My Ego as a Senior Skier
The aging process does weird things to the mind. We remember days of yesteryear winding down through moguls on a steep run all day, thinking it was fun. Or floating through knee-deep powder all day from when the lifts open until they close. Today, in my dotage, when confronted with a steep pitch full of knee-high, well-rounded moguls, I go around. Or, after two long runs through knee- or thigh-deep powder, my legs say we’re done for the day. The mind is willing, but the body says, “Hell no.”
A Sunny Day!
Unfortunately, I don’t live near a ski area where I can ski seven days a week. Each year, I work hard to get in less good shape than the previous year. And, what trainers tell me, getting into good skiing shape gets harder with every coming year. The message is that you can’t beat Father Time.
So why ski? Given the image the marketing folks want to portray, if one is not blasting through the trees in deep powder, or bouncing through the moguls, or leaping off rocks, one right after the other, why do I ski?
Because I love it. At 78, my ego no longer needs to be fed by a run through knee- deep moguls or skiing fast down a double diamond. Instead, I enjoy making a round carved turn that controls my speed on any pitch. I now only ski on groomed runs no matter how steep and stay out of trails that look like a hockey rink, bumps and now, even glades unless they are wide open. Nor do I ski in soft, mushy, clumpy snow. So what?
Now I take my time, stopping more often. Each run is precious because it may be my last – not because of death, but because of injury. Like most senior skiers, I am most afraid of being injured by an out-of-control skier who is either stoned, inebriated, skiing
way too fast for the conditions, on a run well beyond his/her ability, or a combination of all the above.
My bones no longer break; they are more likely to shatter. A simple fracture that will heal in a 40-year-old body in a month or two may take major surgery and heal in six or more months if it ever does. So, yes, I am careful where and what I ski and in what
conditions.
I even find myself taking in the vistas around me. There’s not a photograph that does justice to the majesty of snow-covered mountains, whether in Vermont, California, New Mexico, British Columbia, Austria, or New Zealand. There’s nothing like breathing in the cold, crisp air while giving your thighs a breather and admiring the work of Mother Nature.
Double diamond, expert, intermediate, beginner, if it is groomed, I’m in. To me, the degree of difficulty of the trail is irrelevant.
My ego is in doing what I must to keep skiing for as long as Father Time allows. My ego is the simple act of being able to turn a pair of skis and carve a turn in any condition I choose.
My ego is in the fact that I am skiing, not what I am skiing.
Major Changes Coming to Powder Mountain
Photo by Dave Sartwell of fellow Contributor Mike Roth skiing at Powder Mountain
Powder Mountain is about to embark on a private/public ski area development venture. In a bid to sell more real estate, a large segment of the mountain will become the exclusive domain of the on-mountain home owners. Like Homewood in California and Windham Mountain in New York, Utah’s Powder will be a hybrid model with major changes for longtime devotees. Those changes start next season.
“In order to pay our bills, we need to sell more real estate, and to do that we are introducing private homeowner-only skiing,” said Reed Hasting, in a letter to the community in Dec of 2023. The new CEO of Powder Mountain added, “We will be designating the Village and Mary’s lifts, which serve beginner and intermediate terrain, plus a new lift on Raintree for this private skiing, starting a year from now.”
With more than 8,500 acres of skiable terrain, Pow Mow, as it is known by the locals, is the largest ski area in North America. Located in the Wasatch mountains just thirty minutes northeast of Ogden, Utah, it is best known for receiving more 500 inches of snow each year – and free skiing to those who are 75+. Powder hounds from across the country trek here to ski the off-piste, tree-ladened slopes and laid-back vibe.
Reed, the co-founder of Netflix, got involved with Powder last April, and then took majority control of the resort in late summer by pledging a reported $100 million in new investment. He signed a development agreement with Meriwether Companies, a leading resort developer perhaps best known for their development of Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch, to head this new effort.
They immediately removed from the market 25 of the 57 lots in the Overlook area that had been listed for $1 million each while they develop a new master plan.
In the meantime, they are investing in some infrastructure upgrades. The horribly slow Paradise lift will be replaced by a high-speed detachable quad that will cut the ride time in half. Additional terrain will be accessed by a new fixed-grip quad on Lightning Ridge, which had been accessible only by cat skiing or skinning in the past. The cat skiing will be moved to another part of the mountain. The new owners are also upgrading the Timberline triple lift with a fixed-grip quad.
