From High to Low

Normally, I warm up to Aspen rather slowly, spending at least one day at Buttermilk (a smaller, lower mountain) before moving on to the other mountains in the area. But today I went straight to Highlands. As the name suggests, it’s at a higher elevation, which makes for a greater challenge to the first day of skiing.

But I thought it was a good idea anyway. My wife was going to be arriving the next day, and we certainly would spend that day at Buttermilk. And I didn’t want to go there two days in a row, so this was my chance to get some variety in right away.

Since this was a more difficult mountain, I took my skis rather than my board. My feet were killing me the entire first run. I was also winded. “I’m the weakest link,” I announced. Even though I had been diligent in using a stair-stepper at home, I rarely used it to its full potential for aerobic exercise. There’s no such thing as too much cardio preparation, I decided.

We (my father-in-law, his youngest daughter, and me) were joined by a 76-year old man and his 40-year old daughter. She and I were almost the youngest members of the party, which numbering 25 or so, took up a good portion of our small hotel. The group, which makes this an annual outing, was started in Michigan over 30 years ago. It has since dispersed to Arizona, Florida, and other retirement locales as its members have grown older. The median age is, I suspect, 65 or so.

Even though these folks were able to take time off to ski 30 years ago, few of their children have taken up the tradition. Our family is one of only two or three that have extended the trip into a second generation. That’s got to be a bad sign for the ski industry.

But back to Highlands. We never did make it to the highest lift. We spent the whole morning in the mid-mountain area, using the Cloud Nine lift. That was good enough for me; I was working hard enough at 10,000 feet, and did not need to go any higher.

The pain in my feet was sharp for the first hour or so. Sometimes I got relief while on the lift, but sometimes I did not. That’s the penalty, I thought, I get for not having skied more this season. My boots do have custom footbeds, so in theory I shouldn’t have this problem. But there is always a “break-in” (or rather, “pain-in”) period at the start of this season.

Our final trip down Highlands, just before lunch, took us through a catwalk and then down a narrow (20 feet) icy pitch. Not fun at all. I side-slipped much of the way down.

Once at the base, we met my wife, who had arrived on a flight while we were skiing. Several of us ate lunch together before she went back to the hotel to visit with her brother, who left the restaurant to pack for an afternoon flight out.

By this time, the weather had deteriorated; it was overcast and snowing. After lunch The rest of us went over to Buttermilk, which is the default option when we have “flat light,” a condition in which the ground appears to be one large sheet of white. (Try skiing at 25 miles an hour when you can’t see whether the ground beneath your feet will remain level or drop 15 feet. That gives you an idea of the trouble with flat flight.)

We spent our time over on the west side, which is the easiest of all possible slopes in town. Not only is it less steep, but its runs are surrounded by trees, which improves the visibility. We took the Westward Ho trail to the new mid-mountain lift, and then ran various trails to either the new lift, or all the way to the base.

As much as I appreciate the speed of the new lift, progress had its price. Pine trees had closely lined the old lift. The ski company cut out many of those trees when they put in the new one. This gave us a vanity trail to use (“up there in the lift! Look at me!”), but it also took out much of the picturesqueness of the ride.

While stopped at the lifts, I handed out three Grays on Trays business cards. One man, obviously in his 60s (if not 70s), looked at the card and said “What makes you think I’m gray?” But he took the card with some interest.