Conditions Report
Conditions Report from Saturday and Sunday, December 27 and 28, 2025
Song of the day: “Love is on the Mountain” – Chronixx
“This is how magic is done. By hurling yourself into the abyss and discovering it’s a feather bed.” -Terence McKenna
The fuzzy, indistinct chatter abruptly and immediately ceased:
“Can I get your attention PLEASE!”
The tram operator goes on to deliver his debriefing about available terrain and the skier’s responsibility code, but I’m too busy thinking about something unimportant to hear it.
…. …. …. “Available terrain is GAD VALLEY ONLY.”
Without making a sound the tram cabin screeches to a halt.
The doors slide open on both sides. I was one of the last to get on so I am one of the first to exit.
From the left side of the car. The air is clear and piercingly cold. Much colder than yesterday.
Ahhh. Yesterday.
A Powder day.
The first one in a long time.
The first one of the season, actually.
Yesterday was a good day.
Like today, I popped off the tram—the third tram of the day at approximately 9:29 a.m.—and darted for the snow.
Powder snow:
This is God here.
It was still snowing when we made our first powder turns of the year yesterday, and visibility was narrow.
Nonetheless, years of powder skiing stored in the cells of our lower bodies sprung into action and muscle memory did all the work.
We were floating once again—fast and high.
Regulator Johnson skied like a wet dream until it got steep at the bottom, then you hit a bit of icy stuff underneath.
The flatter the slope yesterday, the smoother the powder skied.
We hunted hard all day.
That was a good day.
Yesterday.
But this was today.
My ski boots click and clunk on the concrete padding of the tram car top terminal, occasionally crunching some of the icy, salted snow on the way to the cat track.
It is sunny and much of yesterday’s fresh snow has been skied.
People are much less hurried today.
Click into the bindings, strap down the boot buckles (first the bottom two, then the top two) tighten the booster straps, pull the goggles down, pole three or four times with both poles to the downhill part of the slope and—we’re off.
Skiing to live another day.
We make back and forth turns on the groomer like cobras dancing in between the two rope lines with little orange flags hanging off the orange and black candied-cane-patterned rope, each little flag spaced about 5 feet apart followed by orange and black (also candy cane design) bamboo poles stuck into the snow, fixing the rope in place.
The machine-groomed snow is soft and quiet.
The groomer curves to the left and back around.
Now we are on top of Regulator, sun beaming on the upper cat track, skiers swimming by.
The middle of the run is hard and a little iced over.
We know this from the sound.
The sound of the snow doesn’t lie.
We go skier’s right, off the piste, where soft snow lingers from the day before.
It’s skied but it’s still in good shape.
Little miniature Christmas trees about 3 inches tall stick out of the snow, dotting most of top section of the run, where almost-buried pine trees stick out their tops, grasping for the last little bit of sunlight before 1 more storm buries them until the spring.
Tough little suckers.
We get to the bottom of Regulator where the run makes a sharp right curve on very firm machine-made snow.
Ski Patrol is already putting someone in a sled who skied out of their limits.
The ice almost gets me, pulling my right uphill ski downwards as my edge slips out on a righthand turn.
I feel an awkward pull in my right hip where my thigh meets my groin.
I ski past the injured skier being bundled up by Ski Patrol, humbly.
Now we are at the top of Gadzoom.
The day has just begun.
So many possibilities exist, especially since they just opened Little Cloud for the first time this season.
We oblige and try out the newly opened terrain.
So do others.
The cold bites at our mustache-sickles in the shade of the lift line.
Up we go.
To throw ourselves back
into
the Abyss.
Over and over and over
again
until we find
our bliss.
We live to ski another day.
Or was it the other way around?
I don’t know.
It snowed at Snowbird this weekend.
That’s all I need to know.
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The theme of “living to ski another day” is a bit insensitive considering the recent fatalities at Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, especially since you are not addressing safety issues…