Thoughts On Early Season
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I hate early season. There, I said it. Sure, I’m sometimes accused of being a hater in general, but hear me out.
Take today, which consisted of an aborted attempt to go skiing. As is often the case during early season, we were making our way up a sketchy snow covered road trying to get close enough to the deeper snowpack area to make it worthwhile. My “past their prime” tires failed me and next thing I know, we’ve got a junkshow of the first order trying to turn around the truck and the trailer on a hill. I didn’t even get any GNAR points by getting stuck over a cliff or sliding uncontrollably backwards, two things which I’ve done in the past. At least my back hurts from muscling trailers around.
Another fun game to play during early season is “thrash your snowmobile”. Nothing like breaking an A arm hitting a rock under a few inches of snow. Or driving on prolonged stretches of dirt until your sled overheats, as a friend of mine recently did. Good times.
Then there’s the early season hazards. Another friend of mine had an entirely too close for comfort run-in with a buried log down at Wolf Creek a couple of weeks ago. Twenty-something stitches later and a brand new pair of Flylow pants cut off by the medics, and he’s still waiting for his next chance to ski.
Finally, let’s talk about avalanches. Take a little bit of snow in October, let it rot out, then add some storms in November and you’ve got some of the worst conditions you’re likely to see all year long. And for the most part, the places you can actually ski are the ones with the biggest consequences. Known trigger points like rocks and shrubs are barely covered up, meaning a skier can trigger them quite easily- much more so than later in the year when they’re under a few feet of snow. If you do get caught by a slide, you’re going to get dragged through rocks and stumps since there simply isn’t much snow covering up those hazards.
Yep, I’d like to be on a beach every year in November. And I hate beaches. ‘Cause I’m a hater…
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You’re not the only one. I’ve got one WROD day in compared to quite a few days on the bike since “early season” started. Skiing can wait until it’s actually good. Until then, I’ll have my fun on two wheels.
This is awesome, I like the written version!
Why do we ski early season? I think it’s pretty simple: we love skiing, and regardless of how good it is (or isn’t or might be) everyone else is doing it. Since we love skiing, it’s hard to resist.
Pure Frank-Gold!