That does it for the 2021-22 ski season. I’d say stick a fork in it, but conditions are such that it would bend the fork and break my wrist. I’ve been skiing here since the Treasure Mountain Resort opened in 1963. I haven’t kept records of conditions over that time, but it’s a safe bet that this is the worst ski season at least since the advent of modern snowmaking at the resorts. To their credit, both resorts did an amazing job with a snowless winter. Deer Valley will likely finish off the season with all of its lifts running—though the only reason to be running the Mayflower chair over bare ground is being able to say they are 100% open. Unlike some other resorts who never got there, and began shutting down after Christmas.

The challenging year was damaged by managerial blunders at both, with the food and beverage operations taking the brunt of it. I’m more about skiing than lunch, but c’mon. That’s supposed to be a profit center operation. Things were so bleak at PCMR that my friends and I seriously considered hauling bulk food up to Mid-Mountain Lodge and opening it ourselves, setting up a grill on the deck. In normal, pre-covid years, I used to eat lunch at Deer Valley three or four days a week (and got fat every winter). I think I ate there five or six times all year. That had more to do with crowding than food service itself, but was not the Deer Valley of old.

Despite all the whining, I’m finishing off the year with about 75 days, so it clearly wasn’t all bad. There were heinous iceberg moguls, Zamboni-finished groomed runs, portages around “terrain features” (bare spots), boot-swallowing slush, blistering heat and bitter cold, sometimes on the same day. Something for everybody. There were some legitimate powder days, some very nice (but boring) corduroy, and rewarding explorations into areas I haven’t skied much. They weren’t the kind of powder days we will be talking about years from now, like the day the Ruby lift broke. Hundreds of people decided to run for the shuttle bus, leaving Empire Bowl with a running lift and a half dozen skiers to work our way through about eighteen inches of real powder. There were no days like that. But there were many days of perfectly acceptable skiing, including some surprise mid-winter conditions with a little powder hidden in the trees this week.

On the whole, it was a reasonable way to spend the winter. The attrition rate among the group was higher than usual. There were a couple of injuries, others were traveling, and others just lost interest with the mediocre conditions. Still, the company was excellent and we managed to solve all of the world’s problems one chairlift at a time.

There are no figures in yet, but based on the general Sundance-level congestion in town all year, I’m guessing records were broken. It was great to have it all slow down in April.

The end of ski season means the beginning of ranching season for me. I walked through a farm supply store the other day. Normally, that brings on a sense of excitement the way walking through a ski shop does in October. I price out projects, consider improvements and lay out great plans. This year is already different. With the drought, it’s a given that this year is a disaster. The only question is how bad. The spring projects have drifted from making improvements to damage control. It’s the same kind of triage the resort managers had to make about which runs to close and salvage snow from to maintain snow to the bottom of the mountain.

The normal grazing rotation through the pastures will probably have to be different because I won’t be able to get late season water on some of them. Those will have to be first even though the early grass will be better on others. I walked around pricing water troughs and pumps and rolls of plastic pipe, thinking that I might be able to keep stock water in some of the pastures even though the irrigation ditches the cattle normally drink from will be dry. It’s all expensive.

The center pivot irrigation system seemed like such a good idea when we installed it. It replaced an irreplaceable employee who retired after more than 50 years. But unless it has a full pipe feeding water to it, it can’t run at all. I’m trying to figure out if I can plug off half the sprinkler heads and make it work on a half-ration of water. Hay will be worth something this year if I can get enough water on it to grow.

With the war in Ukraine, grain prices have gone crazy. It’s tempting to plow the hay under and plant wheat. The water situation makes that too big a gamble. Stubby hay is better than dead wheat.

The way the summer is looking, I might be able to get a lot more mountain biking in than usual. The farming could be over before it really gets going this year. Still, the change of seasons is welcome.