Loveland Days 15 and 16 - season coda

Last Sunday was day 15, a day or two after a sizable April snowstorm, and the snow was a bit weird - even the groomed stuff was lumpy and cantankerous, the off-piste was sticky and wet. Beautiful day, very warm, classic spring skiing conditions, but something of a workout.

And crowded - first time in 20 seasons I was relegated to the furthest lot, Lot 4 in the Valley - waited 45 minutes for a shuttle. Only managed 17 runs all day (9/8), but a nice day nonetheless.


Yesterday was a bit weird also - the temperature hovered right around 32F, so the spring slop varied between soft and pliant to hard and crunchy, sometimes in the space of a few minutes. Never really learned how to ski that stuff, but still managed 22 (14/8) runs, stayed right side up, and said goodbye for the year. The San Juan trip approaches and we have trip planning and some house stuff.

Stopped at The Spot on the right side of Turtle Creek, had a word or two with Karin. Kind of a ritual.

What's the blob?

Ok, so what's up with this?

WASHINGTON - A strange giant space “blob” spotted when the universe was relatively young has got astronomers puzzled.

Using space and ground telescopes, astronomers looked back to when the universe was only 800 million years old and found something that was out of proportion and out of time. It was gaseous, big, and emitted a certain type of radiation, said study lead author Masami Ouchi, an astronomer at the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, Calif.

Scientists don’t even know what to call it. So they just called it a radiation-emitting “blob.”

Cosmological anomalies.

Those who speculate on such things suggest that the lives we live, during the epoch through we live them, are actually chosen by us in that between-corporeal lives state when we reflect on the last life's lessons, etc etc.

Whenever I hear about stuff like this, I always wonder if I've chosen this epoch in this corner of the universe, so I can live through the experience of learning about stuff like this and finding out what exactly it is.

Which is a nice thought, but realistically, I have to imagine it's unlikely that I ever will learn what this is, in this life.

Spring snowstorm

...delivered a soggy wallop to much of the state, avalanches and power outages and traffic snarls, but we only got 4 or 5 inches here at the house, quickly slushed down by the rain today.

Anticipating a day of skiing in ungroomed glue tomorrow. One or two more ski days, and it'll be time to get out the raft.

We've been watching the San Juan drainage down south, since it'll largely dictate our launch day flow on 5/17. Improved - 94% as of today, but it's supposed to get real warm, real quickly. Maybe good, maybe...eh.

I've been handicapping springtime runoff so long I've forgotten what it's like not to care.

Together...forever

Saw this...

TROY, Kan. - Residents of a northeast Kansas town are mourning the deaths just hours apart of an elderly couple who were married 67 years.

Arnita Yingling died in her sleep early Saturday at the family’s home in Troy. She was 93. Six hours later her 95-year-old husband, Lyle, died at a nursing home in the nearby town of Wathena.

At their funeral Wednesday, friends and relatives described the two as inseparable. Some found comfort knowing neither would have to live without the other.

The Yinglings were married in 1941. Both were born on northeast Kansas farms and were active in Troy as members of their church and civic organizations.

This isn't all that unusual, and for anyone who's been through the experience of losing a spouse, this kind of story resonates with poingnat familiarity.

Loveland Day 14

Started out hazy, turned cloudy and by the end of the day (3:30 or so), the snow started falling. Conditions were so-so - a little loose stuff spread over hard packed powder. Not bad, not great - well, any day skiing is a good day, so we'll take it. There are three more weekends - I was shooting for 15 days, but I may make 16. Decent season, after getting caught short last year.

Chairlift rising

Trudging dejectedly along the strip in Vegas last January, worrying about the economy and having my rental pos scratched in the casino hotel parking garage, starting a three day visit for my stepson's wedding, we walked by (at least six times!) a three-story Apple display blaring a loop of Chairlift's "Bruises" ("I tried to do handstands for you, I tried to do handstands for you..."), promoting the new iPod Nano and its high calorie colors, bathing the throngs of grimly fascinated tourists, shifty characters, high roller wannabes and the porncard-snapping hawkers in chirpy, guile-free post-age neopop.

Utterly surreal.

The band itself comes for a sort-of homecoming (they formed, and wrote that song, in Boulder) at the Bluebird next weekend. Just interviewed chief lifter Aaron Pfenning, story next Thursday in BW.

And btw, the album is called "Does You Inspire You", and it's brilliant. Textured morsels of digipop impressionism, retro from a long-ago sci-fi fantasy.

Gives new meaning to

..."last lift".

FRISCO (AP) - An autopsy will be performed on a Rhode Island man who died on a chairlift while skiing in Breckenridge.

Summit County Coroner Joanne Richardson says 48-year-old Michael Wiggins died at about noon Wednesday on a chairlift on Peak 8 at the Breckenridge Ski Resort.

She says Wiggins lost consciousness while riding the chairlift with his family, and efforts to resuscitate him at the top of the lift were unsuccessful.

Wiggins was an orthopedic surgeon from East Greenwich, R.I. Richardson says he had no significant medical history.

Sudden loss of a spouse like this is a shocker and no joke - still, it's a reminder that heavy exertion at altitude can deliver some surprises.

Loveland Day 13

Call it Winter Part II.

After a couple of weeks of frighteningly warm and dry conditions, the central mountains got a nice two week spell of steady snow - no big dumps, but Loveland's base went from 60" to 85", and the conditions were great. Even better, a smallish storm rolled in midday and dropped 2-4" of freshies all over.

Forgot to lather up and got a little singed in the hazy morning sun, but not bad. Coasting toward a 15 or 16 day season.