GMD Week 3: The Season Begins

For the last two weeks or so my friends at the Goldminer’s Daughter and I have spent our days hiking up Collins, either to the mid-station or to the top of the chair, which sits about 1500 feet up from the base of Alta. The ski down, by most standards, was never good. But we still climbed everyday. On Friday, Alta opened up the chair to the general public, and I’ve never anticipated or appreciated a chairlift so much in my life. It was a typical opening day, while the skiing wasn’t great, everybody there was just happy to see the season officially start. Several GMD employees arrived for the honorary first chair of the season three hours before Alta’s opening.

Through the patience we’ve had while waiting for snow, I realized that a lot of this sport is about sacrifice. We hike for an hour for five minutes of skiing on ice. We give up girlfriends and jobs, space and privacy so we can live close to the mountains and regularly experience the simple joy of skiing. To an outsider, this might appear absurd, but this is what makes our lifestyle so unique and rewarding. And the first few weeks of the season, of hiking and skiing shitty snow, make chairlifts and powder turns so much sweeter later on.

Last week the employees of the GMD received their first paycheck. It came to a depressing $33 dollars, though it was for a short pay period. But our financial woes became a distant afterthought when it started snowing hard on Wednesday. That night we hiked up Collins for our first Powder turns of the year. It continued to snow through Saturday, and the next day patrol opened the Wildcat Chair. I got my first glimpse of the potential this snow and terrain of Little Cottonwood Canyon have.

I also realized how quickly this opportunity can be lost. I befriended a New Yorker named Jason Meeks my first night at the GMD. Jason, a mellow and easy-going recent college graduate, was well-liked by everybody at the GMD. He majored in video production and was planning on making a documentary on our experience here. On Monday, Jason blew out his knee doing nothing too extraordinary. He’ll fly back home to begin a long rehabilitation process soon. Jason dismisses sympathy by saying this shit happens, and insisting that everything happens for a reason. But the mood within the GMD community was morose at dinner with the realization that one of our new friends would be leaving so soon. If any good can come from this it’s as another reminder that we shouldn’t take for granted our health while we play in the mountains. We are all lucky to be here, and hopefully there will be many more deep powder turns to come.