After a rather dubious start on the Chickadee beginner run (there are no bunny slopes at Snowbird), I got my sea legs back - twenty years after my last ski trip - and began enjoying myself. A few inches of fresh snow had fallen the night before, the air was pristine, the evergreens and mountains majestic around me, and traffic on the
mountain light, being a Tuesday. Many times I had a run almost all to myself.
My plan to confront potential altitude sickness, beyond obtaining a pre-trip scrip for acetazolamide, was to take chair lifts to increasingly higher elevations and possibly end the day by reaching 10,000 feet with a breathtaking view - hopefully speaking figuratively - of the valley below. The base at Snowbird is around 7900 feet, so I started with lifts that got me to 8400 and 8600 feet.
At some point the fog started rolling in - or, as I saw it, the clouds began dropping down. During one specific stretch of the run it felt like it was raining. Visibility dwindled to 30 or 40 yards. At that point, skiing was difficult but not dangerous, as I could see just enough to complete the next couple turns.
After lunch I took a lift that got me to 9200 feet and an intermediate run called Bassackwards. It was quite challenging, but I did all right, especially considering the worsening conditions. It was now snowing and accumulating quickly.
The afternoon was waning, though, and I had a few more runs on my agenda, so I got on the Gadzoom High-Speed Quad chair lift and reached 9700 feet. My plan was to take Bassackwards all the way down, get on the Gadzoom lift again, ski halfway down, and get on the mid-slope lift that would take me up to 9800 feet, and ski down across the mountain back to Snowbird Center. Then I would end the day by taking the Peruvian Express High-Speed Quad up to 10,500 feet and skiing down Chip's Run back to Cliff Lodge, where we were staying.
That didn't happen. As soon as I got off Gadzoom I could tell conditions had seriously deteriorated. Wet snow fell heavily, ice pellets battered my face as I skied, forcing me to stop, and my wet glasses cut my visibility even more. Not only that, but they suddenly developed a fogging problem that would not go away. Wiping them only helped until I put them back on my face, when they immediately fogged up again. I had no choice but to take them off and put them away.
Now everything was out of focus, but at least I didn't have to fight fog on top of the mist and snow.
Looking up the run, I could hear voices but couldn't tell where they were coming from... until people materialized from the mist. Looking down, skiers traversed the run and then disappeared. "Wait!" I wanted to shout, but they were gone, and though I waited, no one else came after them.
I wondered if I were the last one left on the run.
With no other choice, I skied down into the blurry whiteout and quickly encountered a new problem: snow flying directly into my eyes. Though it forced me to blink rapidly, I kept going, gaining a sense of what it must be like to ski blind.
I became disoriented, as the ground and air became one, all the same whiteness and mist. With no depth perception and no other people in front of me, I couldn't judge the slope of the ground, couldn't tell where anything was, couldn't make the split second adjustments necessary for successful turning, and I lost control and fell repeatedly.
It was no longer fun.
All I wanted was to get to the bottom, get on the shuttle back to Cliff Lodge, and get out of my wet clothes. But it seemed I would never get to the bottom, since I couldn't see it. Nevertheless, I knew I would be closer with every turn, and I blinked hard against the wet snow, straining to focus on keeping my weight forward and carving turns (or at least skidding) aggressively, while praying no trees would suddenly appear in front of me, like goblins in a fun house ride.
Eventually the lifts emerged at the bottom, and I relaxed. The chairs hadn't even stopped for the day yet, and yes, unbelievably, some intrepid skiers were riding back up for one last run. I shared a shuttle ride with two guys from New Orleans, one of whom had never skied before and who had twisted an ankle at the end of the day. And I was worried about fogged up glasses?
Later, sitting in the hot tub while kids played in the pool, all of us in the middle of what Washington would call a "blizzard," I noticed that snow was piling up on the heads of my tubmates. And while it had been quite an afternoon, and while it seemed crazy to go right back outside into the same weather, only this time in just a swimsuit, I had friendly conversation around me, the spa jets warmed my body in no time, and all my worries of the day evaporated as quickly as those skiers disappearing down the slopes in front of me, chatting unconcerned to each other, as friends do.
Photos: (1) Beautiful weather on March 8; (2) Clouds dropping on the Peruvian Express Quad Lift (10K feet) on March 9; (3) Decreasing visibility at the top of a run; (4) Looking up the mountain, three skiiers (center) emerge from the mist. This is how it looked facing downhill, too. (Funny how a dangerous situation always presents a good photo op.)
