Grooming October 29, 2020
I fear I undersold the conditions in yesterday’s report. I arrived at the trail head in the late morning and was able to park in the front row. I expected dozens of cars. After all, skiing was quite good. I should have advertised nickel beer or maybe free brussels sprouts. The temperature was ideal, the air was light, the sun was out and a good time was had by all. Today looks to be good as well. With cold nights we will lose very little snow during the short afternoon high temperatures. The only real question left for today is, do we surf after skiing.
Anyway, there were only two of us in the parking lot yesterday. As I saw they guy take off his U.S. Ski Team warm up jacket I thought “what do I need to do to avoid seeing that guy on the trail?”. It has likely never happened to either of you but getting dropped like you are standing still can be so demoralizing. As it turns out, he is a technician on the team and hasn’t skied competitively for twenty years. However, when really old it is hard to tell if a young person is, say 30 or 50; especially when they have less body fat than my big toe. In any case, he was striding and I was skating so we did ski a few k together. Having seen the grooming report he drove from TC just to ski our trails.
I told him I must have undersold the conditions based on the dearth of skiers. At that point he perked up and said, “Sondo?”. I may have found a third reader. Anyway, we continued to ski and chat when I could catch my breath. Finally he added, “So you make people sift through all that chaff to get at the actual conditions every day? I was crestfallen but stiffened my upper lip and said, “Only in the free subscription. For a nominal fee you can get just the facts.”.
See you out there,
Sondo