December 19th, 2016

Soon it got dusk, a grapy dusk, a purple dusk over tangerine groves and long melon fields; the sun the color of pressed grapes, slashed with burgandy red, the fields the color of love and Spanish mysteries. Jack Kerouac

Morning y'all,
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It's a beautiful, clear morning up top. The high yesterday reached 38 degrees. The overnight low reached 31 degrees. It was 33 degrees and clear at 7am observation. The mountain received .57 inches of rain yesterday, before stopping abruptly around noon. The trails should be a bit drier after the previous days of rain. There was very little ice on the trails after the warm rain. Get out and enjoy this beautiful Monday!

Yesterday was one of my favorite types of days at the Lodge. It was gray and gloomy for much of the day, with rain spitting, winds gusting and the weather basically begging you to stay inside with your favorite book. I did a little reading, then started on some alpine pizza dough with Grace and Ryan. Once we had the dough rising, the sauce on simmer and the toppings prepped, we went out to check out the sunset. It had been a quiet, gray day in the spruce-fir forest, but the moisture of the passing front brought out some seriously rich colours. It was the nicest sunset of this abbreviated season thus far. I just love how one dusk excursion can reset the narrative for a day.