“I like these cold, gray winter days. Days like these let you savor a bad mood.” - Bill Watterson
Today is Monday March 8th 2010. On Day 46, just two days ago, I worked and the weather was warm and atmosphere on the mountain was great. In my Day 46 blog I also said "I'll be prepared" for when the weather is not so polite for a work day. Today would be that cold wintry day and now that the day is almost over I can tell you that I WAS NOT prepared.
I will confess here and tell you that I did not take the picture above. I found it and for the life of me I cannot tell you what lift number those people are on. They are on Telluride mountain, but I am scratching my head on where they are on the mountain. The reason I am using this picture however is because if you are like me then there is part of you that just feels cold looking at that picture. Up until today, I would have pegged the people in the pictures as the coldest people on the mountain. Then I showed up at work.
The photographers get out to the designated mountain photo spots around 9:15am. Lifts open at 9am. From 9:15am to 2:30pm (3pm if there is good activity) we approach skiers coming off the chair lifts and see if they are interested in professional photos. We've covered all of this in previous blogs. What we have not covered is what work is like when the sun is behind the clouds, it is snowing and the wind chill feels like it is below zero. Such was the case today. By 10:30am my glove covered hands were frozen. I had a solution to that. It is one of the best creations in the history of cold weather sports. Glove warmers. I had those in my bag and they came out immediately. By 11am my thick and typically warm snowboard boots were not holding up. I could feel my toes getting numb. I did not have the solution (toe warmers) in my bag. The ones I bought were used up and gone. Lesson here is always have a couple of pairs (both hand and toe) with you. You can be nice and hand a freezing person some or you can have them in case you forget them for the next trip.
When things are slow (mid week, cold weather, etc) one thing you do as a mountain photographer is look at your watch a lot. When you are busy, time flies. Today I would look at my watch every ten minutes. In a five hour day that is looking at my watch approximately 30 times. I should actually tell you that from 9:30 to about noon I was able to get five families to take photos. To put that into perspective, all three still shot photographers would get 10 total shoots today. People simply do not want to stop to have photos taken. One major issue with these types of days is that the mountains are behind clouds and people generally want mountains in the pictures. Even though the pictures of families in front of snow covered trees are really nice, stopping means getting cold and people do not like being cold. Makes sense and the best I can do is tell them I will not take much of their time (less than five minutes). When you put time on something, people can assess better and become more open to the plan.
From noon to 2:30pm I stood in the snow and cold and got ZERO couples or families to have pictures taken. It was my first real discouragement in this sales oriented position. Moreover, I could not feel my feet. My hands were ok with the warmers. Getting inside was welcoming. I was an avid sledder and pond hockey player when I was younger and I remember very cold days. This would be pre hand and toe warmers. I do not remember however standing out in the cold for as long as I did today. I need to start looking at weather reports more often. It's a little backwards here. I look to weather reports and hope for cold and snow....for the snowboarding. I should probably change my thinking on that for work days!
The quote of the day has some ironies to it. One is obvious with respect to my day. The other irony is that Bill Watterson's last line seems to be filled with sarcasm. After all no one really wants to savor a bad mood. The irony is that Bill Watterson is the author of the popular comic strip Calvin and Hobbes. If he was serious, then he must not be a skier.
I have the day off tomorrow. My goal is to get you some great video. Good night from Telluride.
No comments:
Post a Comment