It's a little easier to just get my gear on than to fully take in my surroundings, but as I'm getting my boots out of the back, I look up at the face looming above me (a run, I later learn, called "Alf's High Rustler") and exclaim, "Holy fuck! That is fucking gnar."
It's about 10:30am as I gear up. It was spring-warm yesterday, so no sense in anything like dawn patrol. I was hoping that in arriving a bit late, things will have warmed up enough that I won't be skiing chunk-ice, but that no one is on or even eyeing that gloriously gnarly face above me, nor any of the myriad steep and sexy lines that snake among the trees looker's right, fed from the old fixed double-chair, tells me everything I need to know about conditions right now. Okay, fine, I think. It's a groomer morning. I'll have fun regardless.
I'm struck, most of all, by how little it looks like Colorado, and how exciting it is that I'm actually here.