Deer Valley, Utah

In contrast to my earlier post, it turns out that I can park at Deer Valley. In fact, when I'm with Saurer, I can even ski there. We got started sometime before noon last Friday morning and I quickly reached into the bag of tricks labeled "New England." I didn't see any true ice like we used to ski in Vermont, but that was some hard snow for Utah. After skidding through a couple of groomers, we ventured onto Morning Star, which looked terrifying. Turns out that it wasn't too bad and a little sun had softened some of the worst of it. We took a bunch of laps in there and Mark enjoyed the shrubs, which is not a love that we share.

Afterwards we toured the rest of the mountain. Remarkably, the Empire Lodge, which I never considered to be a small structure, has now been absolutely dwarfed by one of the largest hotels I have ever seen. All I can say is that there are quite a few people who have more money than I do. In fact there may be quite a few people who will spend more money at that hotel than I earn in my lifetime. In any case, we finished our day in the Daly chutes. Saurer laid down a few of his famous jump turns. As for me, all I can say is that there is no shame in a side slip. Actually, that wasn't quite the end of our day because we had cookies, cheese sandwiches, and beer in the parking lot before leaving Deer Valley.

I needed to be back in southern Utah by Saturday afternoon, but Cylvick objected to an early departure, so I joined he and Stan for a few laps at Park City. It was an absolutely beautiful morning, but I left the camera behind. (Let's just say that Cylvick isn't known for his patience.) We started in Scots, skied the West Face, and then met Saurer on top of the Peak. The snow right off the top above First Chute was pretty nice, but the frozen chicken heads down in the bottom of the bowl wore me out. When Eric and Stan called it a day, I skied a front side lap with Kristi, who had apparently forgiven me for the 21-pot-salute I gave her at 6:30a. I was on the road by 12:30 or 1p and back in southern Utah in time for dinner. Another good Park City ski holiday.

http://picasaweb.google.com/aorlemann/DeerValleyUtah#

Denver International Airport, Colorado

I was in Fort Collins last week. The weather was poor, the work days were longish, and my motel was surrounded by traffic. I usually try to find an out of the way corner; some place derelict or abandoned or unnoticed; a place for walking around, making pictures, and feeling lonely. But I had no luck until Friday afternoon when we drove down to DIA for our Saturday flight. It was there, at a box-like motel on the edge of the airport that I found what I was looking for. The place is developing quickly—a few acres of condos here, an office park there, a couple of Marriotts over on the other side—but not that long ago it was just a bunch of ramshackle farms on the edge of the Great Plains. And, where it hasn't yet been paved, the prairie is still the prairie. I walked out behind the hotel into a field of weeds, across what was once a country road, and over a pipeline right-of-way. The wind blew cold, the sun was setting, and the fields were muddy with trash and dried grass. But, the larks were back . . . , and the hawks, and the sparrows. I squatted down so I couldn't see the sprawl, and I listened to the song of a lark and watched a hawk hunting. I felt a little better then, more like myself, more like I could tell what was going on in the world.