Shifting from warm and gray to cold and snowy? Please make it so...

It was snowing lightly at mid-day on top of Aspen Mountain. Flakes fell casually from the broken clouds and occasionally it was snowing as the sun was shining, which is nice. The very thin fresh layer of snow brightened hopes a bit, but did not change the skiing surface much. But it was warm and pleasant and quiet on the hill, although the Sundeck was full at lunchtime. While there were definitely friends out skiing together, there was nary a lift line. Still, we could use a refresher course and a dose of snow. One good indicator of the depth of the current snowpack is Silver Queen, which remains shuttered awaiting maybe six inches or more? Dunno. But while it looks fluffy at the top behind the closed signs, the patroller's side-packing steps on the lower steep pitch reveals there is still more padding required.

But it appears that the relatively mild January weather we've been into so far this week is about to slip away and we might be once again treated to an ankle-deep powder day like last week. The weather service says snow is likely Wednesday night, with a low in Aspen of minus five degrees, which is a big swing given it was 27 degrees at 5 p.m. The chance of precip is 60 percent and we might get one or two inches downtown tonight. We'll take it. Please, and thank you very much.

The Limelight Lodge, much in the news today, may soon become a SkiCo property. Well, it is aligned nicely with 1A, just to the left of Wagner Park and kitty-corner from the Crystal Palace building.