EISC Sundown Mountain Ski Day, Jan 11, 2023

On Wednesday, January 11th, the East Iowa Ski Club was out in force at Sundown Mountain resort. We had 10 members and a friend of George Gassman’s from Marshalltown there in the morning & had a new member, Todd Eadie from Solon join us in the afternoon.  The day was supposed to be warm and there wasn’t much snow on the ground, so the outlook wasn’t good.  

However, the snow at Sundown was really great in the morning. As the day progressed it did get much softer in the afternoon.  We had a great time skiing until our legs got tired.

I got to Sundown at 9:00 am, and was surprised to see the lot was almost empty.  Apparently, they moved the weekday start time back to 10:00 this year.  I wondered why no one was skiing, but hit it anyway. I found myself riding the lift up with the Ski Patrol at 9:20 – they said it is too early, however they were ready so they let me on. Guess I have that confused, older guy act down pretty well. The entire mountain was groomed perfectly. I made figure 8’s by myself & tracked up almost every run before 10:00 am when the others started arriving.  

Many of the EISC crew there are signed up for the Snowmass Aspen trip & were warming up their skis. We had a wide range of skiers from us ‘first time this year’ guys to two Sundown Instructors that ski a lot & were getting ready for the Wednesday night races. Wednesdays might be a good day to go because the open the lift on Andrews run up in the afternoon to get it ready for the evening races. My ski tracker said I got 10.5 miles in and it was fun day.  We need more snow and cooler temps and we will be back. 

The food & refreshments in the lodge hit the spot.  We talked with the Manager, Mark who is excited about some of the changes this year.  It feels good to support our local ski hill as much as we can and it is even better when you can have such a good time with friends. 

~ article by Steve Cummings