I skied my 55th day this past Wednesday, and that’s all the days there are going to be because the mountain shut down for the rest of the season when the lifts closed that day, more than three weeks earlier than they’d planned. Thanks, COVID-19. It was the right call, but I’m still sad about it. I could have reached a new personal high for ski days but as it is, I’m two short of last year, when I lost a whole month to an injury. Now I sit at home, the snow-covered runs taunting me when I look out my windows.

For the last week or so, we’d been avoiding lodges and riding up the lift with strangers as much as possible, and here during the week it’s generally quite possible. The last day, I did go into one of the lodges, where they’d put half the tables away to enforce some distancing but I still felt nervous being in line for food (and to say good bye for now to the manager, whom we’ve come to know over the years of being customers—that lodge has my favorite cookies on the mountain, so I eat there more than anywhere at the resort).

It was a pretty good season overall. I didn’t hurt myself again, not seriously (I got a few bumps and bruises, of course … that’s true of everyday life even when it’s not ski season). If I had to do it over again, I’d probably push myself a bit harder, but I was aiming to better balance skiing with all the other things I want to do, figuring I had a full season with no travel planned to interrupt my flow. Ah well.

There’s still plenty of snow around, so we’re planning to do some snow shoeing, and we have to walk down to the village and get the mail most days, so we’ll be getting fresh air and exercise, just not as much as on a ski day. It’s sparsely populated up here when the resort is not open, so it’s not a problem to avoid other people outside.