March 31

Today, my last day. Dave went to work on the 4 million dollar home he is building. Oh the new JH. Brad and I skied calmly and toured the mountain. I got to Aprez Vous where I spent so much time pacesetting for Nastar when I worked for the ski school. Back when I was was pacesetting, I remember Benny Wilson, Jon Hunt and Doug Coombs making the trek over to try and beat me on the Nastar course. They never did.  A few of those times I would join them for a few runs if I didn't have to go to line up at the ski school. Then Coombs would beat me on the way down flashing his big smile everytime he looked back and saw me right on his tail. I love Aprez Vous. It's like a New England ski area with only one lift. I was thoroughly disappointed with the bulldozing of Teewinot Gully. It used to be so much fun in this natural half pipe. I loved launching off the walls and doing airplane turns. Now there are no walls to launch off of. For our last run I wanted to show Brad the line Dave showed me on the Cirque the day before. As we were traversing out I let some yahoos go first for fear that they would follow us. They dropped in too early. I saw ski schoolers approaching and I said to Brad let's get farther out on the Cirque before the ski schoolers get here. Well, they followed us to my line. And who was it? It was the old timers I had hung out with at Stiegler's on Saturday night. There was Rich Lee, Renny Burke, Ernie Anderson and Vern all skiing together. Now you don't want to add up their ages because it would put us into the next millenium. It was fun skiing this line with my old time supervisors in the ski school. They still got it and it was inspiring and super spontaneous. I stopped by Dave's worksite to see his fine ccraftsmanship after work, and was ready to say good bye to the Hole. However, a storm was brewing . . .