Watching the fireworks at Northstar while doing crowd control. It was a calm evening—no fights in the bars, and most of the inebriants and inebriantettes were out of the village by 1:00 a.m.

The only real unpleasantness was getting screamed at when I turned off the fire pits.

It’s been a long week. I worked three doubles in a row (i.e. 15-hour days) after Christmas, dealing with a cold the whole time. Nancy also has a sore throat, and an unusually large number of people at work are sick. Something’s going around.

… and a climate change New Year!

… to be making lots of overtime. We’re shorthanded and it’s the holidays, so I’ll be working a lot of hours over the next week or so.

Nancy’s working the edge of the Washoe run on Lookout.

That’s the secret to skiing in The Year of the Plague: stick to the edges of the runs where there’s a little bit of loose snow.

I nailed the 1x4s on the roof and got things ready to put on the exterior stuff.

I continue to be amazed by how slow it’s going, but I’ve got plenty of excuses: it’s cold (low 20s until noon), I’ve got a cold, and I don’t really know what I’m doing. But it’s really sturdy and should handle the snow load, assuming it ever snows.

Got the roof framed. Yeah!

I’ve been dealing with a sore throat all week that’s threatening to turn into a cold. Not yeah!

Nancy went out after work to attend the grand opening of the Zephyr Lodge. She got free food, mini-cocktails, and an interview with Bill Rock, the COO of Northstar.

Among the VIPs was California Sen. Ted Gaines, at the far left of the photo.

Vail Resorts—and by extension, Northstar—is sponsoring Shaun White. One of the big promotions is a new half-pipe they’re building for him to train on.

The local boarders aren’t too happy about it; it’s all by itself on a run separate from the other terrain parks.

The new Zephyr Lodge opened to the public, although its grand opening is tomorrow. It’s a huge improvement over the current lodges—Northstar finally has a lodge that looks like a lodge.

Another clear, cold day. Dropping the knee in front of the new Promised Land lift, which has its grand opening on Tuesday.

I got the walls framed, finally. It took awhile to get everything level and work out some discrepancies with the existing shed.

The snow report is looking pretty bleak—no snow is expected through the end of December. The media is full of stories about how businesses that depend on snow are looking at a disastrous holiday season.

At least it’s cold every day so Northstar can keep blowing snow and slowly open new runs.

Skiing the man-made on the West Ridge. You can see a ribbon of snow in the distance where they’re blowing snow to open Lookout in a few days.

The illusion of winter—making turns next to a snow gun.

I took off the siding and replaced it with scrap plywood. I just do a little bit in the morning—after it warms up some—before going to work, unless I’m skiing.

We came out to scrape a few turns on the groomers. Northstar opened the Backside today, just the Burnout run. It’s not bad as long as you hug the left edge where there’s some loose snow.

I’m starting to frame an extension to the back shed. Slow going, partly from general ignorance of proper building techniques, partly from using some old oak 2x4s that are extremely resistant to nailing.

I came in early for a half-day of overtime, supervising truck traffic bringing in material for the new Zephyr Lodge. Nancy came out after her graveyard shift to make a few turns.

Pretty much all the snow in the photo is man-made.

Taking Ryder for a walk after getting home from work.

Nancy just switched over to nine weeks of graveyard shift, so we won’t be skiing together or seeing each other as much.

The new Zephyr Lodge is almost competed; it’s due to open on 12/19.

The skiing is getting firmer and firmer, basically sugar snow on ice. The Zephyr chairlift opened today—Northstar is expanding their snowmaking to open up other lifts and runs, so there’s more ice to choose from.

Another cold, clear day of no snow except that which is coming out of the snow guns.

We spent the morning in Reno shopping, getting cheap(er) gas and a load of lumber.

I have a project to build an addition to the back shed to store the wood splitter.