Back to Solitude - Already Mindy's Last Ski Day

It was already Mindy’s last day to ski. I got up at 620am and started coffee in the dark condo. I made my way to the laptop now resting on the bar like counter. There I played on the internet, wrote in my blog, and drank coffee for about an hour before getting dressed for a run at the fitness center. Think it was near 730am when I headed out.

I woofed down a banana along the way. The fitness center was still dark and there wasn’t a sole around. I set-up one of the three TVs to CNN then hopped on a treadmill and ran 3 miles in about 26 minutes. Headed back to the condo around 820am. While Mindy showered, I made a batch of scrambled eggs and toasted English muffins. After breakfast I showered and readied for another day on Solitude’s slopes.

Last minutes Tommy opted to sit this one out for tired legs. Glenn, Mindy and I headed out of the condo around 1015am. There was another woman working the lift ticket office. She seemed a little confused as how to process our Super Passes. In fact, on two of the three she ended up printing off separate lift tickets instead of enabling the super pass itself as the ticket. Mine was the one she supposedly enabled.

Out at the lift, I was denied access by the RFI scanners. Thinking it was a conflict issue with the other cards in my wallet, I removed it and scanned it alone. Still no joy. The lift operator offered to run it back to the office but I declined. I wanted to straighten it out myself. I never felt confident that the woman working the counter had a clue. Glenn and Mindy waited while I ski skated back to the ticket office.

The dizzy blonde seemed oblivious as I shared my dilemma while also trying to catch my breath. I let her know that I half expected there to be issues after the way she bungled the transaction minutes earlier. It took her forever. She seemed more determined to try and prove herself innocent than correcting my lift ticket situation. As minutes slipped by I became concerned that she was now eating the remaining days off of my Super Pass. And while she assured that wasn’t. I had zero confidence in her ability. She had to make a call to the main office for help/advice. She finally decided to issue me a complimentary lift ticket. The whole ordeal took as much as 20 minutes. Glenn and Mindy were still waiting at the lift. Back at the lift my new pass wouldn’t allow me through either. In disgust, I tossed my poles. Once again, I removed the temp pass from my wallet and scanned in separately. That time it worked. Finally!

We headed up the lift with plans to ski the western edge of the park, the area we skied the least on Sunday. The few inches of fresh powder made for some excellent skiing. It was still snowing at the time which made visibility a little tough, but otherwise it was a ton of fun. Mindy and I separated from Glen at some point. I think when he went to warm his hands. We ended up taking a short green run that was loaded with Volkswagen sized moguls. It was tough! Later, we observed the sign again thinking that we must’ve made a mistake.

Next we traversed the park determined to take the Summit lift up to Honeycomb, which hands down was our favorite trail. We skied it a couple times top to bottom then took a break in the Moonbeam lodge bar – Agenta bar. There we shared a pitcher and some food. Before heading back out we stopped in the gift shop where I picked up a resort pin for my ski jacket. We spent the afternoon on Eagle and Powderhorn. We found two groomed black diamonds at the parks edge that were fun, fast, and steep. Skied those several times. After several runs, Mindy took a head of heels spill near the bottom. Declared her day done. It was only minutes from closing anyhow. We skied across the park and back to the condo.

We changed out of our ski clothes and into swimsuits then headed to the hot tub. We poured our wine and beer into used water bottles. Met some interesting folks in the hot tub, a family from Mexico City and then another from Vermont. We hot tubbed for about an hour, or until our hands were pruned.

After showers, we headed to Thirsty Squirrel, a bar at the end of our condo building and also near the lifts. Like the pizzeria the other night, we were the only customers. We ordered drinks and food. This time I steered clear of the pricey beer and went with Jack & Coke. For dinner I order wings, which weren’t very good – mushy. We still had a nice time hanging out, chatting about our skiing heroics.

It was another cold, star filled night at Solitude. Good thing our condo was right around the corner. Back at the condo Mindy and I were quickly off to bed, her last night in the village.