4. Weather = Mood Ring Once you understand how different weather affects mountain operations, you’ll obsessively check multiple weath- er apps—not for your own plans, but to predict your spouse’s mood and avail- ability. A storm forecast means they’re already mentally at the mountain for the next 72 hours straight. A warm spell means stressed-out snowmakers and panicked marketing teams trying to spin brown webcam footage. You’ll learn to gauge whether your spouse will be grinning, grimacing, or completely MIA based entirely on what’s coming down (or not coming down) from the sky. 5. Perfect Your “Ski Industry Spouse” Explanation “Where’s your [husband, wife, part- ner] tonight?” becomes a question you field constantly. Develop a repertoire of responses ranging from the honest (“Making snow so you can ski tomor- row”) to the creative (“Communing with the mountain spirits”).
pressures of being the face and voice of a mountain co-op whose members have very strong opinions about everything from lift technology to board sports. Meeting Kara led to the realization that there’s an entire community of us. Partners of all walks of life, genders, and family structures find themselves in this seasonally solo mode. Winter widowhood spans across all ski area operations—snowmaking, grooming, lifts, patrol, marketing, food and bever- age, and everything in between—but the experience has universal elements that bind us together. We swap stories in the base lodge, text each other during storms, and nod knowingly when some- one mentions their spouse has been at the mountain for 72 hours straight. Most of us aren’t just sitting around knitting scarves and waiting for ski sea- son to end, either (though that sounds AMAZING!). Both Kara and I—and many other winter widows—have impressive careers of our own. So, we are juggling professional demands and managing households and children, which makes the winter widow experience even more complex. It requires a special kind of multitasking mastery.
line (perpetually busy or answered by someone who has no idea where your spouse is), that one co-worker who actually texts back, and finally, sending up smoke signals. In that order. Master this hierarchy early, because “I’ll call you back” in ski industry speak means “maybe by Thursday.” 3. Bring Snacks You’ll find yourself packing midnight snacks for snowmakers, delivering cof- fee to grooming crews, and hauling full holiday dinners to the mountain. Because apparently, “I’ll grab something at the lodge” translates to “I’ll survive on stale coffee and cafeteria french fries.” Kara has perfected the art of turning her husband’s on-mountain office into a per- sonal supply depot, stocked with extra mittens, granola bars, dry socks, and emergency hand warmers. Pro tip: invest in good thermal con- tainers to keep the coffee hot, and learn to decode your spouse’s mountain radio (left on at home at an obnoxious volume) so you can track them down when it’s time for a midnight snack delivery.
6. Master Strategic Life Planning Here’s something non-ski industry fami-
THE WINTER WIDOW SURVIVAL KIT
Through years of experience and count- less conversations with fellow winter widows, we’ve developed our survival strategies: 1. Master the Art of Solo Everything Grocery shopping, holiday preparations, family events, home maintenance, pet care, and social obligations—congratu- lations, you’re now a one-person army. Your dinner plans are always tentative, and “I’ll be home by 7” translates to “anywhere between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.” The bright side? You become incredibly efficient and never have to compromise on what to watch on Netflix. 2. Learn the Emergency Contact Hierarchy Mountain radio (which they religiously leave plugged in at home, where it ser- enades you with 2 a.m. groomer chatter about corduroy patterns), cell phone (dead battery, obviously), lodge land-
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