One of the ski mountains in the area re-opened yesterday for a free ski day, but I finished my season on closing day of my mountain back on April 7th. That was also my 57th ski day for the season, which means I met my goal to ski my age, despite missing time with my injured ankle (which still hurts sometimes, three months later). It’s fewer days than I skied the season before, but given my injury and all the non-ski travel we did this winter and the fact that the season before was longer since we had record snowfall and closing day was in mid-April, I’m happy with where I finished up.

I covered December’s ski highlights during Holidailies: my opening day, a typical early season ski day, happy to be back on the slopes after being away, and surviving falling in to a tree well. The rest of the season yielded many photos for my daily diary over on Flickr, including the one below, which I coincidentally took on the run through the trees the exit from which led to me hurting my ankle in early February. I exited at a different spot than I had on an earlier run that day through the same trees, misjudged the drop onto the road the trees run out into, and hit the road flat and hard. Both my skis popped off, but in the process my right ankle got wrenched, and I tumbled forward heels over head. I was in enough pain immediately after I feel that for the first time ever in my ski career, I considered calling patrol to come take me down the mountain on a sled. Since I was able to limp back to my skis and click in, I decided to try getting down under my own power; I was about halfway down the mountain at that point with a fairly easy blue run between me and the lodge. It was slow and painful but I managed. If Mr. Karen had been around that day, I probably would have asked him to go get the truck and drive me home, but since he was out of town (visiting his mom, I think), I limped home, where I started consulting Dr. Google about ankle sprains, Achilles tendon injuries, and so on.

I got back on skis three weeks later. It was slow going for a while; I stuck to easy runs and didn’t do very many of them before taking a break. Still, I was happy to not have lost more time than I did.

The season closed out with the usual spring fling events on the mountain, including the cardboard box derby, as well as the unusual experience of making an effort take a last ride on a lift that we knew was going to be replaced after this season. No more long slow rides on the old double chair on the backside of the mountain.

For the last month, the mountain has slowly been edging toward spring mode, with bare brown patches appearing on the runs as the temperatures rise, then getting covered over again with snow during a spring storm, lather rinse repeat. We’re tracking the progress of the melting of the snow bank next to our driveway by when we have to move the flamingo yard ornament his sister brought us when she and her husband stopped by on their way to see one of their sons in Montana in early April. If the flamingo has fallen over entirely due to its support melting away, it was a big day.

I had hoped to do some snowshoeing after the lifts closed but between the pace of the snow melt and being away from home a fair bit this last month, that didn’t happen. Ah well, maybe next year.