Why do we love spring skiing? Because it’s really fun

Spring skiing generates conditions that many skiers love. (Dan Houde/WiseguyCreative.com)

After an interlude of a few years, I returned to the piano this year by reviving my efforts to master Schumann’s “Träumerei” and Chopin’s “Prelude No. 4.” It was back to the classics, though not exactly back to the future. These two pieces were written in the late years of the 1830s.

A few weeks later I returned, after an interlude of several years, to spring skiing in the White Mountains. It was another case of back to the classics, though, again, not back to the future; my choice destinations were founded before Lyndon Johnson was president. These resorts were modern enough — good lifts, superb grooming — but, fortunately, they didn’t have the new-car smell (or intrusive video boards, the Jumbotrons of the mountains) of some of the spiffier offerings out west.

Just the skiing, ma’am. Just the spring skiing at Wildcat Mountain, Cranmore Mountain Resort and King Pine.

So in three days of skiing at these three classic New England resorts, I (re)discovered that the springtime harvest of the region is sporting cornucopia: a trip back to cherished memories and to fresh appreciation of a series of special phenomena in the mountains of New Hampshire: Corn snow. Warm days. Bright sunshine. The sweet whiff of sunscreen in the lodge. The feeling of perspiration on the shoulders. The sensation of moisture in the gloves.

Plus, of course, the eternal dilemma and debate: Is the snow better, or worse, the morning after a daylong rain?

I’m not prepared to resolve that conundrum, only to say that our winter sport offers few attractions as great as the life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness that comes when spring conditions arrive in the hills of New England … even when, by strict definition, the spring equinox hasn’t quite arrived yet.

What is it about the intoxicating combination of spring-ski conditions — plate glass and mashed potatoes — that turn up on the snow when the new season arrives in the sylvan hills?

Maybe it is that the characteristics of springtime snow — a little peril on the icy remnants, a little peril from the slushy swales — are a vernal metaphor for the change of seasons, at once welcomed (for who wants to awaken to find that the windshield needs to be scrapped for the 30th time since late November?) and at once dreaded (for who wants to awaken to the sad realization that the ski season is screeching to a close, ending kind of like a hockey stop on the slopes, abrupt and decisive?).

Or maybe it is the recognition that in the progression from December to April — from late-fall skiing to spring skiing — we recognize the maturing of the sport, and the exhilarating notion that, after weeks, maybe months, of skiing, our technique itself has matured.

Or maybe it is simply the relief that, after days upon days of carving our turns on flat light and battleship-gray ice, the rejuvenation of nature is a sweet consolation prize for the sense of loss that comes with the end of the ski season.

I think there’s a little of all that, along with one other factor, not to be dismissed. It’s really fun.

Fun to zoom down a trail with your jacket open. Fun to junk the neck gaiter and maybe the gloves, too. Fun to watch the skiers plunge ahead — fearlessly, pointlessly, but surely happily —  into the pond jump. Fun to eat a burger on an Adirondack chair on the deck. Fun to rummage through the sales at the ski shops. Fun to compare springtime bargains with midwinter price gouges. Fun, too, to contemplate buying a season’s pass for next winter at a fabulous price.

Springtime often is called the season of renewal, and that’s surely apt for the worshipers of spring skiing. The botanist Luther Burbank once said that flowers “always make people better, happier, more hopeful.” So, too, with skiing in the season when the flowers begin to sprout. But leave it to the crooner Tony Bennett, who in the old days liked to perform at music festivals at New York State’s Hunter Mountain, which, by the way, plans to stay open long into the spring:

The frozen mountain’s dreams

Of April’s melting streams

How crystal clear it seems

You must believe in spring

So let me report that the view on the Polecat trail on Wildcat is especially stunning this time of year. Let me assure you that the summit house at the top of Cranmore is still there, and that finally it’s possible to sit on the rail looking across to the Mount Washington Valley without fear of being blown away. I should also say that the majestic trees at King Pine seem to be more magnificent, and not at all menacing, when the rays of springtime sunshine poke through.

It’s all good. Maybe it’s better.

Because if you are a skier, you must believe in spring.