December 28th is the Fourth Day Of Christmas, as well as the Feast of the Holy Innocents. This day is celebrated in Spain like April fools day here – however, the following is not a silly Joke from some Spanish calling bird! Ski trails in the Sawtooth Valley are covered with 8 to 12 inches of wet heavy frozen snow… maybe more. A ski sojourn is therefore not recommended. Valiant groomers Thaddeus and Chadeus Maximus have plans to beat down the slush at Alturas and Park Creek, but who knows when or if they will succeed? And one last serious announcement – grooming at the Stanley City Park is scheduled to start soon, no joke.

December 21st, the winter solstice, was an extremely stormy windy day in the Sawtooth Valley, with wind blown snow covering ski trails to a depth of at least 8 inches and drifting higher. Amazingly, the next day, Chaddeus Maximus ventured forth at Alturas Lake and rolled all trails there, even though the temperature never rose above zero degrees – a feat displaying classical heroism and devotion to duty. Davinius, warming himself by his wood stove and slurping a bowl of gruel, could only say, “You’re a better man than I am, Gunga-Din.” At the Park Creek trails, where winds gusted to 35 mph and the temperature hovered around -20 degrees, Jaydeus the younger displayed excellent judgement by just staying home. He may be able to groom some on Friday, weather permitting.

Although temperatures in the Sawtooth Valley have been almost as cold as on the dark side of the moon, grooming has continued at the Park Creek and Alturas Lake Ski areas. Alturas trails are still soft but getting better with new ginzu and classic tracks on trails to the east of the creek and progress on the western side anticipated to push corduroy and classic through to the lake on Saturday. As of Friday, that section of trail was just soft corduroy sans classic. At Park Creek, new groomer, Jaydius the younger, was showing the right stuff this last week, rolling, grading and ginzuing trails to their best condition all season.