It’s Day 4 of our two weeks in Snowmass, and we’ve decided to skip skiing today.  We normally ski every day possible, but the conditions this year are just, frankly, horrible.  The base is around 30″, officially, but I don’t really see that.  They haven’t had any snow, other than the 8 inches they received on the day we flew in, and I think they’ve tried to move the little snow they do have around on the mountain to cover up the brown spots.   It’s still skiing, and we still have beautiful wide open spaces and blue skies, and as J says, it’s like a really good day skiing in Vermont, so I don’t want to complain.  But we are so spoiled to the Colorado powder that we usually get this time of year that it’s definitely taking some getting used to.  I’m seriously thinking about renting skis, because every time my skis go over the rocks and trees that are scattered around on every single run, I cringe.  There are deep scratches on the bottom of them, and that’s only after skiing two days.  They were hoping to get snow last night, the only night that snow is forecast between now and when we go home, but the light dusting that actually happened didn’t even register as any accumulation.  Oh well.

But we still absolutely love it here.  It is so beautiful, the air is so crisp and clean, there is much to do besides skiing, the summers are beyond belief,  and once we get acclimated to the altitude it just feels like home to us.  Yesterday we relaxed in the morning, did a little business over coffee, and headed out to Snowmass to get in a few runs.  It was a beautiful day, and the temps at the top of the mountain were in the low 20’s, so it almost seemed like spring skiing, except for the lack of snow.  But we tried out my new Christmas present…goggles with a video camera built in, so you can see for yourself.  Watch for the little trees that stick out of the snow every now and then, and the bumps as we ski over little rocks.  But it’s all good!

Enjoy this footage of Big Burn and Sheer Bliss, two blue runs that weren’t too bad yesterday, along with Train’s new single, “Drive By”