It’s been a while since I’ve been skiing (months!). Too long. As we roll into December, the weather has gotten colder, and this has allowed the midwest ski resorts to make their artificial snow with reckless abandon.

On Thursday, December 7, I received an email from Paoli Peaks (a resort in Indiana) saying that they would be opening on Saturday the 9th. I’ve been wanting to go skiing. This email intrigued me. I’ve been to Paoli Peaks. It was the first midwestern resort that I actually visited. It’s no Colorado, but I can get there and back in a day, which I can’t do with Colorado.

The email made me wonder what other resorts were opening. Come to find out: most of them. About the only one in the area that wasn’t going to be open was Hidden Valley, outside of St. Louis. Hidden Valley has a bonus, though, in that I could probably talk other people into going. But, they weren’t open. Last year I had went to Alpine Valley and Cascade “Mountain”. Both places were OK, but I figured I might as well try somewhere new. Weather.com (of all places) has a reasonable interface for figuring out which resort in an area has the most “vertical” distance. So, I went there, and did some research. Chestnut Mountain, in Galena, Illinois advertises 475 feet of vertical. Devil’s Head advertises 500. I decided Devil’s Head would be where I went, if I decided to go. I called Devil’s Head phone number and asked which runs were open. There were a few blues and blacks that she mentioned, so I figured that it would be adequate.

Friday afternoon I decided that I actually wanted to go. As is generally the case, it’s impossible to find anyone that wants to go skiing. I went to play volleyball Friday evening, and skipped the normal post-volleyball social activities. I went home, got all of my skiing supplies ready and put them by the front door. I made 3 peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and then tried to go to bed. I knew that I’d have to get up early on Saturday. It took me a while to fall asleep. When the alarm clock rang at 4:30 in the morning, I wasn’t really awake. But, I rolled out of bed at 4:35. I showered, quickly ate some oatmeal, and threw the supplies in the car. I left the house at about 5:18. It took me longer to get ready than I would have liked, but that’s the way it goes. I knew that the resort opened at 9am, and I had over 4 hours of driving ahead of me.

Devil’s Head is in Merrimac, Wisconsin, which is 40 or 50 miles north of Madison. I headed over to Bloomington/Normal on Interstate 74, and then north on Interstate 39. I was going around Bloomington about 6:15 in the morning. This is significant because that was approximately the time that Mars, Jupiter, and Mercury were going to be very close together in the pre-dawn sky. But, I didn’t really have the time to stop, nor was I in a good position to be able to see them. So, I kept rolling north. As I made it into northern Illinois, the snow got deeper and deeper alongside the road. At one point, I was seeing drifts that were a couple of feet high out in the fields at opportune points. The road itself was completely clear. Periodically, I could see wind blowing snow crystals across the roadway, but that was about it. I made it through the tollroad (paying my one dollar toll). I stopped at a Love’s travel plaza on the border of Illinois and Wisconsin to gas up. Gas was 2.19, and I hadn’t seen anything within 10 cents of that for a while, so I figured that I’d better take advantage of it while I could.

In Wisconsin, I felt a hunger pang and ate a Honeycrisp apple. I got off of Interstate 39 at the 108A exit and turned onto a small road going southwest for about 8 miles. This road had more sharp corners than any road I’ve been on in a while. Some were 30mph corners, some 25mph, and some 20mph. At this point it was around 9:30, and I’d already missed half an hour of skiing, so going slow wasn’t really a fun thing to do. Periodically, Devil’s Head Ski Resort would have a sign: 6 miles, 4 miles, etc. From there, I turned onto another road, went for a little while, and then saw ski runs on my right.

I pulled into the skier’s parking area at the resort. The parking lot was mostly covered in ice. There hadn’t been any real snow or ice in the area, so apparently they have a lot of water that leaks down from the hill and freezes in the parking lot area. This was a nuisance all day long, as I had to be careful in my ski boots to not fall each time I went to the car.

