Inversion

Up is down. Right is left. Young is old. Fast is slow. Steep is flat. Deer are raised in paddocks. Driving is on the left and steering wheels are on the right. 'Tomato sauce' is used on french fries, which are called chips anyway. We look north to the sun. 'E' is pronounced like 'i' and 'i' is pronounced like 'e'. Summer is winter. And, for the last several days, the sky has been below us and looks like the ocean, the weather on the top of the mountain has been warm and sunny while town has been gray and gloomy, and the inmates are running the asylum.

At Treble Cone and in Wanaka, we've been "stuck" in a weather pattern known as an inversion for several days. Technically, an inversion occurs when warm air rises and sits above a layer of cold air, meaning that it's warmer at higher elevations. Often, the air layers are separated by a dense layer of clouds. What this means for us is that in town it's been very gray and very cloudy with not a hint of blue sky. In the mornings when we collect the staff in our vans and make the drive to Treble Cone, twenty minutes from town and another twenty minutes up our rather crazy access road that winds its way up the mountain, we're in the dark until the point on the road when we rise above the clouds. At this time of year, with the days as short as they are, it means that we rise above the clouds just as the sun rises above the horizon. It's amazingly dramatic, incredibly beautiful, and frequently stops me in my tracks. Fittingly, given that it was the first day of a new ski season, today we departed as the sun dropped below the clouds in perfect symmetry.

We've opened with better conditions that we have in decades, so regardless of whether the moon is upside down in the sky or not, it's already a great winter and it's only just begun.