Spring Confessions

Have to share this with the J2ski group ( but only if you promise to keep to yourself)!!!!!!

For some of you who know the "Spring ski Fever" problem here are some strategies to solve your frustrations!

What!!!!!!! most of you do not know about the famous Spring Ski Fever problem????!!!!!!

Let me clue you in.

It is 7 AM. Sun has risen and you are first in the parking lot. You smell the birch trees as the sun warms the bark! You can hear the streams flowing down with the melted snow! The slopes are all groomed,,,,but still two hours till lifts open for public!

What can you do to get up there and do that first run!!!

That is the Ski Fever Problem!

If you promise,,really promise not to tell anyone here is how how I got five days of skiing starting at 8 AM! That is one hour before public gets on hill!

1, See Director of Marketing and explain that you are shooting a video on ski center for local skiers in your area. Need those early morning sunrise shots! Those virgins slope runs, those groomed clean runs!

Up you yo go at 7 AM for tour!

2, See Head Ski Patroller. Present your competency card and offer services to OPEN SKI RUNS! Off you go with Patrollers to check if ski runs are safe at 7 am!

3. Pay that extra $10 to get on the early bird patrol! Up you go with 20 very sick Spring Fever skiers!

Seriously ,,,it is must for all skiers to get that first Spring run at least once in your life!
The silence is humbling!
The sun is "seductive"!
The forest has a scent that is unique and goes away by 10 AM.
The groomed slopes with even multiple grooves invites dangerous speeds and abandonment!
Freedom calls!

Do it!

The memory of that first run at 7 AM will last a lifetime!

Pav


You had your daylight savings time changed as well (in Canada). So 7am this march is the same as 6am march last year.
An extra hour on firm snow befor the slush fest.

Trencher

Hi Pavel
Thats a really great post and it brings to mind one of my "secret pleasures".

I'm in Les Houches in France and, in France, the kids go to school on saturday mornings .... plus I dont have to go to work. So i drop my kids off at 8.15 then head directly to the local ski slope, which is only 1 minute away from the school at the other end of the village.

Being a saturday, its changeover day for the tourists, so its quiet. OK, its not quite 7am like in your post, but there are very few poeple, the pistes are freshly groomed but untouched and the sun has to climb over the nearby Mont Blanc before it rises so the rays dont touch the pistes til close to 9am.

In other words, pretty much the same effect as you described!

Its times like those that make me so thankful that I'm lucky enough to live where I do.

Just another post to warn all skiers about Spring Fever problem!!!

Just discovered that this "virus" springus extremus, which seems to have originated in the high alps many years ago has mutated into many forms all over the world!
I thought that it manifested itself due to old age and the onset of dementia,,,however seems it is now contagious!

Be very careful not to introduce this virus to unsuspecting skiers!!!!

I am with a older man who was sane and very conservative business man before the onset of his first "Spring Fever" attack! Without realising it I introduced him to that "seductive" sun, those virgin slopes, those 4 km. cords, that early morning smell!

Now he gets me up at 6AM "complaining" of a strange urge! He is now rushing me to the patroller hut! He is putting on his Snick cream at 6 am!

He has now reached the "critical" stage of the virus attack! Today he just bought a $500,000 second home on the slopes so that he can get rid of that urge! I do not have the heart to tell him that this Spring Fever "problem" is incurable!
The fresh air, the sun, the wind in the Spring have strange effects of skiers!
Do not fight it,,,come over to the warm side! Celebrate Spring!

Yes you want-to-be Spring fever skiers reading this at your work! Ellistine, Mike, Mark, Jan, Bandit, et all....... come feel the sun, the wind ! We now have a place to contaminated each other!

Sorry must go.....the sun calls,

Pavel,

The quiet, sunny, fresh groomed, early morning and empty trails of spring sound so fine. We were skiing this morning but it wasn't as advertised above. It was more like winter today with a cold wind blowing with a blizzard-like snowfall. The afternoon was better but true spring skiing will have to be re-discovered another day. I did experience it a few years ago and it still is clearly one of the best days ever on the skis. Not a mark on the snow, and not a sound in the air & not a cloud in the sky. The smell of the soft wood fire from the lodge was so inviting. The grooming was perfect and the early morning sun did shed some warmth. There was no wind that day and the snow was just perfect. My tracks were the first in that soft snow that day! Perfect!

Mike : :-)

ha there is nothing like setting everything up, the snowcats grooming, getting the lifts/chairs cleared. Then....the public comes. It was so warm at my resort today I shed everything except shorts and a t shirt and my converse all stars. Too bad for me the snow is now slush and I walk down the "mountain" and by mountain I mean hill. and totally forget I have a broken foot :cry: yeep!

I took out a wasp in my lil' lift shack it was quite long and menacing

IceGhost;

Broken foot :!: That must have been some big wasp :!: :shock:

Hope the pain with the foot is tollerable. At least it is nearing the healing time for winter ski & board related injuries :roll: You'll be back in shape for next year.

Mike :wink:

IceGhost wrote: and totally forget I have a broken foot :cry: yeep!

I took out a wasp in my lil' lift shack it was quite long and menacing

you get some injuries don't you iceghost??? :shock: how's the acl?