Untitled Document

by Tommy Kirchhoff

"Good mornin' Ralph."

"Mornin' George." We greeted with the usual "let's go make the donuts," morning- routine hello. Both a little groggy, we headed off to work for the millionth time.

It was the exact same routine as always, but we both knew we weren't going up to work. The fifth day of this cherubic, February storm would be a pleasant end to a paycheck killing week.

Thirty inches of groomed powder sat silently on the race hill, with another seven on top of that. The race department followed through the 45 minutes of early morning company procedure - calling ski school, management, ski patrol, sales points, grooming and girlfriends.

We battened down the hatches, then paddled down to Three and Four, trying to come up with a chairlift plan. Up Three, down to Nine, over to six? Or up Four, down to Five, over to Six? The latter seemed faster, and less populated. Two people in the line for Four had fatties on, but as it turned out, they went with plan "A."

We made it over to Six with no lift complications. We went up, crossing our fingers that the valley stayed clear. Half way up, a K2 5500 came chunking down Apex. We cringed a little bit, and waited to see the others. But no one came. Six dumped us off, and it was empty. We looked up at the top of Nine; it wasn't even running yet.

I remember hearing harps... We buckled down, dropped under the shack, and bla, bla, bla down Allia's solid, thigh-deep dumpage. We reached the lift, covered with white clumps, to exchange head buzzes, high fives and hives.

We jumped back on the lift and checked out tracks. My line, his line, his line, my line. Yes! And still no one came.

We hit Allia's again - face shots, face plants and inverted landings. Two full runs in utter privacy.

We headed back up the lift, and they started to come. A few hacks trickled down Apex; a couple rippers skipped down Allia's; teliers and snowboarders were squirting out of the trees all over the place.

The privacy was over, but it was just as much fun to watch them party down and destroy our lines.

We unloaded from Six, hung a louie and sped down that little trail toward Apex that has no name. We spontaneously launched off the trail onto Sullie's and ripped, ripped, ripped.

For two hours, I told my boss how this had been the best skiing I'd ever had. He was smiling beneath an icicled mustache, and telling me how letters would have to be written that night. Midwestern boys in bonding.

Then after six or seven mindblowing, binding releasing runs, Gold Hill opened.We were there when they pulled the closure. A Saturday. A scheduled work day. A real bummer.

I had to stop twice on the hike. While the boss was jogging in place by Electra, I was the out-of-shape jogger, standing there wincing and pinching my left lovehandle.

We hiked to the Little Rose sign at 12-two, mounted up, and traversed over to the boundary.

Yup, yup, yup. Right.

Words could never do it justice.

Both of us snorkeled down, completely drunk on Telluride champagne. You couldn't even call it face shots. Every turn submerged us, down down through heavenly clouds of angelic playland.

Beats the living hell out of the Midwest.