I went for a ski on a recent Saturday, climbing the Catalinas to Mount Lemmon Ski Valley for the joy of a sport that grabbed my spirit 44 years ago and won't let go.
It hadn't snowed for weeks, so the slopes were boilerplate. Daily thawing and freezing left small moguls with the texture of bowling balls. Early sun yielded to clouds, and the skiing remained more like skating.
Still a blast, for an old ski bum. Skiing is richly physical, always beautiful and regularly magical.
It's a miracle, truly, to wake up on this fabulous desert and slide on snow two hours later. Even in a dry winter, the Lemmon's north-facing peak holds snow, which feeds those magnificent, fat conifers, which shade the snow … it's a direct natural relationship, that of tree and moisture.
Ski Valley is certainly no Teton Village, but it's got a few pitches that flow the blood. Add sufficient easy terrain, and the Lemmon has something to offer.
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Maybe 100 of us took up the offer this day. "Sorry about the crowds," one lift attendant quipped.
As a business, Ski Valley may always be marginal, at least in winter.
It could be so much more.
In the too-small parking lot, a bright-eyed U.S. Forest Service employee invited guests to take a survey, intended to evaluate the user's experience at day's end. Those of us who know the Lemmon weighed in beforehand.
Ski Valley has one glaring need - a place to go.
There are four portable toilets at Ski Valley. They're gross. The hand sanitizer is a nice gesture, but it can't overcome the gagging, the breath-holding, the squeamishness. And I'm a guy. For a woman in heavy ski clothing and boots, the "toilet" at Ski Valley is a deal-breaker.
There's no running water at Ski Valley, reminds the nice lady in the restaurant who hardly sips her bottle of water. Running water is not essential to a good bathroom. Down the Catalina Highway, a roadside composting toilet is clean, relatively pleasant and, importantly, environmentally benign. Most men at Ski Valley just use the woods above Summerhaven.
Many of these skiers and boarders are hombres. Spanish fills the air of a hard-packed Saturday at Ski Valley. Young snowboarders in jeans streak the snow blue. Young women in jeans cover their mouths before entering the porta-hell.
More would come, if you built it. Or, precisely, more would go.
Tucson, and Mexico, offer a reasonable pool of skiers and snow boarders who'd venture up a half-dozen times a year to turn the boards, to stop in Summerhaven for a beer or a cookie, to dream about a house atop the Lemmon. There's potential, but it starts with a good potty.
Whose responsibility is it to build a proper restroom at Ski Valley? Ownership appears disinterested. That leaves the feds, which may have to do something to improve the experience and protect the resource.
Someone, please, give us a good place to go.
Email Dave Perry at president@the-chamber.com
