It's supposed to be ski season, but Mother Nature and her arch rival, global warming, have a battle royale going on around us. Did anyone ever think to tell Vail that buying ski resorts on the eastern side of the Wasatch might not have been such a good idea? That the former ParkWest, Wolf Mountain, The Canyons and Canyon Resort gets the least amount of snow (usually) each year among the resorts located closest to the Salt Lake City airport? I'm a realist and snow-making versus snow falling is going to be the norm in our futures until we get a handle on polluting and heating our Earth.

When I first came to Utah in 1970, I was not a skier. There was a ton of snow in Mt. Pleasant that winter but the only ski area was a bar-tow at Snowland in Fairview, a few miles north up a canyon. Cheap skis back then were still made of wood and boots had laces (as in strings). Figuring out the bar-tow was hilarious and nerve-racking at best. I certainly could have won the funniest video stream of the day had a photographer been standing behind me watching me cross my ski tips and flipping over or dragging my butt on the ground as the bar dragged me to the top. But back then, there was only film and 35 mm movie cameras, and no high school kid at Wasatch Academy had a movie camera.

I met serious skiers once I moved to Salt Lake City. At Westminster College almost everyone I met it was from Minnesota and they had come here just to ski in our powder while taking a few college classes on the side. Soon I found myself hooked up to the Brighton crowd of employees and was happily on my way learning how to parallel ski. I was often asked by my friends there to be the ski dummy for certifications. Instructors had to meet certain qualifications for each level of skiing so I was more than happy to get lessons from a staff member in return for a free ski pass on my poor budget. I can't ski anymore since I had a major hip implant many years ago, but I do love our mountains and our snow.

Let's see if Mother Nature or global warming wins and if we'll get deep snow ever again. Remember when Tooele wanted to build a resort in Middle Canyon? Or Cedar City's wannabe Engen Resort? Only Mother Nature knows if we'll get more snow, or resorts.