Ski Season (#9) - Blizzard of 2006 Ski Season (#9) - Blizzard of 2006

This last week was pretty good skiing. I worked for most of the week at Keystone. Wed. and Thurs. were the Blizzard of 2006 in Denver, and the snow was very nice. A bit cold both days, but few on the slopes, so we rotated fairly quickly and didn't stand around as we do when there is a lot of traffic.

Wed. afternoon was somewhat a disaster for us. I had already done a couple of almost non-stops when I arrived at the bottom of Paymaster for Gang Grooming at 3 p.m. The plan had been for the grooming machines to come up Haywood, over the top of the Argentine lift, then down River Run, up it to Spring Dipper, and then over to the "dark side" (the unlighted back). But as the cats were on Haywood, we found that they were going to go up Silverspoon instead. So, I rushed to the lift, jumping in at the front, raced the cats up the mountain, and then skied down to the top of Silverspoon to shut it off. I beat the cats there by about 2 minutes, and was joined a minute or two later by two others. Then, a quick run down the freshly groomed trail, and to the bottom so I could help shut down the River Run access. Back to the top, and helped close Spring Dipper.

Luckily, by Thurs., they had it figured out a bit better, and things went a lot better. They are now doing the full pretzel, which is what we are used to from previous seasons.