Nothing to Complain About

Last night's winter storm didn't live up to the hype, but it did turn the Hero volume up! I had to throw the pickup into four wheel drive to get up the hill...our Snow Removal Crew had just plowed the road (read polished the road!) When I pulled into the parking lot there was barely two inches on the ground...stars were showing through the scattered cloud cover...and there was this weird frozen slush glazing the whole place.

My happy Swing Shift Leader was ebullient after his "awesome shift". He said it totally dumped around 8PM...so much that he had to pull up and have lunch until it blew over enough to see again! Gushing, he continued..."You guys don't have much left to do...extras I guess..."

The Boss was in, and he whined about Monday night's Shift From Hell, where it rained all night long...before it turned to snow at 8AM! This was the genesis of the weird slush glaze covering everything in sight.

Happily, Tuesday's snow freshened up the piste nicely, and there wasn't enough accumulation so the Snow Removal guys didn't make any extra work for us! All the ramps I maintain between the ski hill and the roads and parking lots didn't have a single bucketload of parking lot snow on them, so I didn't spend my first hour cleaning up after Snow Removal like most snow days. Instead, I just laid down the acres...full stick!

Our night flew by, by the time lunchtime came around, we were already fleshing out the Work Orders with plenty of extra trails. I took a power nap for lunch, and the snow was just starting up when I rolled away. This snow was what the TV WeatherDudes had been calling "Wrap-Around Moisture"...formerly known as: a "Back Door Storm" This thing didn't exactly measure up to the Storm moniker...it measured two inches on the 24 Hour Stake!

I rerolled a couple of home runs on the Upper Mountain, before knocking out the Base Area stuff. For the night, we added seven or eight extras, and we wrapped it up (including a bunch of Snow Day Housekeeping stuff) by 0815 I was at the fuel dock by 8:30, and had all my paperwork and reports filed in time to punch out at 0900!

We were just happier than we had any right to be! Last week of the season...nine days 'till May...and we were out running full stick, on Hero Snow, all night, as fast as she'll go, all you want!...with no digging, and no plowing! No fuss, no muss...Man, this is Livin'!

The Reno AFD says tonight might be an Encore Performance, my Mountain's Webcam shows flurries and a low cloud deck. Chain Controls are up on Hwy 50, but haven't gone upon I-80 yet.

While writing this post, Reno updated their forecast...maybe 3-5 inches up top tonight...Westerly winds under 15mph.

I'm up for an encore...Hell yeah!