All Good Things Must Change Hemispheres

After several months of blissful chairlift riding, Red Mountain has closed for the season. All around Rossland, ski bums are questioning their life choices, buying heavily discounted ski equipment and trying to work out what to do with their meaningless lives.

To be totally honest, the ski hill is actually still running. Today is staff day, and as I write this my housemates are up on the hill making merry. Despite not actually being a staff member, tagging along to staff day is encouraged and I could probably have snuck onto the hill for a few turns, but I figured that it's best to let them celebrate the season for themselves. The snow is also not very exciting and I am very badly sunburnt.

Traditionally, the last day of the season is Retro Day, where everyone pulls out their finest retro ski equipment. It also features a party on the deck of the base lodge and beer-drinking on the top of Granite Mountain - the highest mountain in the ski area. However, this year Retro Day and the deck party were on Sunday, and the hill closed on Monday, which meant that the drinking and shenanigans were extended over two days rather than one. The folks I ski with warmly embrace any kind of retro event, and it was an awesome sight to see them descend the hill as a large pack of tipsy, absurdly dressed miscreants. We extended our personal retro day to Monday as well, so most of us were able to sport different outfits on each day.

On Sunday, I wore a one-piece-ski-suit (or "onesie") in dashing purple with asymetrical fluoro yellow and pink trim. It was very hot inside the onesie, so I casually stripped the top half off and skied topless. Although I applied a fair bit of sunscreen at one stage, with the assistance of a middle aged lady who was somewhat too enthusiastic about rubbing my back, I still got very, very burnt. Of course, the novelty of the outfit soon wore off, and my housemate traded her rather svelte black onesie for my brightly coloured one for the deck party. This was at once a raging success and a terrible mistake. A raging success because the combined allure of the ultra tight ski suit and Tom Watson's now infamous "Clic" googles (see fig. 1) was so intense that I was awarded runner up in the male category of the best dressed competition and got some neat stuff (I would have won, too, but another contestant, the dubiously named "Phil Yourpants", pulled out some amazing dance moves which I could not match, partly because I'm not a competent dancer and partly because I couldn't really move in my outfit). A terrible mistake because the outfit was so tight I couldn't comfortably sit down, couldn't pick anything up off the ground and now will never have children. And people kept trying to stroke/pull out my chest hair, which I did not appreciate.

Figure 1 - it is tough to be so beautiful

On Monday I went with something a little more refined to balance the rigours of the previous day, skiing in a collared shirt and sports coat. The real reason for this change was to keep the sun off my neck, which is still a delightful rosy hue today. It did, however, make for a much more comfortable (and dapper) day on the slopes, and it's easy to see why the onesie went out of fashion right after people returned to their senses in the nineties.

Before I sign off, I should mention that my housemate rode a monoski (which I have previously reffered to as a monoboard) on Monday, with considerable success. I know I'm not supposed to think this, but maybe I was wrong when I said I was wrong about ever wanting to monoski. Could there be a second chance for my shattered mono romance?