What happened to Winter?

The driveway this winter has progressed through a somewhat regular and recurring rotation of fresh snow, slushy post-rain puddles, and the thick ice that forms when temps drop from well above freezing to well below. There is no consistency to winter anymore, it seems.

Missing snowier days...

We survived the deep freeze of Christmas week, whose brutal cold sapped our energy and made our fingers and toes ache. By the end of those two frigid weeks, even the most outdoor-loving of my outdoor-loving kids was content to stay inside when he could.

The January Thaw came twice – both the week before my birthday and the week after. I don’t remember all the specific weather details, but somewhere in there, between the rain and thawing, it snowed enough that we had to shovel the roof, brush off the car, and plow the driveway several times.

The first week of February, I let my kids skip school one day to ski a foot of new powder. When I tossed that idea out to my husband, feeling a bit guilty about the missing-school part, he was immediately on board (although, sadly, he still had to go to work). We only get so many powder days in a winter – or a lifetime – after all. The kids dragged me through every puffy-with-new-snow glade they could find, and we stayed out well into the afternoon.

I guess it was good we had that day, because this Tuesday I wore my rain pants and muck boots to the mountain for my coaching gig. Out of a small vacation week group, I had only two intrepid 7-year-olds join me for a morning of slushy-icy runs and wet chairlift rides. As we went in for our mid-morning break, I wrung the water out of my sopping mittens.

The kids didn’t seem to mind. They chatted happily on the chairlift, practiced the rainy day drills I assigned them, and skimmed cheerfully through slushy puddles to get from one place to the next.

The last three years, we’ve had similarly wacky winter weather during the two weeks of February break that are traditionally the busiest ski weeks of the season. Last year, for the first week, when out-of-state skiers are on vacation, we had fresh snow and beautiful weather. The New Hampshire kids got rain and ice the following week, but they didn’t batt an annoyed eyelash.

I have a photograph, somewhere, of my crew from two years ago standing in a deep puddle at the top of a chairlift. They gleefully slid through that puddle – and another one at the bottom of another lift – every run that day.

I’m glad the kids go with the flow, and I try to match their enthusiasm for skiing in the rain. But maybe they don’t mind because it’s such a regular occurrence in their young skiing lives.

I can remember only a handful of rainy ski days in my entire childhood. Tuesday one of the other coaches, a guy who’s on the hill six days a week, said it was his eleventh day this season skiing in the rain. Rain ponchos and serious rain pants – like the kind fishermen wear – have been added to many a ski coach’s wardrobe.

My own kids, like the good New Englanders they are, will ski in just about any kind of weather: howling wind, 40 below, sleet, snow, ice, sunshine. But like me, they are dismayed by the recurring winter thaws that no longer stick to a few days of January.

“This is sad,” my 9-year-old proclaimed Wednesday morning, as she exited the house jacketless and looked out on the snow-less field and the mud bog of our driveway.

All I could do was agree – and hope for another swing toward winter before spring sets in for good.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the February 23, 2018 issue of the Littleton Record.

A Reluctant Farewell to Winter

A wise skiing friend once told me, “You know, come summer, you’re going to wish you were skiing.”

That’s a hard thing to explain to someone who isn’t hooked on this sport. I love summer. The warmth and color, the bike rides and hikes, the long days of light, the sandy beaches, the crisp vegetables picked fresh from the backyard garden. But sometimes, even on those long, hot, lovely days, I dream of skiing. Of gliding in perfect, arcing turns through snow. It is, perhaps, the closest thing to flying I’ll ever feel. Freedom. Power. Grace.

Ski you in my dreams, powder.

Normally by this point, mid-way through April, I am good and ready to say so long to winter. This year, though, I am having a hard time letting winter – at least the skiing part of winter – go.

It feels like a reluctant farewell to a loved one, where you ache for one more hug before the last good-bye. No matter how many runs I take, I want just one more perfect one, because I don’t know when the next one will come.

This winter was one of ups and downs – early snow, mid-season rain and ice, deep February powder days followed by another thaw, and another brief deep freeze in March. These April days are like a bonus to a ski season that fluctuated throughout, from one extreme to the next and back again.

The first Sunday of April, on our first weekend day off from coaching (me) and race training (kids), we went out for a few family runs and ended up skiing until after the lifts stopped running, exploring glades we’d never skied and spending a near-perfect afternoon with friends.

Our last run was on an old trail through the woods, cut some 80 years ago by a Civilian Conservation Corps crew. This trail branches off from the main ski area after a short hike, then winds its way down through an old forest, past rocky outcroppings, to the end of a dirt road a few miles from the base of the ski area.

(Read my essay on the first time I took the kids down this trail on powder.com.) 

The day ranks among my most favorite ski days ever. Maybe, I thought, it would be our last of the season. But, greedily, I hoped for more.

Last Sunday dawned sunny and warm again, after a snow-squalling Saturday, and we went out for a few more runs. Soft, sloughy, sunny runs. More exploration of new places. More turns down old favorites. I could have stayed all day.

Alas, springtime chores called us home, where the kids swiftly traded long johns and ski boots for shorts and sneakers and ditched their skis for bikes and soccer balls.

My children seem unaffected by the late-season ski fever that has enveloped me these April days. They are mostly indifferent about the prospect of more skiing so late in the season. They are happy for the warmth, for the first signs of greening grass, for the freedom of running outside unencumbered by extra layers.

In many ways, I’m happy for spring’s arrival, too. I love that there’s light in the sky when I wake early in the mornings, and that it lingers past dinner time. It was nice, during the warm spell early this week, to open the windows to that new-spring scent of fresh air floating indoors. I gladly notice new birdsong nearly every day as the warm-weather, feathered residents return gradually, following the snowmelt. The blooming of the first crocuses thrilled me as it has every spring since I was a little girl.

Still, I’m reluctant to bid a firm adieu to winter. And so I snuck away from the desk Monday morning for a few more spring skiing runs. The combination of warm sun on my face and soft snow beneath my skis was blissful. I wanted it to last, just a little longer.

Maybe we’ll get in one more day of skiing this weekend. If we do, I imagine it will be just enough to keep me longing for more – fodder for those summer days to come, when dreams of skiing sneak in past the warmth and color, and I am floating through cool white again.

Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her blog, Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the April 14, 2017 issue of the Littleton Record.