We all grew up thinking there four seasons each year , or should I say, everyone living north of the Mason-Dixon Line was raised with that understanding.  But a relatively small group of us from the north know the real truth.  There are only two season; snow season,  which means skiing and riding,  and whatever you want to call the remaining  months of the year.  I prefer to think of them as purgatory.

 Sure, softball games, cookouts and the other family get-togethers are great, but considering the heat and humidity, the bugs and yard work, the exterior house maintenance projects, and the patience testing heavy traffic encountered if we do venture out for a summer trip (not to mention the higher gas prices),  can you blame so many of us for yearning for the first snow flake?  Summer is the time we put on our happy face, but deep down inside we're several months away in a different world.  Summer is a time when we tread water, whiling away the time reading last year's ski and snowboard magazines and anxiously wait for the first issue of the new season's editions.  Summer is when we get our "short-timers calendars" out and start counting down the days until our favorite ski areas reopen.

 November rolls around, and huge numbers of people honker down for what they perceive  to be  months and months of being holed up in their homes while nature turns the world into mammoth walk-in freezer. They all wish for a white Christmas and  then hope the snow magically disappears.  Snow sports fans on the other hand, come back to life.  Ski areas begin to open, more and more terrain is available as nature and snowmakers cover new trails almost daily, and finally all the mountains are "as good as it gets." But then before you know it, let's say towards  the first or middle of March, Mother Nature turns her favor back on the folks holed up in their houses (or the refugees in Florida who abandoned the north country).  The sun gets a little higher every day, days get longer and there's a definite sense that the world is changing again.  Snow depths begin to diminish, then bare spots begin to appear, and eventually April arrives and  trail by trail, terrain is closed.  All too soon entire mountains are closed and we're faced with an other sentence