27 March 2017 — With apologies to the Boomtown Rats, tough to be back at the keyboard after a few solid days of skiing…sincere “thank you” to all the regular readers who tolerate these absences…notable change to last Tuesday’s report, apparently cows do fly as it seems that Keystone Resort‘s published last day of April 9 has been changed to April 16, thanks Rob for the update…ski season in Southern New England and the mid-Atlantic slowly but surely disintegrating, easterners would do well to look to upstate New Hampshire & Vermont as Jay Peak, Burke, Cannon, Bretton Woods and a couple others got a bundle of snow on Friday. Had the good fortune to be skiing in that direction since last Thursday, cue the photo of Bill and I riding the new T-Bar at Cannon Mountain. It’s on the old Mittersill ski area, which is now folded into Cannon proper. This T-bar and the new chairlift really put Cannon into a new level of all-around skiing…tough news in Colorado, officials from Loveland Ski Area say a 35-year-old man was involved in an incident near the bottom of lift 8 at 10:30 a.m. Friday and the skier was pronounced dead at the scene. The incident is under investigation by the Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office. For those unfamiliar with it, Lift 8 is the one far to looker’s right at Loveland. It’s just above the I-70 westbound lane at the Eisenhower Tunnel entrance, and it has a steep narrow trail below that enables skiers to return to the base area via a very small skier tunnel. We’ll update when more information comes in…potentially devastating school bus fire on the road to Montana’s Red Lodge Resort Friday morning, fortunately all students, teachers and driver got out safely. Investigators determined that mechanical failure caused the fire, and the police were quick to report that the kids “still got in a full day of skiing and had a great time.” Kudos to all involved…great snow continues in Cali; Heavenly has extended their season to April 30, Northstar-at-Tahoe has announced April 23, and Kirkwood extending to April 16…down in the Southern Cali area, Mountain High said they were going to close yesterday (I haven’t confirmed that) but Big Bear Lake areas Bear Mountain and Snow Summit are still looking good on a two foot base and plan to be open until at least the first weekend in April…some major fallout from the World Cup finals recently held in Aspen; FIS sez they won’t be back until SkiCo updates the chairlift and rehabilitates the “derelict” Ruthie’s restaurant structure. VP of sales and events for SkiCo John Rigney responded: “I completely understand the desire to upgrade the west side of Aspen Mountain and South Aspen Street. It needs a facelift, and we’d like to see an upgrade, for sure. That said, the venue and the races were spectacular, and taking a world class racing site off the calendar, frankly, is ultimately a disservice to the racers, the fans and the sport of skiing.” Main issue is that SkiCo services the racing slopes with a doulbe chair that is nearly a half-century old, and the Ruthie’s building up on the hill was hastily fixed up to provide a building for racer services. Aspen was on the schedule for November 2017 prior to the announcement; a lot of talk going around that the race will go to Killington but that’s all just internet chatter at this point.