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Waiting for the Dusting

Rocky Mountain Bare

September 15. I'm waiting. The big peaks of the Rocky Mountains in Colorado are still bare at the end of Summer. Waiting to be dusted by a few inches of snow at the 13 to 14,000 elevations. That cold front has not come through yet, and as a skier, I'm getting nervous... But early snow has no connection to how the ski season will wind up. Some years, an early snow is followed by a dry Winter, other years an early snow is a harbinger of a huge Winter. No computer model can predict how a ski season will turn out. Too many variables, and global warming is just one of them (so far, Colorado has escaped any significant effects ) I just like to see a bit of snow on the highest peaks, as it fills me with anticipation of making my first turns with the aid of gravity on a snowy slope. Most people get excited with the anticipation of Spring, with me, it's the advent of late Fall and the ski season opener. 2,000 ski days in Colorado, I tell my bowed, arthritic knees to shut up and let me take that first run; and then another and another. I am in Colorado, and that first snowfall will come, and then another one, a big storm to lay down a base for the early season. Huge season or dry season, a turn is a turn.