Wind Hold

It is 3:30 AM and I am listening to a sound that causes me grave discomfort. The wind.

It is on the cusp of President's week, maybe now truncated to President's weekend for most. I have been skiing at this little resort in Western Massachusetts  all week. Every trail open. Conditions excellent. Crowds, well if there is a word beyond non-existent, let me know and I will insert it.

But they are coming. I know it. I feel it. Like a person with arthritis who can tell you it is going to rain in 12 hours. Or maybe it is that I have been informed of the approaching onslaught by two friends who work at the mountain. So it is get to the slopes early and get in your runs while you can.

The weather typically does not cooperate during holiday periods (Christmas, Martin Luther King's and President's). Like Goldilocks, too warm, too cold, no snow on the trails, rain, everything but locust. Over the years, I have hiked up these slopes, rather than skied down, on a handful of occasions.

But this time everything has been as Jupiter aligning with Mars for this hill to fill its pockets, the better to hibernate in the spring through fall. Enough chill in the past weeks to allow snowmaking everywhere. Enough snow south of here (NYC and environs) to whet the appetite. And a forecast that hits the sweet spot, not too chilly, not too sultry, just right. What could go wrong?

This little mountain sits low. It barely rises 1000 feet (on a very good day) from stem to stern, and the trails are generally well protected by surrounding trees from the winds. Emphasis on generally.

One day earlier this week there was a wind hold on one of the lifts. Meaning it wasn't running. And didn't all day, for fear that the chairs would twist like Chubby Checkers if a gust caught them the wrong way.

That is the sound of a small disaster I am hearing as it now nears 4 AM. Accompanied by the distasteful sight I am envisioning when I get to my destination later this morning. Wind hold.

When you sit on a ski lift, dangling in the air, 50 feet from terra firma, and the temperature is say 20 degrees, if the wind is whipping you tend to question the wisdom of your choice to be at that exact location at that particular moment. Skiing has been in my blood for four decades. But my blood is noticeably thinner than it was when I was a younger man. And so, I am less anxious to be hovering in the air, rocking to and fro, than ever. And I never was to begin with.

So I worry what today will bring. I have seen pictures of those big mountains with snaking lines that commence at hither and finish at yon as the assembled wait as if Taylor Swift tickets were on sale there. I have been spoiled at my tiny hill, where the down time is generally less than it would be to get an autograph from Joe Biden at a MAGA rally.

But, should the wind not dissipate, should some of the lifts not run, then I see a bad moon rising this morning. For those who come with images of wide open expanses and runs unencumbered with thoughts of what awaits at the bottom, I fear they will face severe disappointment.

It is now 4:10 AM and all is quiet outside. I haven't heard a hoot or holler in several minutes. Maybe it is just my imagination running away with me.

This is the unfortunate reality of having a small (meaning large) issue with insomnia. The world's problems become magnified when the only noise you hear is your mind barking.

And, oh yes, the whistling wind.