Winter Returns

Last night was the last of a long string of "Hero Snow" nights. The first flurries of the 2010 Summit Siege began around 0500. Nothing to write home about, so anemic that it looked like it would take a day to amount to an inch. I motored down into the Mountain's WiFi cloud and looked at the Radar images on the iPod...Oh, it's coming all right...it's taking it's damn sweet time though.

The first big blast should arrive this evening. The Winter Storm Warning goes up at 4PM, and lasts through 4AM Tuesday. The storms are lined up like airliners coming into Chicago's O'Hare Airport. They say another storm every 18-24 hours all next week...with the average 5000ft snow level, they're promising 10 feet at 7000ft by Friday the 22nd!

I'm actually looking forward to a good ol' fashioned siege...it's been too long! When Mother Nature gives us her worst, I love the way all the folks pull together, to just get it on. The Mountain Spirit is in full display, and many hands make light work. It's sort of an enlightened "Bunker Mentality" for lack of a better phrase.

Last night, as I was blasting around the Mountain at Full Stick, I looked at all the stuff that will disappear over the next few nights...here's a tree that we drove right over...dozens of times a night...that we haven't driven over yet in this Century. Soon, it might even be downhill from the piste to the lodge decks! Bottom lift terminals will live in huge pits, and our guests will gaze down at our big trail map billboards.

I'm keeping this short today...I'm already husbanding my energy. Tonight's my night off, but I'm going to work anyway. I missed all the early season fireworks, and I don't want to be on the sidelines this time!

I have a feeling that getting to work tonight is gonna be a Grade A Bitch...My neighborhood is plugged with Holiday Weekenders...all of 'em parking on the street...which is against the law this time of year...the Town of Truckee clearly isn't enforcing the Parking Regulations...their snowplow crews are gonna be hating life tonight...my street is going to look like a Bobsled Track once the plows come through! (Unless the Snow Removal Boss calls out the tow trucks first!)

I'm gonna fire up my Police Scanner when I hit the sack this afternoon...first time this winter...it can't help but be way better than TV. Never any reruns on the scanner. Go Vikings!