[REVISITING] My Ski Season: Off Piste? Or Piste Off?

.Today, I'm too busy skiing to draw. Maybe I should take a lesson from that? WRITTEN & ILLUSTRATED by PETER MOORE

I’m in a hostel in Colorado Springs right now, after driving 702 miles from Texas. Ooof. I saw Monday’s eclipse in the Lone Star state, which is kind of appropriate. I’ll post about that trip soon. Meanwhile, tomorrow I’ll take what may be my last day of downhilll skiing for the season, and that puts me in an elegiac mood. Hence, I’m dredging up this post from a couple of years back, when I took stock of a season on the snow with the help of my Ikon Pass. Hop on the lift with me, and we’ll take a few runs together.

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MY IKON APP tells me that, this season, I have ridden 134 lifts, explored 304 trails for 165 miles, and plunged down 174,469 vertical feet in 38.9 hours on skis. My maximum speed was 37mph, which is terrifying. Those stats don’t even include a supremely weird experience (documented below) when I skied along a ridge at 11,000 feet at Alta, in Utah, swiped my pass at an untended gate, and gained entrance to Snowbird Universe. It was such an ethereal a moment, I forgot to track it on my app. I kind of expected St. Peter, as the heavenly gate attendant, popping out to say “Welcome to ski heaven, duuuuude! Chase the stoke!”

There were other high points, leading to low points, as well. My season’s award winners are…

1. Best burrito in a Supporting Role. When I gather momentum down Floyd Hill, gateway to the Rockies on I-70, I begin salivating for the ‘Squatch. It’s a gas station in Idaho Springs that sells a) gas, b) enormous breakfast burritos, and c) Bigfoot souvenir items. And I Brake for Bigfoot Souvenir Items.

   

2. Guy Even I Wanted to Slap. I’m no Will Smith. But then nobody has poked fun at my wife during an award ceremony. So I’m not ruling out slap-happiness. I did want to strangle a guy who used a lift ride to spout epidemiological nonsense at two innocent bystanders from Serbia. Unlike me, they were close enough to stuff a mitten in the guy’s mouth! Talk about your covid-era health risks.

   

   3. Cutest Catastrophe. When I was in second grade I went on a YMCA ski-trip to Mount Southington, in Connecticut, where I was repeatedly flung into the bushes by a scary rope tow. I was having flashbacks when a seven-year old girl grabbed a rope ahead of me, at Winter Park. Then I watched with amusement, then worry, then full-on panic as she inevitably lost her grip and began sliding backwards down the whirling rope in my direction. Crash ahoy! The girl and I, plus the guy behind us, all ended up in a pile, with ski poles scattered and everybody laughing and apologizing. The little girl was eventually carried uphill by her dad, skis dangling.

   

   4. Best Late Christmas Gift. I was a little nervous booking an outing with my sons at Copper Mountain, scheduled for two days after Christmas. Would I-70 be a nightmare? Would the ski lines extend from here to eternity? Would Santa drop coal on us on his way out of town? None of the above! My main concern: keeping up with my DNA, racing down the slope in front of me. The only bad thing that happened: They actually ran out of burritos at the ‘Squatch!

   

   5. Coldest Round of Multitasking: I skied on Tax Day this year, so I doomscrolled for requests from our accountant whenever I had a chance. Sure enough, she flagged a missing charitable receipt at 2:15pm! But how great is it that now, at a ski area equipped with cell towers, that you can retrieve and send key tax documents in the seven minutes it takes to reach the top of the mountain?

   

   6. Most Astonishing Cat Track. I had never skied Utah. But two ski buddies encouraged me to join them out there, so I went along. Thank you, Salt Lake City airport, for snugging right up against some of the most sublime downhill in the universe! At one point I was at the height of land at Alta, when I spotted the cat track that links it to neighboring Snowbird. It felt like a tightrope walk from peak to peak in heaven.

With all of these distractions last winter, I barely noticed the onrushing apocalypse. But just in case the world doesn’t end, I’ve already re-upped my Ikon pass for next winter. If there is one.