This blog comes to Colorado Ski Country from guest blogger Veronica Whitney, Editor of El Montaes Hispanic newspaper in Carbondale.
We were supposed to meet our friend Helen at 10 a.m. on Dec. 15 at Sunlight Mountain to ski the nine inches of new snow. It was the Sunday after we came back from Argentina. It had just started snowing a lot on Dec. 9, the day before we came back, and after a pretty warm and dry beginning of the ski season, we were excited to be coming back to white mountains and valleys after 95 degree weather with 85 percent humidity in Buenos Aires.
So we were ready the following weekend when it snowed again and Helen said she would be skiing at Sunlight Mountain, outside Glenwood Springs.
So that morning we were getting ready for our first day on the slopes, but we were running a little late so I called Helen who is a 60- year-old super athlete and a snowboarding fan and asked her to wait for us at the lodge. She seemed hesitant, and I could hear other voices in the background, other friends who were skiing with her as well.
Hey, they tell me here there are no friends on a powder day!! Helen said.
So we decided to meet at the ski lodge a little later.
I was surprised my 60-year-old friend would repeat to me what Ive been hearing since I moved to Colorado in 2001. At least now cell phones make reunions in the mountain easier than then, when we werent that dependent on them and if you werent by the chairlift at 8:30 a.m. on a powder day you were left behind no matter why you were late!
Ive always thought it was quite extreme this saying (of no friends on a powder day), after all, we have very large ski areas in Colorado and with my husband, Charlie, we have found powder in Aspen even the day after a powder day!
I came to Colorado from Vermont and therefore I could understand no one wants to waste precious pristine powder runs because they wont last more than two hours.
In the end, we met with Helen at noon and took five runs together mostly on still untracked powder. Thats Colorado skiing!
No need to miss your friends for an extra run or two, you will still get enough for the dayand more!
