Spring Skiing

Now that the days are beginning to lengthen and we are sliding toward spring, it's time to think about Spring Break and Spring Skiing.

No, I'm not talking about the "late season" conditions that involve plowing through a foot of mashed-potato snow. Powder hounds shouldn't despair: March is statistically the snowiest month in Colorado. But that snow frequently gives way to eye-popping blue skies that frame the snow-covered mountains so starkly you'd think God took a black magic marker to outline them.

Winter Park doesn't close until the third week of April, so you have plenty of time to get in some skiing during what traditionally have been the best conditions of the year.

And don't forget April--the second snowiest month! Admittedly, people from lower elevations find their thoughts turning toward golf and putting in a garden; in the high country, however, it's still a time for playing in the snow.

We hope you'll join us before it all starts to melt.

Early Snows Promise Good Early Skiing

Don't let her "Poor Little Match Girl" look distract you. Murphy, the Lodge Dog, loves her some snow.

It started snowing for real up at the High Mountain Lodge in October. We have had five significant snowstorm (more than 6 inches) since then.

All indications point toward an amazing early ski season for Winter Park.

Generally, this time of year, skiers can expect--at best--one or perhaps two runs of man-made snow at the resort. However, if the trend we experienced in October continues (always a gamble), we may have some pretty decent skiing by Opening Day in just a couple of weeks.

And there's nothing to suggest that skiers and snowboarders who choose to upgrade that classic winter song to "I'm dreaming of a White Thanksgiving" will be disappointed.

Come join us for some early-season snow sports, and plan to spend Thanksgiving with us. Julie is making a traditional feast with all the trimmings (thank God for the three ovens in the High Mountain Lodge's kitchen). Details on our website.

First Snow of the Season!

I wouldn't exactly call it a "storm." It's been gently snowing on and off all day. No accumulation to speak of, but a lot of moisture has been soaking into our very thirsty ground.

I took the dogs for "walkies" earlier today. You would think that, with all the acreage we have around the High Mountain Lodge that the dogs could explore the place on their own, but noooo, they insist that we take them. You would think they'd been shut up in an urban apartment all day the way they go nuts when we put on outdoor boots--instead of being in the country in doggie paradise.

But anyway, walking along country roads and in the pasture in the snow was a delightful experience. The aspen leaves have all fallen, and you can smell the leaf mold on the wet ground. A Dan Fogleberg song from my adolescence begins, "The end of October, / the sleepy brown woods seem to / bow down their heads to the winter." That's sort of what it feels like today.

We're really slow right now, though reservations are starting to pile up for the winter ski season, as well as Thanksgiving. Winter Park opens on November 14. In the meantime, we are participating in a Professional Association of Innkeepers offering of two free nights to active military and veterans over the Veterans Day weekend. We filled up within 48 hours of posting the offering, and have a respectable wait list, as well.

Some friends whom I used to play in a bar-band with are coming up to provide entertainment for the weekend. Should be an awesome time.

While the summer activities are winding down and the winter ones have yet to gear up, there is plenty still to do in the mountains in the fall. Hikes, bike rides, fishing, golf. Shoot, all the merchants are having sales getting read to flop their inventory for the winter.

Good times in the mountains. Come visit.

New Year's Eve morning

Winter has settled down to stay for a while at the High Mountain Lodge. It reminds me of the Christina Rossetti poem, In the bleak midwinter: "Snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow." Soon even the tallest of the dead grasses down in the meadow will be under the snow.

There is, however, little that is bleak about a Colorado high-country winter. Even as I write this on the last day of the year, the sun is shining through the window of the office and dazzling me to the point I can barely see the computer screen. If the clouds, which mercifully acted as a blanket and kept the temperature above zero last night, abate as I expect them to do, the dry, cold air will mean that the sky will be so dark blue this afternoon that it will almost be purple.

Of course, there is a flurry of activity, what with the holidays and the New Year's celebrations. But even that bustle can't completely erode the serenity of the outdoors:

Snow Shoveling

Robert Frost famously wrote, "Something there is that doesn't like a wall."

Well, I have a paraphrase of that: "Something there is that doesn't like a shoveled walk."

This morning dawned partially sunny with a promise of warming temperatures. We thought it was going to be a bright day! Alas, God and Meteorology had a different idea. The weather has been darkening all day, though the only snow we've been getting has been because of the wind.

The wind. That's the problem. Julie and I managed to get the walkways around the lodge cleared just about the time the wind kicked up. To look at the place now, you'd think it had never occurred to us to shovel the walks. Even the piles of snow I threw off the walks have been drifted over and look "natural."

Silly man that I am, I'd planned on keeping the sidewalks and walkways around the lodge pristine throughout the winter. I've revised that plan. Right now, I figure if I can just keep walkways to the guest lodge and the parking lot cleared--at least enough so that people won't founder in the snow and have to have Murphy the Lodgedog sent out to rescue them.

Frost concluded his poem with, "Good fences make good neighbors." My paraphrase ends, "Good shoveled walks make happy guests."