This Week In SeniorsSkiing.com (May 22)

Green Shoots On The Horizon (?), Yellowstone Opens, Season Ticket Puzzle, Bike Fit, Questions For You.

According to New England Ski Industry, early-open, late-close Killington resort has decided to pivot to golf on May 19th despite skiable conditions on one popular trail.  Indeed, as the photo shows, Superstar looks ready to go, top to bottom.  The resort closed on March 14, holding open a tendril of possibility of re-opening for some late season skiing. That’s not going to happen. Killington president Mike Solimano said that even if the resort opened with just one trail, a thousand visitors would show up, confounding any attempts at social-distancing.  For the first time in a long time, Killington has lost its “last-to-close” honor because four New Hampshire resorts closed four days later on March 18.

And so the chapter officially closes on the 2019-2020 season, one which currently finds snow falling in the Sierra and the White Mountains in May. It “coulda been a contenda” for a great season, but…

On the other hand, there are green shoots signaling a turning towards the direction of normal. For example, Yellowstone National Park is opening up this week in a series of cautious phases. Come to think of it, what a perfect place to be outdoors and stay isolated. Pitch your pup tent in one of the National Parks’ halycon camp sites, and you’re in lock-down in paradise. If you can get on the road, why not travel to a National Park near you?

Active Travel For Seniors

Which brings up a new feature series for SeniorsSkiing.com.  We’ve realized for a while that our readers are interested in active vacation travel.  Snow sports is just one part of the wide interests of our audience. So are many non-snow destinations and activities.  We’re going to be publishing stories about interesting places to go where you can be active, engage with nature, learn something new, and stay fit. We’re calling the series, “Active Travel For Seniors”.

Coincidentally, our first article is about Yellowstone opening up. Thanks to our new correspondent, Chicago-based Mira Temkin, you can read about its astonishing features and perhaps contemplate a camping/holiday trip into one of its isolated corners. That is, when you’re comfortable with traveling away from your confinement.

Our Looking Ahead Survey

One of our trademark practices at SeniorsSkiing.com is to keep in touch with our readers through online surveys. This spring, we’re going to ask you about how you see your snow sports activity unfolding in the fall. Realizing full-well that everything changes in one news cycle, we’d like to capture a snapshot of how you view the upcoming season as of late May, early June.  So look for the survey coming soon to your email box. And please respond. We will share that information with you when we sift through the data.

This Week

In addition to our inaugural Active Senior Travel story about Yellowstone, you can learn how to get your bike fit to your own peculiar metrics. Correspondent Harriet Wallis visits a pro bike fitter who explains the process.

We are also asking two Questions For You this week.  Questions For You is a new feature which provides you with an opportunity to sound off on a topic. From these collected comments come some themes and and ideas that we can use for future editorials as well as interesting connections between readers.  The Questions For You this week involve what you’re doing for fitness in these virus times and what ski resorts need to do to make you feel comfortable returning to the lifts.

We have also included a nostalgic tribute video story from Outdoor TV about the incomparably stylish Stein Eriksen. Check out his moves and those sweaters right here. 

Thanks for reading SeniorsSkiing.com.  We will get through these difficult times together. We plan to publish monthly through the summer until the snow starts to fly, as we know it will.  It always does.  And remember there are more of us every day, and we aren’t going away.