Opening Day!

Usually I don't like the opening day of ski season. Mediocre snow and too many people on just a few hills. This year is going to be a bit different! Nub's Nob has received over 30 inches of natural snow so far this winter and will open with over 30 runs on Saturday, November 22! Ski ya' out there!

Signs of the Season: Skunks

There is an old skiers' tale that the whiter the skunks are, the snowier the winter will be. Recently I was driving and saw a skunk so white that at first I thought it was a cat!

My schedule is turned in and the Nub's Nob Winter Sports School can start taking reservations. I will be instructing December 22, 27-28, 30-31, January 3-4, Saturdays through February 22, and then March 22. Ski you out there!

ChairTalk: Shadows

Here is my shadow leading me up Whitefish on the black chair. I love the way it shrinks and grows depending on how high I am in the air. C. S. Lewis wrote about this effect in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one of my favorite Narnia books.

Back to Nature: Sunsets

This part of Michigan is know for great sunsets. I have certainly seen my share, but my favorites are from the ski hill. I managed to get out to Nub's Friday night, and it was another amazing view!

It may seem like the sun is setting on the season, but Nub's Nob still has four more weeks left. Right now I am only scheduled for Mardi Gras on March 23, but if there is interest I could meet a lesson during Spring Break, March 29 - April 7.

Signs of the Season: Sun on Smokey

Due to the tilt of the earth, the sun is low in the sky when Nub's Nob opens each year. The north facing front hills are in the shade all day, everyday, until the end of January. A sure sign that we are coming out of the dark is when Old Smokey starts to have sun from top to bottom. The sun makes it easier to see changes in the terrain, and checking your shadow is a good way to check your form. Enjoy!

Why We Ski: Snow Days

When I was a kid it seemed like we had Snow Days all the time. On snowy days when school wasn't cancelled, we would complain about how hard it was to get to school: too slippery, too deep, low visibility, etc. When school was cancelled, though, none of that could stop us. Suddenly we were all expert winter drivers. We would head out to the ski hill and make the first chair. These days it seems that school cancelations aren't so much about snow but about rain and ice. When I am not teaching skiing on Saturdays, I am the librarian at Charlevoix Elementary. Before today my school district had four school cancellations, but none of them enticed me to ski. Today was different! I got the call a half hour before my alarm was supposed to go off and was so excited I couldn't fall back asleep. I didn't make the first chair, but I did make the most of the morning. It was a little chilly and there was some wind on the front hills, but I found some fun powder and even made a glade run! Unlike in my youth I did not stay out the whole day, but it sure was fun reliving those times.

Back to Nature: Weather

To paraphrase Charles Dickens, when I work up this morning I knew it could be one of the best days of the year or one of the worst days of the year. It depended on one thing: the weather. I am a weather junkie. I "Wake Up With Al" each day and always have a tab on my computer open to Weather.com. I also love my Weather Channel app. Usually I know what to expect, but the forecast for today had me baffled. Last night's reports stated "fog/drizzle" for the morning and "partly cloudy/windy" for the afternoon. The high of 48 degrees would be first thing in the morning with temperatures falling throughout the day. The day could end up damp and dreary or bright and warm. On my way to breakfast in the morning I could see a faint glow in the east! At our morning meeting there were clouds to the west, but they were moving north! Temperatures did warm up overnight, but the snowpack "set up" and hardened just enough: soft enough in the morning to get an edge but not too soft to be bad by the end of the afternoon. All things came together to give us a perfect spring skiing day in the middle of January. It was the best of times! Thank you sunshine! Now, back to the snow!

Take the poll to the right of the blog: What do you like better: sunny days or powder days?

Back to Nature: Panda Land

This year Nub's Nob has a new hill: Panda Land! It is a green circle hill just off of Pleasantview after the orange chair. Panda Land is named after our Winter Sports School children's program, but you won't find pandas. Instead, there are five life-size statues of Michigan wildlife: a moose, a cougar, an eagle, a deer, and my favorite, a bear! The hill was the idea of our resident Papa Panda, Bob Mogford. It is a fun detour and now part of my teaching repertoire. It is a great way to practice turning and learn about nature.

ChairTalk: The Season That Was

Some would say this was the season that wasn't. It had a slow start and too fast of a finish. But as Warren Miller said, "The best place in the world to ski is where you're skiing that day," and thanks to the crew at Nub's Nob we had a lot of great days. One thing skiers like to do is reminisce. Quite often I am in a group and past years come up: "Remember the year the temperature never went above zero?" or "How about that Christmas when it snowed 80 inches in two days!" Now we can talk about the year it was in the 80's for a week in March and there wasn't enough snow for Mardi Gras! For now I have cleaned out my locker and hung up my beads, and I remind myself that next year's skiing and celebrations will be twice as sweet!

Signs of the Season: President's Day

It has been a strange winter. I think I have seen my lawn more than I have seen snow covering it. Thankfully that has not been the case at Nub's Nob. Thanks to the snow-making and grooming crews and the Pisten-Bully groomers it has been amazing skiing, as always.

