And it came to pass that in the 100th day of the first month in the 2023rd year, we got pitted. For real though, today was cold, and it didn’t stop snowing the whole day. It definitely did not feel like April 4th. Rather it felt much more like the 100th day of January.

During my rock-climbing class I got a text from Ashton asking if I wanted to go night skiing. I’ve only ever night skied in bounds, or in the early morning where by the time we were skiing down it was light. So the idea of doing an entire tour in the dark while it was snowing seemed exciting.

I already had plans to take someone touring for the first time up Rock Canyon, but I texted him and asked if he wanted to go to Aspen Grove instead. He was excited to go do something a little bit more legit than Rock Canyon so off we went.

The roads were maybe the worst I’ve seen them all season today while driving up. Perhaps because with Sundance being closed, the plows weren’t out. It seems like everyone’s just completely done with the snow, even the snow plow drivers have quit or something! Thankfully because Sundance was closed there wasn’t any traffic going up the road so we were able to go anywhere on the road we wanted which came in clutch a couple of times when we were sliding a bit.

Shockingly, right when we got just above Sundance the roads were completely clear. We skied in the same area yesterday and when we pulled into the Aspen Grove Parking lot it looked like it had only maybe snowed an inch in the past 28 hours. Super weird, considering in the valley we had gotten more than that. The storm somehow missed it, not sure how.

But it was snowing hard while we were there and we hoped we could still maybe find some decent skiing. Especially since we were taking someone for their first time.

We ended up finding the skin track set by the Mediocre Amateurs earlier in the day which was. great place for someone to start. The terrain wasn’t frightening and there wasn’t an absurd amount of kick-turns, but enough that it gave our friend good practice. After about 45 minutes of skinning we pulled out the lights, well Ashton did. I had misplaced my headlamp, so I brought my bike light which turned out to not have any charge. Today we were those dumb college kids.

Thankfully Ashton’s graduated from college and brought two lights, so the three of us worked our way down the mountain after transitioning near the top. Because we had 2 lights to three people we would have someone with a light ski first, and then spotlight the person without a light going down for a few turns, and then continue with that pattern all the way to the bottom.

Even though we didn’t ski for very long today, it was still a lot of fun and good to get out. Oh, and a note for future reference, if you’re going to be teaching someone how to do kick turns, dress warmer. Chances are you’ll have more stopped time than normal which means more clothes, especially if it’s dark and snowing.