The End of Winter, Beginning of Mud Season

The mountain is closing for the season, sad day. Granted it's still open for another week, but skiing the last week basically means that you got to say that you skied the last week. Kind of like opening week means that you're too impatient to wait for better conditions closing week means that you can't accept that conditions are bad and aren't getting any better. I skied on friday and it was good for the first couple of hours. It was also sad because Southface and Solitude (different areas of the mountain) were closed, meaning 1/2 the mountain was open and everyone was skiing on it. Conditions got too slushy for my taste. I was told that in order to truly enjoy this mashed potato like snow you needed wider skis, ones that almost look like snowboards. I had fun but skiing through slush is a lot harder than normal conditions. There were also starting to get bare patches in the trials as well. Towards the bottom the snow kind of resembled margarita mix. And so with a heavy heart, I packed up my ski gear and got out my mud boots.

Now some places in the world have spring. That nice time of year when the birds come back, the air smells fresh, and trees bud. Everything is nice and new. In Vermont we have that too, but instead of taking a stroll in the woods we walk through mud (keeping in mind real spring comes later, in June). Imagine all those nice things about spring covered in a layer of mud, and you're basically got mud season. Did you know mud has a smell? Smells about how you would imagine. Mud season is the worst, mostly because it comes right after ski season, and then there's not a whole lot of fun things to do anymore outside. Hiking should be kept to a minimum because hiking on muddy trails erodes them, boating is cold because the water hasn't heated up yet. None of the bars are open anymore because even the locals don't want to go out at night they're so depressed about the season. So if you were thinking of taking a trip up to Vermont anytime soon, don't. No offense against tourists, but this is the only season that we don't have a crap ton of tourists around. At least let us wallow in our mud alone.