Last night I checked and rechecked my packing list while consciously keeping in mind the weight
limit of my bag. It is never easy to fully anticipate needs when you are traveling for 6 weeks.
Luckily this trip is basically geared around one activity. Skiing. That said, I still needed to pack
plenty of warm clothes and safety gear including shovel, probe and avalanche beacon plus my
usual menagerie of camera gear and a laptop.
In the last few weeks leading up to this moment I have logged onto the internet countless times
to view snow reports in Utah, peruse the avalanche reports and see what others are posting on
facebook and Youtube about the current state of the 20122013
ski season. So far it is looking
more favorable than what we experienced last year, though still dour by Utah standards. Here at
home in New England we have experienced a decent snow year with enough of the fluffy good
stuff to lay claim to a few good powder days but ahhh, the soft powder potential of the west
beckons. I suspect a lot of skiers practice a similar ritual as they consult the online weather
oracles in anticipation of epic conditions, face shots and bluebird days. Daydreams waffle
between silently gliding through glades of snow covered evergreens to sipping cold beers on the
outdoor deck while soaking up the warm rays of the sun. Damn those interruptions by needy
coworkers
when I’m in the “zone.” Don’t they know I’m using powerful imagery to perfect my
techniques.
At 2:50 am the alarm jolts us awake. The car is packed already so we need only to put coffee in
travel mugs and get ourselves dressed. At the bus station in N. Londonderry, NH my girlfriend
Libby and I stash our ski bags, boots and duffels under the bus and clamber aboard. This bus
connection means no paying exorbitant parking fees at Boston’s Logan Airport and offers the
possibility of a nap when you have to wake at such an early hour.
The weather is a little problematic today. A large storm front has swept across the midwest and
is now making its way into New England where it will sit in the Gulf of Maine and churn away for
the next few days bringing more snow. For us it means an hour long delay getting out of Boston
this morning and that creates a problem with our connection in Los Angeles.
And... we’re in standby mode
Why LA you ask? Simply because connecting in the middle of the country adds another layer of
possible weather delays in addition to what we face getting out of the northeast in the winter.
Had it not been for the hour delay all would have been ok as we touched down in sunny,
sixty degree
LA. However, our original airlines has no baggage transfer agreement with domestic
carriers so we have to claim our bags, haul them to a different terminal, recheck them, go
through security again, and take a shuttle to a distant terminal. Simply not possible with the time
remaining after we arrive.
Now, I can’t say that I wasn’t a little frustrated. I felt like an idiot for arranging the itinerary in this manner just to save a few bucks when we could have flown a more direct route through Phoenix
or Denver. With standby tickets in hand though we did the only thing delayed travelers on
vacation can do. We went and had a drink while I groused about my recent string of bad luck
traveling the airlines over the last few weeks. It was only 9 days ago that I got stranded in
Chicago overnight while en-route to Seattle for a job interview. A major winter storm managed to
hit in the paltry eighty minutes I sat waiting for a connecting flight and this resulted in literally
thousands of flights cancelled.
Fortunately two seats went unclaimed on a flight to Salt Lake City a few hours later. We touched
down around 7:30 pm central time, gathered our stuff, picked up the rental car and headed north
to Eden and the condo where my buddy Rick is staying for the months of February and March
while he skis himself silly at Powder Mountain. Exhausted but safe we collapsed into bed around
10 pm. As the last moments of conscious awareness filtered through my head I wondered what
tomorrow would bring and how it would feel to be back skiing the fine dry snow of Utah. I would
get my answer soon enough.
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