. B, we stayed in bed long after the sun rose, asking eachother just what we were going to do with ourselves, getting greedy with our time off, tempting ourselves with various scenarios. We could go to Denver, we could ask for tomorrow morning off as well and go to Moab, we could sit and veg, and accomplish nothing, or stay in the house and do laundry. It's been three weeks since I last wore my favorite shirt, a soft, thin black teeshirt with a faded sillouhette of a long-haired headbanger on the front, and the words "if it's too loud, you're too old". It's the only skinny shirt I have that is also nightgown-comfortable. It spends no time on the hanger. I wear it the day after laundry day, then it lives in the hamper until it can be washed again. Ok, I admit. I am one of those instant gratification people. I dont mean that to sound dirty in the least, I just see absolutely no reason to push off until later anything that would make me happy right now. Like leaving my favorite clothes on the hanger while I wear something that makes me feel ugly. Anyway... I digress. The one thing that really tempted me to get happy was the thought of more sun, more outside, more snow. I waited until Scarlett got up and offered to take her along to A-Basin. She got a good start last March, got the feel for making careful turns without catching her edge and slapping herself to the ground, and couldn't wait to see if she could pick up where she left off. We got there right in the middle of the late-morning rush, and spent 45 minutes in line before getting on the chair. By the time we got back to the bottom, the line was longer, so we shouldered our boards and hiked up a side run with twenty other people, to the chagrin of the ski patrol. They tried their best to control several hundred powder-high skiiers and snowboarders, threatened a thousand dollar fine and confiscation of ski passes for closure violations, but in mid October, the delight of forbidden turns in eight inches of fresh powder outweighed the threats. Hundreds of tracks led under the ropes and through closed terrain. Another forty-five minute wait, another fifteen minute descent, and we headed home, cold, exhausted and hungry. It was a wonderful feeling.
Too bad our lives arent more about such play and less about running around, frantically trying to get ready for the looming date of December first. Keystone opens on the tenth of November, but the first big event is on the first, when Keystone kicks off it's season with thirty-six continuous hours of skiing and riding. It gets bigger every year. Last year, I actually attempted to snowboard at eleven o'clock at night, as late as I dared to be out, and never made it to the lift. After standing for an hour in line between the progressively more obnoxious man nursing a flask and the comfortably introspective one smoking a bowl, and studying the fake-snow ribbon of death that was the main run down to the chair, I changed my mind and walked back home. In theory, snowboarding all night sounds fun. In reality, it may not be the smartest thing to subject one's self to. I know, that sounds odd coming from the original adrenaline junkie. Make a note of it.
Tomorrow is another day, a big day, back in our real life. Just to show you what you all missed by not being at the Basin today, the picture at the top is of the lift lines.