Mt Shuksan from Mt Baker Ski Area

Well, the good news is Baker opens tomorrow.  Bad news is that it is like herding cats getting rugrat #1 organized.  Last years ski pants, "where are they Dad?", goggles, glove liners, Cat Crap® to keep goggles from fogging up - all is getting organized.  Kits will be organized eventually so all they have to do is grab the gear bag and go each week.

Finally old enough to sort through everything and find "stuff" by himself.  He'll get ready, he's learning responsibility.  

Gotta leave he needs to upload some tunes to the Ipod.  Rocking below the face of Shuksan,  how good can it get!

Waiting for Snow

Well! We are still waiting for snow up at our local mountain - the Mt Baker Ski area.  Season passes were purchased weeks ago, equipment checked, boots fitted, everything tried on by the kids to see if it still fits.

This is the time that drives skiers and snowboarders crazy, when your favorite mountain is opening later than anticipated.  The diehards have read and reread the ski and snow boarding magazines for months. The ski area hosted its annual video festival, Warren Miller ski movies were shown for the 395 time as mature adults yelled, screamed, catcalled, or chanted woo woo woo over skiing movie stars as they fling themselves head first, backwards, head over heels from cliff faces in Alaska, Iceland, Banff Island or Whistler-Blackcomb.

Favorite trails,  Al's in Taos, KT22 at Squaw Valley, The Nose at Stowe, Corbett's Couloir in Jackson Hole, the back country at Baker, or any steep line up at Bugaboo Lodge, have all been run and rerun in our dreams, at work, during sermons at church and in eighth grade algebra classes around the country, always beneath an azure blue sky.

Parents and kids alike have run thousands of slalom gates over the summer on their bikes, in kayaks, walking through crowds, running down hills, or around furniture while running the vacuum.

If you are on the golf course and see someone walking down a steep hill and they are moving left then right and back left again - yeah maybe they are trying to keep from slipping - but if they are a skier or boarder, nah they're making turns up in 7th Heaven or in a favorite back bowl at Vail.  

Watch someone on a trampoline, if suddenly they start hopping from one side to another instead of up and down - they are in the bumps on Exhibition at Sun Valley or dropping under the Thunder Lift at Teton Village.  They are in the zone.........

Watch your co-workers, watch someone in a crowd, watch someone parked in traffic on the freeway.  If they start tapping their finger or tapping their foot in any sense of rhythm, up down, left right, to and fro, hither and yon, rest assured they are not sitting on I5 or at the opera or in their tiny little cubicle. 

They are in the mountains.  

They are skiing..............

The Jackson Hole Tram

After 40 years of continuous service, Jackson Hole Mountain Resort made the decision to dismantle their aging 61 passenger tram.  For many, it was a shock.  Not just for the local citizens of western Wyoming, but also for the hundreds of thousands of guests that rode this iconic lift and skied or fantasized skiing the 4,139 vertical feet, the deep powder, Corbett's Couloir, the Hobacks after a big storm or their own secret powder stashes.

The Kemmerer family, in the interests of public safety, made the decision to dismantle the tram without knowing if there would be a replacement.

To help in the healing process the resort asked past and present guests to submit memories of the Jackson Hole Tram for their website.  

Finally, after months of uncertainty, emotional outpourings of grief by young boarders, aging ski bums, diehard skiers, the family and the board of directors of JHMR made the commitment to self finance a replacement tram.

After two years of construction, the new 101 passenger, $25,000,000 tram opens on December 20th.

Below are the words I submitted.

The Jackson Hole Tram

Dawn, Snake River overlook: I had arrived from Puget Sound 36 hours earlier after crossing Teton Pass just before it closed for plowing and avalanche control. The fog flowed and ebbed; first north then south.  Clouds tailed off of the summit of the Grand Teton.  The fog lifted as first light hit the summits of the Teton Range.  Golden yellows blended to magentas and pink, mauves faded to blue.

A moose and her yearling crossed the flats along the river.

I photographed the image, packed my view camera and headed back to Teton Village and my skis.

All day we rode the tram. Forty-three inches of fresh, light, dry powder changes you.  It etches into your memories.  Inside the tram it was quieter than usual, everyone reveling in their thoughts of snow billowing over ski tips, knees, shoulders and head.  We pondered each secret stash, and turns and our lines through favorite aspen groves. Synapses closed, wrapping around the scent of inhaled snow.

That afternoon I followed a single track down Sublette Ridge. The rope was gone from Alta Chute - open for the first time that year!

I flew off the crest and floated into an elevator shaft filled with down. Three turns, ten, forgetting to breathe!  At the bottom I paused gasping!  A quiet hum, I looked up and saw the tram on its last run.......

My knees ache most of the time now and I take longer to loosen up.  In mountain cafes I linger, my fingers basking in the warmth from steaming mugs of coffee.  And once in awhile on my local mountain, I'll find a patch of powder, make just the right turn, get just the right lift and my memories fill me.

I remember the colors of dawn light on the Teton Range, the scent of freshly fallen snow, perfect turns down Alta Chute and that bright red tram set against the deep, deep blue of the western Wyoming sky.