President's Day for some reason feels like the beginning of the end of winter, but there are still seven more weeks of the ski season. Unfortunately for me, I am only instructing two more Saturdays: next weekend, February 25, and Mardi Gras, March 25. Things are going to be too busy at school next month for me to commit to any more days, so call the Winter Sports School if you want to get a lesson in with me before the end of the season.

Why We Ski: Magical Moments

There are many magical and beautiful moments involved with skiing. This morning I was struck by the beauty of the view from the parking lot. Every year there is that fear that we may experience a December like in the movie White Christmas: "Where's all the snow?" "We bring it indoors during the day." The view this morning took all my fears away. Everything was white, the snowguns were blowing all over the hill, and the lake effect snowflakes were falling! Glade skiing is not a possibility right now, but most of the other front and back hills are open or will be open tomorrow. To make Christmas even merrier, most of Pintail Peak will open Sunday!

Signs of the Season: Sunshine and Snowguns

It was a beautiful day at the ski hill today: the sun was shining and the snowguns were going! Most of the front hills are now open, and the guns were going full blast on the back and Pintail Peak. They have been going nonstop since yesterday and are still going tonight! Here's to cold weather!

Signs of the Season: Close, But Not Yet

Nub's Nob is looking good, but there just wasn't enough of a base to open this weekend. To tell you the truth, I wouldn't have gone out in this rain anyway! The temperatures next week are looking much better for snowmaking, and I am hoping for at least half a dozen slopes next weekend, compared to the two or three there would have been today. Ski you soon!

Signs of the Season: Snowmaking

Earlier this week they were able to fire up the guns one morning, and tonight's low is forecast to be 24 degrees! Will this be enough for Thanksgiving? Probably not, but keep your eye on the webcam and conditions pages!

Signs of the Season: Color

I saw my first changing leaves of the season the other day, another sign that time is moving forward toward opening day. Summer lovers need not panic yet, though. It is usually only the weak, young, old, or sick trees that change at this point, and I am seeing less than in years past. We still won't have peak color until October, just in time for the chairlift rides at the Open House!

Back to Nature: Robins

I haven't seen one yet, but I know other people have spotted robins that have returned for the summer. One of my favorite ski experiences had to do with a robin many years ago on the last day of the season. That year we did not have as much snow as we do this year, and there was a "land bridge" to get from the beginner hill to the main chairlift. I was skiing rather fast on the empty hill to make it easier to get over to The Green. Out of the corner of my eye I spotted something. We were both cruising along at an angle and were on a collision course. We both immediately straightened out our paths and soared along side by side for a second. I could see right into its eye and it watched me. After a moment it flapped its wings as if to say "So long!" and accelerated away. It was an amazing feeling to be flying along side by side with a bird, and I will never forget that moment.

Thanks to my brother Brian for taking this picture of the robin sculpture outside of the Hramiec Hoffman Art Gallery.

Back to Nature: Mackinaw Bridge

I know, the Mackinaw Bridge is not "nature," but nature has to be just right to see it from the top of the hill. On a sunny day with blue skies and no haze, you can see the bridge if you stand just in the right spot: third tree down (shown here) from the patrol shack. Look NNE above the trees and you should see two white towers against the blue sky, just above the trees.

Signs of the Season: Frozen Bay

Sunday morning's cold temperatures left Little Traverse Bay frozen and made an interesting view from the top of Pintail Peak. Growing up in Petoskey and living for a bit in Harbor Springs you really get to know the bay, and it becomes a topic of conversation, especially in winter. It wasn't until I started teaching in Charlevoix that I found out not everyone cares about the frozen, or unfrozen, state of Little Traverse Bay. For those of you that care, the ice has broken up again and just the edges of the bay remain frozen.

Besides the view, I tried to think of other effects the ice covered bay would have on skiing. I decided that it means less lake effect snow, but mostly in Petoskey as opposed to the ski hill. It does follow, though, that there will be less shoveling and more time for skiing!

Why We Ski: Sunshine!

Powder skiing is great, but the next best thing is sunshine on corduroy. This weekend had it all: blue skies, sunshine, and a dusting of new snow over perfectly groomed slopes. Also, today was the first day I noticed sunshine on Smokey. During the beginning of the season the sun sits so low in the sky that the front hills are always in shadow. With the days getting longer and the northern hemisphere beginning to tip back toward the sun, we now have sunshine on the front!

Back to Nature: Fog

Skiing in fog can be an eerie experience. It can make a familiar hill seem foreign and give you a feeling of skiing at a new place. In the fog if you don't feel like you have the slope to yourself, you at least feel more anonymous. If you are really lucky, you can ski in an inversion: where the bottom of the mountain is in the fog, but the top is above the clouds. You end up standing in the sunshine looking down on the tops of the clouds. Unfortunately this doesn't happen often in Michigan at 400 ft!