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Joel Reichenberger

Joel Reichenberger's column appears Sundays in the Steamboat Pilot & Today. Contact him at 871-4253 or e-mail jreichenberger@SteamboatToday.com.

Steamboat Springs — I went skiing Tuesday against the advice of seemingly everyone in town.

At that point, it had been an entire week since it had snowed, and the temperature had risen above freezing with enough consistency to collapse many a giant icicle. Ugly brown scars were beginning to appear up and down Mount Werner, as if it were Thanksgiving weekend.

"What are you doing here," a friend, working at the ski area, asked. "We haven't had snow in a week, and it's hot. What are you doing here?"

It wasn't that bad of a question. The skiing was sweat-inducing and where the snow wasn't crusty, it was slick.

I could not believe my ears later that day as I rode up the gondola. The conditions that left the Knoll parking lot nearly abandoned was exactly what some were looking for.

"Wow," exclaimed one of the guys in my gondola car. "What a great week of skiing. Wow, did we ever get lucky."

The man had traveled with his son from South Carolina to ski in Steamboat. It's a regular trip they make, so they're familiar with the kind of snow the Yampa Valley can offer.

"I remember last year," he said, shaking his head. "Seems like all we did was scoop snow off the car. Snowed 16 inches every night we were here."

While I can't find any record of an 80-inch five-day stretch last season, the interesting part wasn't his exaggeration. It was that given the choice between boatloads of Champagne Powder and the slick, sun-baked snow of last week, he didn't even hesitate to choose the latter.

And I can't disagree with him entirely. There's certainly something to be said for a carefree flight down a tightly groomed Buddy's Run.

No matter the conditions, it would seem there's always someone ready to appreciate them - except of course for Friday's slush, right?

Who likes that kind of weather? When the temperature did dip low enough for the daylong deluge to become snow, it still melted on contact. Hats, coats, gloves and ski pants were soaked after just a few hours. And the snow itself seemed nearly impossible to manage. It was inconsistent, some spots sliding just fine but others popping up out of nowhere to grind skis to a halt.

I asked Steamboat Ski and Snowboard School director Nelson Wingard a question I'd been debating all day:

Better the crunchy, slick snow of Thursday or the mucky disaster of Friday?

"Definitely the new snow," he said. "This will ensure we still have a base in April. Plus, it will make for good skiing tomorrow."

I immediately was suspicious. What good could a night of freezing temperatures possibly do to this slush?

"Oh, it will make it more difficult," he said, grinning as he turned away toward his computer to get back to work. "The snow we usually get is too easy, anyway."