Melting Away

The 2007 ski season is very rapidly coming to an end. The weather for the last week? Highs in the mid to upper 60s. 60s! How hot is that? Today I had a class with clients from Texas, Florida, and Tennessee. They all commented that it's hotter here than it was at home. Fantastic. (A quick aside: I met one guy who was attending college at MTSU (Middle Tennessee State University). A name like begs for a little more research and, sure enough, MTSU is located in Murfreesboro, TN — smack in the middle of Tennessee).

Oh, and 60 degrees is really, really hot when you're wearing snow gear. We're required to wear our jackets to help maintain our professional image, which means we get hot and sweat. A lot. Right now my outfit consists of shorts, a t-shirt, my snowboard jacket and pants. Pretty much everyone else is riding sans jacket. We've even had a few bikini sightings already. :)

So back to Park City. Skiing is strictly limited to the main runs now and even that's not a sure thing; patches of grass, dirt, and rocks are popping up everywhere. And the slush is something else. You basically can't ride after 1:00pm or so because the snow is so wet and so slushy that your board (or skis) get completely stuck. I learned this the hard way by attempting a few jumps in the terrain park in the afternoon a couple of days ago. I landed the jump cleanly but my board hit the ground and didn't move. Sadly I still had forward momentum and continued head first over the board.

It's also a little hard to stay motivated this time of year. Aside from wanting to improve a killer raccoon tan, most instructors are ready to be off the mountain. As one of my friends said, "You know when you're driving on the freeway and you realize you're sick of driving so you hit cruise control, kick back, and tune out? I hit cruise control a few days ago."

But the big question is how long can we stay open? No one really knows the answer, but we're all pretty sure it's not going to be April 18th (as originally planned). So we're all anxiously checking the forecast and watching as the snow continues to disappear.