Pikes Peak Region Trail Finder

(With the dry early-season so far, Colorado ski resorts are operating with mostly machine-made snow, and powder-hounds report that conditions are, well, pretty much awful.)

To ski or not to ski? That is the question.

Whether 'tis nobler to suffer the slings and arrows

of hard-pack machine-made snow,

Or to take arms against a sea of other skiers,

and by opposing, wait with them in lift lines. To wait - to ski,

no more.  And by ski we say to brave

the heartache and the thousand natural rocks that await us,

that thin snow is heir to  - 'tis a consummation

devoutly to be wished. To wait in lines, to ski,

to ski, perchance to dream, there's the rub,

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,

of a winter in which the snow falls from the heavens daily

When we have shuffled off this early-season coil,

Must give us pause—there's the respect

That makes calamity of so long a December.

***

I could go on, but instead check out this recent report by NBC Nightly News about the lack of snow throughout the country. http://unofficialnetworks.com/squaw-bad-nbc-nightly-news-covered-bad-62177/

It made me feel slightly better that everybody else except for Alaska is in the same boat.

At least it's supposed to be a nice weekend for a hike.