{"id":2449662,"date":"2019-10-09T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-10-09T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=314033"},"modified":"2019-10-09T05:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-10-09T11:00:00","slug":"roger-marolt-where-average-is-awesome-even-if-a-little-disappointing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/roger-marolt-where-average-is-awesome-even-if-a-little-disappointing\/","title":{"rendered":"Roger Marolt: Where average is awesome even if a little disappointing"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

<\/p>

Roger Marolt<\/strong>
<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

The latest reports are out and by almost all accounts it looks like we are in for pretty average snowfall this winter.<\/p>\n

I was a little disappointed when I heard this, but hardly surprised. After last year, I am afraid average will seem a little dull. How could it not? But, most winters are average, and that has been enough to get me hooked on the sport and living in Colorado, so bring on the ho-hum!<\/p>\n

Just over six months ago, we had face shots about every other day for three weeks in late February and early March. We were skiing alleys and chutes that haven\u2019t been skiable in decades. For the last three months of winter there was no need or reason to tune your skis or repair the bases.<\/p>\n

\u201cNormal\u201d after a season like that will be about as exciting as visiting your accountant the day after seeing the Rolling Stones unexpectedly at your favorite bar for an unannounced tune-up before their big show in the stadium the next night.<\/p>\n

People think I\u2019m nuts when I say that lanes open up in the woods when the snow gets unusually deep, but it really happens. Think about the shape of pine trees. They are wide at the base and get progressively narrower toward their tops. On a dry year, you can\u2019t squeeze through where the skirts of the trees touch, but you have lots of room to maneuver when the snow is deep and are slaloming nearer to the birds\u2019 nests. That\u2019s what we had last year, so don\u2019t blame a big growing season when you go back to last year\u2019s powder stashes and can\u2019t find what you were certain was there before.<\/p>\n

Nobody talked about rock skis last season. We had great snow for an early opening and only had a couple short dry spells the rest of the winter. The coverage, as usual, got a little thin between Christmas and New Years from all the people coming to get a taste of our snow, which reminds a lot of skiers of a light, bubbly, dry wine-like beverage.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unfortunate that we can\u2019t call our snow Champagne Powder \u00a9. In case you didn\u2019t know, that is against the law, so don\u2019t do it. I was informed of this several years ago by a lawyer for the Steamboat Springs\u00a9 Ski Resort which has copyrighted that description and threatened to sue me and the newspaper I wrote for if I ever use the term again without proper attribution.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too bad that Steamboat is the only place where skiers can enjoy Champagne Powder \u00a9, but, like roses, dry fluffy snow anywhere besides Steamboat Springs skis just as sweet, if not even a little bit better, in my humble opinion. Not being able to use that expression that I have used since I was about 5 years old didn\u2019t ruin my ski season last year, nor even the year before when nobody in the West had any snow at all, including Steamboat Springs where one can only imagine what champagne on the rocks tastes like. It makes me wonder though; do you think anyone has copyrighted \u201cFace Shots\u201d?<\/p>\n

There was one interesting thing about the announcement of an average winter at a recent presentation where a couple of local weather experts laid out their customized snow forecast in grandiose style as if they were at the Louvre Museum pulling the shroud off a recently discovered Michelangelo.<\/p>\n

Apparently, one of the experts came out and basically said global warming isn\u2019t real and most of the other experts have been fooled because they have been measuring temperatures on urban islands where temperatures are higher than on what one can only assume are rural islands, where they haven\u2019t bothered to place thermometers, maybe for fear of cannibals. Who knows?<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not sure what I think about relying on a climate change denier for a forecast to plan my entire winter around. I\u2019m sure you can be right about this winter\u2019s snowpack while being completely wrong about an atmospheric threat to the future survival of mankind. But, I do wonder why a weatherman would take a political stance at a local presentation to local powder hounds who are mostly curious about what the upcoming winter might be like and had nothing better to do on an offseason evening than come to what basically amounts to The Weather Channel Live. I\u2019m sure beer was served. That makes me suspicious, too.<\/p>\n

For what it\u2019s worth, I don\u2019t much care what the forecast says. I\u2019m going skiing no matter what. I\u2019m a daily special kind of guy. Surprise me. I\u2019ll try it and then give the review. If it\u2019s good, I\u2019ll be thankful for a second helping.<\/p>\n

Roger Marolt\u2019s skiing routine has never been much affected by the weather forecast. Email him at roger@maroltllp.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Roger Marolt The latest reports are out and by almost all accounts it looks like we are in for pretty average snowfall this winter. I was a little disappointed when I heard this, but hardly surprised. After last year, I am afraid average will seem a little dull. How could it not? But, most winters […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2449662","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-28 00:26:16","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2449662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2449662\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2449662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2449662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2449662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}