I could see the bunny slope on the left, and lifts heading into the trees. Definitely time to be skiing. I had worn my thermal pants and a pair of sweat pants, along with the UnderArmour compression shirt and another shirt on top of that. In addition, I already had on my ski socks, so I didn’t have to do very much to get ready. I got everything but the skis ready to go. I figured I’d go buy my tickets (there was a building right next to the parking lot) and come back and grab the skis.

So, I headed off. Come to find out, that building was for the Ski Patrol, and not the ticket window. I walked along a little path and made my way to the main lodge. There weren’t any signs anywhere for tickets, so I went in the upstairs door, and found a sign pointing downstairs. I went downstairs, wandered through the ski rental area, then outside, and then back around and in another door. I finally ended up asking a guy where the tickets were, and he said that they were outside and to the left. So, I went back outside the same doors again, and, sure enough, there were windows to the left. When I stood back several yards, I could see a sign up higher that was perfectly visible if you would have happened to come in from that direction. But, there wasn’t anything obvious from the direction that I came from. A simple little hanging sign that said “tickets” would solve the problem.


Anyway, I bought my ticket. It was $30. 30% off the normal $42 dollar price since it was opening weekend. I grabbed a trailmap and headed back to the car. I got the skis and headed to the lift. I first headed up Lift 1. It serviced blue terrain, which I figured was a good place to start for the first run of the year.

The weather was rather nice. It got up to around 40 degrees over the course of the day, and the sun was shining most of the time. It seemed like I was in a wind tunnel when I was coming down the blues and the one green. The black runs didn’t seem to have that problem nearly as much, though. I’m sure it just has to do with wind direction and the orientation of the runs. The blacks were certainly more enjoyable in that respect. Even with the warmer weather, a high wind made things seem chilly.

Anyway, I got to the top of the lift and made it down a run or two as I got back my “ski legs”. It was obvious to me that I hadn’t skied for a while. The runs were not even remotely powdery. Rather, they were man-made snow that was pretty flat, yet somewhat slick on the surface. Four wheeler ATVs were used by resort staff to get around on the slopes. I didn’t see a single snowmobile the entire day.

Only two of the resort’s black runs were actually open. Devil’s Alley, on the left side of the resort, and Cyclops on the right. Technically, it looks like the resort calls Cyclops two trails: Cyclops and Lower Cyclops. This is, of course, completely stupid, because you can’t do one without doing the other. But, this is typical of midwestern resorts that want to increase the number of trails that they say that their “mountain” has. It’s very wise to ignore that particular statistic and to just look at a trail map. If the trail map looks good, that’s what matters. Since only two blacks were open, that greatly limited the fun areas. It would have been very cool to have the right side of the map open, but it wasn’t meant to be. At midwestern resorts, the blacks are often a pretty long run that is midwestern-blue at worst, and a single steep section. That’s how both of the blacks were. They started out with a nice slow cruiser, and then had a steeper section. Not good for beginning skiers that look down a run and say to themselves, “That doesn’t look too bad. Let’s go this way!”. But, that’s what the ratings system is for. It’s their own fault if they ignore it.

So, there were basically 5 runs that I would consider useful. Starting from the left and working right:

  • Lift 0 (a three-seater) serviced a green run: Devil’s Playground. This run was certainly green. It wound around the end of the resort and slowly made its way to the bottom. No poling, though, so it would make a nice run to learn on. But, the wind on it was atrocious. I took it a few times just to break up the monotony of doing the next run over.
  • Lift 0 was also servicing the steepest run that was open: Devil’s Alley. This black started out pretty flat. In fact, there was a blue run that cut off from it (not really a run.. just a little piece that led over to another way down) that was called “Chicken’s Ridge”. I enjoyed the name. I only took the Ridge once, though. It didn’t have as much snow on it and some branches and leaves were poking through. I didn’t need to be running across them with my skis without reason. Devil’s Alley was pretty flat until near the end. Then it had a nice steeper section. I’d say the steeper section would qualify as a Colorado blue. Not a hard Colorado blue, but a Colorado blue. I took this run a lot. Lift 0 wasn’t terribly busy, and it was a good run. The view was pretty good from this run. Devil’s Head is near Lake Wisconsin and the lake is clearly visible in the distance while you are on the slopes. It’s not as scenic as Colorado’s mountains, but it is more enjoyable to look at than the view from some of the other midwestern resorts (see links above to pictures at other resorts).

