It was a very good year: 53/50

Today, Snowbird was on the front page of the New York Times. No big deal - they were also on the NBC evening news last night. Why? Let's just say it has been a very good year. It's been such a good year that even non-snow lovers are stopping to take notice.

Snowbird's average, yearly snowfall is 500 inches (but we've found it closer to 600 for the past 5 years). This year's snowfall? 776. 

Not only was the snowfall epic, but this year did not have a huge dry-spell or mid-winter warm-up. That means that November snow is still gracing the slopes, and there is a huge base of white stuff that's not going anywhere anytime soon. 

Even our local, Ogden hill (Snowbasin) opened up today - June 11th - for summer skiing and riding. This was a first for Snowbasin. Sadly, they were not honoring last season's pass. (I mean...come on! It's last season's snow!) We didn't have the money to drop on next year's Snowbasin pass, so it was Snowbird for us.

The mountain was smooth, with some mashed-potato piles building up as the day progressed. We had a few great runs just passed Old Ladies, where the creaminess was smooth but still fast. We also ventured through the knucklehead traverse, but found it a bit stop-and-go. 

We met up with one of the Utah Spartans and grabbed a beer on the patio to enjoy some greasy food and live music in the 60 degree sun. It was one of those days when I just sat there in awe. Life is pretty damn incredible sometimes. 

Sometimes I think about what would have happened if we didn't move to Utah. We would have been hanging out on the deck in Williamston. I probably would have been manically grading papers in preparation for the end of the year at Holt. No doubt, we would have seen the newspaper article and news broadcast through Facebook or Twitter, where we followed Snowbird diligently, even when living in Michigan. We would have sighed but reminded ourselves of all the reasons why we were still in Michigan: good jobs, family, friends, health care, etc. We would have viewed Utah as we always did: a pipe dream, one to be saved for later years. 

Most days, I don't know what really drove us to (finally) get the guts to move to Utah. Was it Dirk's injury? Restlessness? A premonition of how things would go downhill in Michigan? I'm still not sure. But I'm glad as hell that we did it. 

And, truly, we could not have picked a better year. 

View the New York Times article