By Jim Stanford on December 15, 2006
No laps for lift riders on the Town Hill today.
It rained yesterday evening up to 7,500 feet, a lift worker told me as I hiked up the slope this morning. Colder temperatures overnight left the main lift-serviced runs, umm, firm.
“This was a sheet of ice,” the worker told me. “Ski patrol looked at it this morning and said no way.”
Well, more solace for those who’d rather earn their turns.
And, judging by the photo above, who could resist the Elk slope and its plump pillows of untracked, if heavy, snow? It was a wild ride through that concrete, to be sure. The bottom of the hill was soft enough.
Bode Miller would have carved it. (Speaking of Bode, he won the super-G today in Val Gardena, Italy. Reuters, via ESPN.com, reports that the bodacious ski racer actually is adhering to new U.S. Ski Team guidelines requiring him to sleep in the team hotel, instead of his motor home. True to form, Bode is wearing a special device to monitor the number of hours he sleeps each night; apparently he gets more shut-eye in the RV and will use the data to lobby team officials to relent. It would be interesting if he wore another device to monitor how many times he gets laid each night.)
Anyhow, back to the soggy King. The whole morning had the feel of April. Bare spots are beginning to show.
But the next wave of the storm is coming in with a fury, and temps are expected to drop. So tomorrow could be large … as long as it STOPS RAINING.
Wait, I thought Bode was gay….