Shutting it Down

At the moment, the stars are clearly visible in the sky overhead despite an evening of on-and-off rain here in town. Looking towards Treble Cone from my house, on the other hand, the view is quite a bit different. There is a massive storm coming, as you can see from the weather chart above, and it is due to hit us by midnight and to be at full strength by the early morning hours. It’s unclear at what elevation the precipitation will fall as snow, but the likely scenario is that as the front passes over TC, the snow line will continue to drop and that by the end of it we’ll get the big dump of the white fluff we’ve been craving. It could be serious, it could be deep, and it most certainly will be welcome.

Among the phenomena here in New Zealand that are totally foreign to visitors from North America is that during very severe storms the ski resorts can actually shut down. It’s due in part to the fact that the resorts are all perched high in alpine terrain above the tree line, and that they are susceptible to both very strong winds which make lifts unsafe and to avalanche danger. This is certainly true of Treble Cone. Add to that the fact that the road leading up to the resort is a bit nutty – the resort “base” is actually more than halfway up the mountain – and one easily can understand why closed days happen.

The real problem with the possibility of the mountain closing is that it exposes some very funny superstitiousness among the staff and our loyal local following. If for some reason the storm is not big enough to close the resort, several people will be blamed for jinxing us – either they were actively predicting a closed day, vocally hoping for a closed day, preparing our business for a closed day, or generally prognosticating as though a closed day was a fait accompli. Don’t misunderstand what is going on here: it is not that the resort staff does not want to work tomorrow, it is simply that we’d gladly sacrifice a day of work if it means getting to ski in some serious powder the day following.

Those of us who do not want to appear superstitious tend to lean heavily on the oddly detailed weather forecasting models here, but I think we nod to superstition anyway. So, my alarm clock is set for the morning, I made plans for the workday tomorrow, and I am not going to burn the midnight oil in anticipation of being able to sleep late. But, my fingers are crossed, in spirit if not reality, and I may take credit for the quality of my snow dance if we do in fact get hammered. In the meantime, I’ll obsess about the forecasts a bit and try to sleep through the eager anticipation of the powder day to come.