    The second time I went down the run I had pretty well finished the steep section and was nearing the run-out. I wasn’t paying attention and was headed to the right side of the run. For some reason I lost it. I decided I was headed off the run into a big five foot tall chunk of snow and froze. If you’ve ever crashed on skis you know the basic feeling that was going through my mind. I could have corrected.. but I didn’t. Anyway, this chunk of snow was about 3 feet off the edge of the groomed surface and ground level was about a foot below the groomed height. I ran off the groomed area directly into the chunk. I hit the chunk about mid-body and rolled off the side of it and landed on my back on the downhill side. I had lost both skis in the process and it evidently looked pretty impressive to the onlookers riding Lift 0 up in the background. One of them asked me if I was alright. I was fine. It’s the best crash I’ve had in several years. It’s been a while since I’ve lost both skis. I was back up and going in another minute or so. A huge collection of ski instructors were chatting on down the hill and I was hoping that they hadn’t seen me wipe out. None of them stared at me as I passed, so I’m going to assume that they didn’t see me.

  • Next are a couple of blue runs. The trailmap calls each of the blue runs two runs, but I don’t. First is Dante’s Inferno (on the top)/Cauldron’s Cutoff (on the lower half of the hill). Lift 1 (a two-seater) was servicing both this and the next blue run.
  • The Cauldron/Dante’s Cutoff form the other half of this blue duo. Both of these are very similar runs. I would have a hard time distinguishing between them. About the only difference is that I had to pole a little bit to get to the top of the Cauldron, while the Inferno was right next to the lift. This probably made the Inferno slightly more popular. I really can’t think of anything useful to say about either of these runs.
  • Cyclops, the rightmost open run, was a black that was serviced by Lift 3. This was about all that was being serviced by Lift 3. From the top of Lift 3 you could head straight left (with a little poling) and get to the top of the Cauldron, but basically Lift 3 was servicing Cyclops. Nothing to the trailmap-right of Lift 3 was open. This was a bit unfortunate. The bottom of Lift 3 was at the main clubhouse. The bathrooms and all the food eateries were at the clubhouse. So, there were a lot of people at the bottom of the Lift 3. This meant that a lot of people took the lift to avoid having to pole left to one of the other lifts. So, this lift seemed to stay busier than a single black would have justified. Moving from lift-service-area to lift-service-area at Devil’s Head isn’t as easy as I would like. By “lift-service-area” I basically mean the runs that were being serviced by a given lift. If they had had more lifts running that would probably have made things easier. To move from lift to lift you had to carefully plan your runs and only go a lift at a time to avoid a lot of poling. If you wanted to skip a lift you could count on doing some poling. For the majority of the lifts, when you were at the top you were quite limited on which runs you could do. In other words, there were many “tops of the hill” instead of a large area where things were connected, if you were willing to maybe do some poling.

One of the things that I’ve grown to enjoy about going solo skiing is the lift ride to the top of the hill. I often join up with other people, and it’s always neat to talk to them about their experiences. I had the opportunity to chat with several people at Devil’s Head. The majority of them were from the Chicago area. I talked to one guy that lived in the immediate vicinity of the resort, but the rest were from farther away. I held the record for distance traveled, though. One guy said that he went out to Park City, Utah every year to go skiing. He was in “food service” and said that his company serviced some restaurants in Park City, so he found himself getting good deals out there. I said that he’d tried Summit County, Colorado once, but had problems with the altitude. One guy that I talked to had a wife from Champaign, and said that they made it to CU every other weekend to visit her parents.