“We believe this blend of public and private skiing secures us decades of exceptional uncrowded skiing for all, funded partially by real estate. To stay independent and uncrowded, we needed to change, and we didn’t want to join the successful but crowded multi-resort pass model (ie, Snowbasin) or sell to a conglomerate (ie, Vail),” Reed stated.
Construction Begins This Summer
This ambitious plan will affect their 2024 summer operations.
“Construction will begin this summer on a number of lift and maintenance infrastructure upgrades that are set to greatly enhance the on-mountain experience at Powder Mountain,” they announced. “We will not be operating lift-accessed mountain biking this summer (2024) due to on-mountain summer construction needs. We appreciate all of the planning and hard work that has gone into making lift-serviced mountain biking at Powder possible for the past two summers, however after evaluating all options, this is a necessary step in order to complete our ambitious plans of installing four new lifts.”
Some new homes already have been built in the designated private area. A few are really are spectacular with truly wonderful views of the mountains. Meaghan O’Neill recently wrote in Architectural Digest that, “… buildings by acclaimed architects like Marmol Radziner, Olson Kundig, and MacKay-Lyons Sweetapple Architects, the Summit Powder Mountain village promises sprawling views of the Great Salt Lake and a stunning organic modern aesthetic.”
The new grand design has yet to be rolled out.
Changes to Season Passes
There have been several changes in the ticketing prices. For this next year they are lifting season pass caps, but intend to control numbers by limiting day passes. In a blow to seniors, the complimentary 75+ season pass has been eliminated.
What will the future hold for Pow Mow?
Will this become a private club for the super rich or a necessary blend of public/private that will keep the area open to the general public for generations to come? Stay tuned.
Get the Grandkids Skiing with Early Purchases of Season Passes
If you are like me, whenever I think about holiday gifts for my adult kids and grandkids, I immediately put the thought away, thinking I don’t have the time right now and will do it later. That turns out to be around December 15th, when panic sets in. Not anymore. Now, I gift my adult children season passes, so we can all ski together, including the grandkids.
It was my wife’s idea last season to give multi-resort season passes as holiday gifts. When the monetary – and monetary – shock wore off, I realized it was a wonderful, and sensible idea. After reviewing the major choices and where the kids and grandkids would ski, we decided to go with Ikon over Epic and Mountain Collective.
Given the date in mid-December when we looked into this, delaying was not an option, since sales would cease in two days. So, I went online, bought two Ikon full passes for five days at each participating resort, and then declared an early happy hour for my wife and me.
Here’s why it was great:
My son lives in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife and three daughters, all of whom are under 7 yrs old, so their passes are relatively inexpensive, which is why I chose the adult pass as a gift. My wife and I live in Massachusetts. We’ve met to ski together in Utah twice in the past three years, and the older one, who is now 6, is now skiing greens with full confidence. The other two girls are younger, and like younger siblings everywhere, they don’t want to be left behind.
In late December, my son, his wife and the three girls were invited by friends to spend the holiday week in Steamboat Springs, an Ikon resort. In February, my son took the family to Palisades Tahoe, another Ikon resort. Later this season, their family joined us at Snowbird, where we got a couple of timeshare units into which we can squeeze everyone for 4-5 days.
The icing on the cake for our three-generation ski trip was that the kids had already skied multiple days at multiple resorts, and were more than warmed up for skiing with their grandparents.
My point is simple:
If you want to ski with adult kids and your grandkids, the little ones must be skiers. Buying a mega-pass product makes it much easier to create opportunities to ski together with the younger generations. We would have ended up buying them a lot of day tickets anyway, which would have been much more expensive, so this mega-pass situation is looking pretty, pretty good!
NOTE: We lucked out big time, because my wife made her suggestion TWO days before pass sales stopped last fall. And as anyone who’s been in this mega-pass world knows, when pass sales end THEY’RE OVER.
So, think about it. In some respects, it is literally the Christmas/Holiday gift that keeps on giving. Because what’s more fun than skiing with your adult son or daughter and his or her child or children?
Passes are on sale, do it now, you won’t regret it! Or, skip the passes for your kids and buy them for your grandkids. Do whatever works best for you, with the goal of skiing with your family.
Families and friends in a ski resort
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