Closing Time
The last day of the season is anything but predictable.
By STEVEN THRENDYLE

The bright orange pad caught a gust of wind and momentarily took flight before touching down and slithering through a field of icy moguls. Until now, the pad protected Tower 14 of Apex Resort's Quickdraw Chairlift, but it was freshly untethered by a red-jacketed ski patroller. Like roadies after a Pearl Jam show, the pros wasted no time shutting things down. They sideslipped carefully from one tower to the next, their edges clattering noisily over a snow base that resembled busted-up concrete and exposed rebar. When they reached the bottom their season would officially be over. I glanced at my watch—3:35 p.m., April 14, 2002. This was it, the last ride on the last day of the year.

Thousands of words have been written about Opening Day. During the hot, humid months of summer, when carnal desires for a cool, early November powder facial reach a burbling peak, when the thought of cold snow down the neck is more enticing than sex on the beach. But Closing Day ceremonies seem strictly reserved for the truly dedicated.

At Whistler-Blackcomb, where I'd skied for the previous 15 years, Closing Day was ephemeral–late April for one mountain, mid-June for the other. Sure, back in the days before Blackcomb there was the season-ending Great Snow, Earth, and Water Race–a boozy bacchanalia of Woodstock-like hippie nostalgia. One year I watched hordes of skiers descend en masse in the rain beneath the Green Chair, chucking off their skis and boots when the snow ran out.

Yet years later, when Blackcomb's lifts opened for glacier skiing during July and August, Closing Day became undefined, even uncelebrated. My last day skiing in the '01 season at Whistler was on May 1. The place was absolutely empty. It was 27 degrees F. It snowed about 20 cm from opening to closing. It was the best powder day I'd had all year.

I've since relocated to Apex, a gnarly little mountain in British Columbia's southern Okanagan. Apex's Closing Day was fixed and posted on the resort's Web site all season long. Nothing—not bountiful snowfall nor record attendance—was going to budge April 14 from its date with destiny.

April 13th dawned glorious and clear. In nearby Penticton temps hovered into the high 60s, the first really warm spring day of the year. I wasn't on the hill, but could imagine the delicious hiss of corn and the satisfaction that comes from launching from one slushy mogul to the next. Mountain biking and barbecue were on my mind; besides, the lifts would still be open tomorrow.

I went to bed dreaming peacefully of pine-sap perfume and the tilting of my pale, white face to receive the sun's warm rays. The next morning shattered such visions—the temperature had plummeted, convective gusts swirled furiously, and even in town it was starting to snow. Winds were so fierce that the power had been knocked out on the mountain. Fortunately the diesel engine that powered Quickdraw would be operating. Still, hardly inspiring stuff.

Finally around the crack of noon I found the motivation to grab my Pocket Rockets and head to the hill. Tons of cars were coming down from the mountain. The parking lot was a deserted sea of mud, save for a huge collection of monster trucks and snowmobile trailers. As a way of ending the season, Apex invited the local sledheads to a hill-climb competition on one of the ski runs. The insect-like whine of two-stroke engines buzzed in my ears like a pesky mosquito.

I saw Rick, a local lad who toiled at the mountain shop. "Don't go up, man," he warned, unlocking the door to his Explorer. "It thawed all the way to the top yesterday, then got down to 23 last night. It's beyond brutal." I, of course, knew that, but pressed on anyway.

Even on the groomed runs the snow was a sickly gray color, the muted shade of frozen mud dusted with white tufts of wind-drifted powder too cold and feathery to bond to the crud beneath. Apex's double blacks were out of the question. I opted for Juniper, basically the easiest trail on the front side of the mountain.

Several runs later, foolish pride overcame me and I tried my hand at Poma, a fall-line bump run. The moguls were unskiable. Nubby chickenheads sprouted on their tops, waiting to peck at my edges and knock me off balance. My pole tips clanged uselessly off the crest of each bump as I double-planted and jump-turned from one side of the trail to the next. Halfway down the thought occurred to me: shit, nobody's on this run. I could just take my skis off and walk.

Fortunately that cowardly notion passed as the sun briefly broke through. I'm no fisherman, but as I skittered across the fall line I wondered about the old adage of the worst day fishing is better than the best day working. I made a mental note to self: must take up fishing, maybe give up skiing.

In 12 runs I shared a chairlift with only three other people, leaving me to my thoughts. Will this one be it? Inexplicably I'd find myself back at the bottom of the quad, getting on again. By 2:30, I figured four more then call it a day. It was snowing fairly hard now, enough to tempt me down the frozen-solid moguls on Westbank, which were even worse than Poma. Yep, I tend to learn the hard way.

The liftie started taking down the rope maze around 3:00. Two runs later, I saw the airborne orange pad. At the summit a small crowd had gathered at the top to do one last run en masse. Somebody was whacking crushed beer cans with a 7-iron, and an orange Frisbee was lofted high into the wind. Cans of Kokanee and Canadian were being waved about, and one guy had an unstoked fatty hanging off the corner of his lip.

I could have joined them, I suppose, but due to the vagaries of my winter-travel schedule and mostly skiing with my family, my season at Apex had been somewhat solitary. Why stop now? I didn't really recognize anybody so I clicked back into my skis and poled away.

The snow flurry had stopped as I headed down Juniper one last time. Perhaps an inch of snow had drifted onto the icy boilerplate and miraculously, my edges fell silent as I darted and weaved from one side of the trail to the next. I gathered speed near the bottom, past where the crowd of gaudily clad sledheads was still pounding up the hill. One wide, sweet, fat carved turn past the Gunbarrel Saloon, then another. It felt good. Really good. I stopped and looked up at the hill.

And just like that, it was over.

Steven Threndyle is the technical editor of SBC Skier.


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