Tram Closed

A month ago, I had the scare of my life. The scene: Jackson Hole, mountain summit (10,450 feet), white-out conditions and wind gusts of 50 m.p.h.  Noah, Sabrina, Ethan and I arrived at the top of Rendezvous Bowl as the operator announced ours was the final tram due to high winds.  Not loving that news, we got off and took a water break in the warming hut for a few minutes to regroup.  The kids’ plan was to go to the “Headwall” to hike up and ski down - a challenge I had no interest in doing that day.  They went off to the left and I headed to the right to ski down the bowl - solo.  My trepidation commenced when the outrageous wind made it nearly impossible to put my skis on. I was really, really scared because I was completely alone at the top of an exposed, expert only bowl and couldn’t see anything in front of me, including trees.  I imagined someone finding my dead, frozen body because I fell, hit a tree, got completely disoriented or all three. Realizing the most important thing was to just get lower down, I waited for a gust to let up and headed toward a sign I could barely see. It was there that I met my savior wearing a bright red jacket - he liked my bright orange coat and we immediately agreed to ski down together.  Near the bottom and almost “home”, I frantically worried about my kids at the Headwall - that is until I heard “Hi Mom!” from a skier passing me.  It was Noah! Due to horrible conditions, the Headwall was closed and the kids simply skied down. Recovering at lunch at the Mangy Moose with my family, I had never been so happy to end a ski day.