Jet Lag

To-do list: (1) update business levels and instructor sign-out spread sheets, (2) complete master staff contact list for current season, (3) complete notes on new training clinic idea, (4) label photos from spring travels, (4) organize photos for calendar project, (5) create new iTunes playlist for gym, (6) review iTunes library to make sure all composers' names are inserted consistently, (7) write new piece for blog about what to do while lying in bed wide awake from 4:00AM.

As I write, I've been awake for five and a half hours and it is now 9:30AM here in Wanaka. The truth is that I jinxed myself yesterday after completing my long journey to New Zealand. I was catching up with some good friends in a café yesterday afternoon and, despite knowing better, I caved in and had a big bowl of coffee. I even made a joke to the waitress about needing a cup big enough to swan dive into it, and man-o-man did she deliver. Moron! The caffeine wore off by early evening, I was catatonic by 7:30PM, fought like a champ, and then gave up and was snoring like a chain saw by 9:00. I am now paying the price. It'd be one thing if it were summer here and the days were long and sunny, but it's still pitch black outside, to say nothing of the damp weather. And my house is cold. And I have no internet or cable TV yet to make the time pass. So, despite having gotten plenty of sleep during my 26 hours of flying, it's just me, my now completed ministerial work items, my unlabeled photos, and my first post from the 2010 New Zealand season.

On my flight from Auckland to Christchurch, I sat next to a young Canadian woman arriving for her first Southern Winter. She was giddy, nervous, excited and 'totally stoked', and our conversation really brought home the extraordinary experience of doing what we do. We talked about the essentials of adjusting to life in New Zealand: Kiwis' weird names for standard coffee drinks, their strange issues relating to vowel pronunciation, and what they mean when they answer a question "yih, yih, yih, nah, nah". All the while, I watched the look on her face as she snuck glances across the aisle to the sun rising over the snowy peaks of the Southern Alps as the reality of just how beautiful it is here literally and figuratively dawned on her. Observing that sort of energy from someone experiencing the start of her first endless winter was the perfect way to get me in mode for my arrival. This is my fourth season in Wanaka and my fifth Southern Winter overall. What this means is that over the next few days I'll begin my 15^th winter of the past decade. The truth confirmed for me by my flying companion is that I remain nonetheless very excited to be back. Now I just need a little daylight and a full day staying awake without any caffeine, and I'll be ready to enjoy my season to the fullest.

Speaking of being excited, the amount of snow that has fallen on the Southern Alps has been extraordinary so far, and Treble Cone doesn't even open until the end of the month. Flying over the mountains in Canterbury yesterday en route to Wanaka, the snow line was down to nearly the shores of Lake Pukaki, Lake Tikapo and Lake Ohau, and the contrast of the white mountains and iridescent aquamarine lakes in the light of the sunrise was just another in a long string of mental images I won't soon forget. The photos above and below are of Treble Cone as seen from my house this morning, with the groomed runs and base lodge visible in the midst of an astonishing amount of pre-season snow. The reports from our operations team have become ever more giddy, and rightly so. There's a lot to do in the next couple of weeks to get ready and, as long as it keeps snowing, generating enthusiasm from the resort staff, from our guests and from ourselves will be the easiest thing we do all season.

Green Means Go

Though I live and work in Vermont in the Northern Winter and in Wanaka, New Zealand in the Southern Winter, my home is in a very small town in the remote Northwest corner of Connecticut.

Often during the winter in VT, people will ask where I'm from and, upon hearing that I'm from Connecticut, they will conjure images of the wealthy, crowded suburbs of New York City that line the Connecticut shoreline abutting the Long Island Sound. People are amazed when I explain that there are mountains in Connecticut, that there is no highway where I live, no chain stores, strip malls or even traffic lights. While a large number of wealthy New Yorkers do have second homes in the area, there are enough working farms to keep all of us honest, and we're far enough away and hard enough to get to that our town remains relatively unspoiled. What amazes people the most is when I tell them that it's greener here than even Vermont, that when the leaves are finally full in Spring it's so green here it almost hurts the eyes.

"The Berkshires?", you may ask, "Really?" It is precisely this 'off-the-radar' aspect of being here that brings me such peace of mind. It provides a distinct lack of pretension and an ease to our existence, along with the confidence that we can continue doing what we do, at our pace, with our people, without pressure.

Right now, in early June, the ancient oaks that so dominate our woodlands are finally in their deepest green sartorial splendor. On long rides through the winding country roads that ring the river valleys and ribbon the hillsides, my bike fitness is now at the point where I can enjoy the place without the aches and pains of early season. One more month and I'll really be able to pour it on ... except I don't have another month. At precisely the moment when things are at their most spectacular here, once again I will be departing for another winter on the other side of the planet. I've said it before and I'll say it now: it's not that I don't like summer, it's that I willingly sacrifice it to explore my passion for and pursue my career in alpine skiing.

Panglossian rants aside, at least the parting mental images I have of my home here will be of the countryside at it's peak of green as I love it best. For me, once again, green means go. I'll continue to report in from winter in the Southern Alps of New Zealand, and I'm sure it'll be yet another terrific season there. I will occasionally, however, day dream of greener, warmer pastures, and think of home.