warming, then cooling

i asked for the skies to open up, and they seem to have done so. sure, it is not 10 plus a night, but with 2-6/nite, this is sometimes our best conditions. just keep accumlating a bit every night until there is knee deep everywhere.

okay so it is raining, and pretty hard. with luck, the la nina effect will keep temps just below freezing up in the high country. then, with the cooling trend about to set in, we might get a nice light snow on top of this heavy stuff. perfect!

after nearly a year of not skiing, due to a back injury that finally necessitated surgury, my wife, MA, has finally made it up on the hill again, and is loving it. today will be the third in a row, and if it is not tooooooo heavy, we will have a good afternoon, and go into the weekend feeling great.

i know that nw montana has some pretty wild weather (an old buddy of mine said of all the places he had lived and skied, including Vt. Utah, Wa. Co., this was the only place where the old expression "if you don't like the weather, just wait a minute" was actually true), but this winter seems really inconsistent. and this weekend seems set to continue that trend. temps warming thru the week, with a nice storm cycle, following over two weeks of very dry and mostly cold, here comes some more cold weather. just bouncing all over the place. as i look outside, it is raining and foggy. after a week in colorado, i remember why it became so popular back in the 60's - 90's, and why so many of us here thought it would never get popular or crowded here.

yesterday, while skiing, i noticed another thing that always makes me wonder. people who stop in places that are as likely as any to get them hurt. places that have a lot of traffic with little room to move and get out of each other's way. the worst is the traverse that comes out on top of the face and the beginning of inspiration. another is the end of Russ's St., just above the bottom chair one and four. and is it my imagination, or just my slight prejudice towards boarders, but the majority of these offenders of this dangerous policy seem to be the aforementioned SNOWBOARDERS! and given that quite often when they come to rest,they do so on their butts, taking up more room and making themselves less mobile. come on, fellow boarders, help these unknowing nincompoops a little advice, since certainly they will not listen to a crotchety old time skier like myself. thanks.