I talked to a few guys that had went to UIUC for college, and one guy who’s little sister is currently going to UIUC. A lot of the people that I talked to were planning trips to Colorado (Vail/Breckenridge/Aspen) in the next few months. One guy hadn’t skied since his teens (he looked to be around 30) and was basically a newbie. He was planning to go to Vail in March with some guys who were much more advanced and he was wanting to get up-to-speed. I wish him luck. One guy I talked to had went to Cascade Mountain the week before. He said that they had a total of 2 (yes, two) runs open on the hill, and they were giving $5 off on the lift tickets. So, people were paying $35 or so for two runs. He said they had a single green and single black open. I chatted with a lady snowboarder on the way up one lift that had been to several resorts here in the midwest. She mentioned Mount Bohemia as a truly expert place to go. Another guy that I talked to later in the day also mentioned it. It seems to be a resort that would be considered expert-only terrain by anyone. This guy was commenting that the resort wasn’t pulling in as many people as they would like. They don’t do any grooming at all. It’s just rough terrain. Jumps, rocks, etc. Apparently men seem to favor the resort. According to this guy, women ski free at the resort.

One guy that I rode the lift with had an eastern European accent and had bought a season pass to Devil’s Head this year. He was from Chicago (about a three hour drive) and said that he went out to Colorado every year to meet up with friends. I talked to one lady that was just learning how to ski. She said that she’d been to a resort in Washington (Mount Baker) but that was about it. She was at Devil’s Head with friends, but they were more experienced than she was, so she was mostly on her own. That’s definitely a problem with skiing. People are at different levels. It’s always good to have a couple people near the same level, so that you can always have someone around.

I’m slowly working on finding people that are interested in going skiing. I’m confident that I’ll eventually find somebody/some people that will end up going at least once. It’s not a given yet, though. Solo skiing is very efficient. But, it’s missing the whole friendship aspect. Oh well. Such is my lot in life.

I skied until about noon and then made my way back to the car for some lunch. For lunch I had a can of diet Sprite, a sandwich, some pretzels, and a banana. It all tasted pretty good. Mid-afternoon, on the lift, I ate a breakfast bar that I had packed in my coat. The camelbak served me well over the course of the day. Being able to sip a drink of water whenever I want is a wonderful thing. Towards the end of the day I started making my way from right to left on the hill to do all the runs one final time. About 4:40 (the lifts closed at 5) I made it to the final lift, only to discover that it was already closed. So, I didn’t get to finish with the best black at the resort. Oh well. I made my way to the car and managed to get everything changed and was moving by 5pm.

I drove out of the resort area and got far enough away that I could see several of the runs and decided to take a picture. So, I pulled into a parking lot and set up the camera with tripod and took a nice long exposure. I think it turned out pretty well. Then, I headed south.

I made my way into Illinois, and just north of Bloomington/Normal, I was motoring down the interstate. I was passing a vehicle and, just as I got even with it I noticed some upcoming debris in the road. It looked to be a bunch of plywood in smallish chunks and a large subwoofer speaker (probably 12 or 14 inch). It looked to me like someone had probably built a speaker in an enclosure out of plywood, and it had fell out of their vehicle and shattered into pieces. Anyway… It caused me problems. I ran over it. I heard loud noises as I flew over it at 65 mph and the Vehicle Stability Control light and the Slip Indicator lights came on on my dash and stayed on. I pulled off at an exit in Bloomington and shut the car off and did a visual inspection. I didn’t see anything obvious that was messed up. I turned the car back on and the lights were out, but the “Maintenance Required” light flashed off and on 5 or 6 times. It has done this every time that I’ve started the car since then. I’m hoping that the computer just needs reset. I guess I need to get it into the Toyota dealer to find out. It’s a bummer, though. Definitely wasn’t a nice end to a pretty good day.

I got back into Champaign about 10pm. It was a long day. But, the skiing was reasonable and I definitely don’t regret doing it. Get out and ski!