Keep Your Politics to Yourself

Gorgeous is a word that one might use to describe the ski mountain today. I have heard many references to the movie Ground Hog Day lately. Although each day is different, in a general sense, they have been relatively the same for a long period of time. Consistent surface conditions on many of the well groomed corduroy trails this morning, most lifts turning (the exception being ABC which was not running today), and late morning softening on the Sherwood side of the mountain.

Off piste is relegated to south facing slopes in the late morning or early afternoon when spring conditions rise to the occasion. The groomed areas of Sherwood were quite good earlier than expected today as was the off-piste.

Tomorrow east winds are in the forecast, as well as morning overcast skies. This will delay the spring conditions at Sherwood. The weather should be better Sunday which should create some excellent spring skiing on south facing slopes.

By the way the upper Alpine Meadows parking lots were nearly full today. Keep this in mind for your morning timing to get a parking spot without the need for riding a shuttle from one of the lower lots.

A number of high schools students were on the hill today participating in races on Kangaroo and Yellow Trail.

The Political Thing…

My friend and I were just about to load Summit Chair with three other skiers whom we did not know when a rather gruff skier pushed his way from behind and became the sixth person to load the chair. We could immediately feel the attitude surrounding us completely change.

We have an unspoken rule among my group of friends to put our masks on when we are riding the chair with more than four people, especially people we do not know who might be unmasked. The guy next to me, who was not wearing a mask starts talking out loud asking if I was afraid of the wind. He was obviously trying to make fun of us for wearing a mask on the chair ~~ assuming we were too stupid to realize that you cannot get Covid when wind blows into your face while riding the chair.

This taunting did not stop.

Next, on more than one occasion, he turns to me bending over and repeats the same statement. He continues by taunting my friend as if she were as dumb as me for wearing a mask. He continued on spewing his conservative beliefs stating Liberal Democrats are ruining the country and a number of other things that are not really appropriate chair lift discussions among people you do not know (at least that is my opinion).

He ended his rant by asking what we were going to do when the Russians invade our country with a last note that we, and our current President, (I assume thinking he knew our political leanings) had no backbone. We kept our mouths shut the entire way up Summit Chair. It upset us both enough to decide to leave the hill for the day.

I know this was a rare occurrence and that the majority of skiers on the mountain are more respectful of our freedom to decide what we choose to believe in and are respectful enough to keep their own opinions to themselves. Thus, please keep your political opinions to yourself when you are out on our beautiful mountain enjoying fresh air and taking advantage of our exceptional ski slopes. Let’s keep our ski area a happy place.

Enjoy your day,

Andy