It's powdered sugar, baby, powdered sugar....

So I have an awful condition. One that will not let me sit idle and not volunteer. "For what?" you may wonder. Well, just about anything, and it's sad. In the end, I get pulled in directions I may never have ventured, and found myself this past weekend in Cadillac at Caberfae Ski Resort with 27 other parents and Boy Scouts. Arriving on Friday night and heading out Sunday afternoon, we had an absolute blast. We received 8 to 10 inches throughout the day on Saturday, which provided some of the best skiing that I've ever experienced. Don't get me wrong, I usually am able to get out only once a year; and by then, the snow is pretty well packed down and a layer of crusted snow and ice is well formed. With the continual snow, though, the trails were great, and with the cold wind, the resort wasn't terribly busy. It was so cold, that our camera wouldn't function outside, so the only outdoor photo I was able to snap off was one taken from my blackberry at the top of "Smiling Irishman" -- the easy run coming off of North Peak. This was taken Sunday morning, and as you can see, the snow hadn't let up much then either.

As for the crazies I crossed passed with over the weekend: I took them as omens and learning experiences. There were three on Saturday, all seen while during the same run. While on the North Peak lift, I noticed this absolutely stupid snowboarder climbing under orange, plastic gating closing off the top of the "I-75" run. On the trail map linked through "North Peak" above, you'll see this run as the double-black diamond that heads straight down on the right-side of North Peak. This is a straight drop of ungroomed ice. Why anyone would see this and think, "this looks fun, so I don't care if it's closed, I'm going down it" is way beyond me. Crazy folk number 2 were another group of teen snowboarders and skiers who were going off the shear face of North Peak off of the "Irishman" run. In many ways, these folks were more stupid than I-75 guy b/c at least what he was trying to go down is an actual run that connects back to the lifts through other trails. The second group of stupids had to walk uphill to get anywhere meaningful when they were all done. The third Saturday person was a mother who swooshed by me with a toddler in her arms. And I don't mean that the kid had its own skiis and was skiing between mom's legs. Mom was carrying this child with not a care in the world, just zooming down the run. Say what you want about the effectiveness of helmets (which by the way neither were wearing) or the skill of that particular person, all they needed was a completely unskilled kid to run right into them for someone to be seriously hurt. And it likely wouldn't be the mother. The triple-whammy of seeing those people made me decide that it was definitely time for me to take a nice long break in the lodge.

I literally ran into Sunday's special crazy while trying to pull out of the parking lot. With my car plowed in by the resort's front-loader and a car full of scouts, I nearly ran down an older man who was skiing through the parking lot. One minute, all was clear; the next, he was right behind me. Yelling, ski poles being slapped at my car, and me chastising someone older than me who should know better ensued. At least it served as a lesson to the scouts that were with me as to why you don't ski thru parking lots.