Atlantic Coast For Some Family and Friend Time

When the ski season looks like the days of the huge storms are coming to an end, I have become accustom to hitting the road and heading east to catch up with family and childhood friends.

So like I do every year, I booked my flight and made my annual migration to NY to spend some time with my family. However, this season as I hit the skies heading east I could not see that close behind me an endless storm cycle of snow was going to blanket over 50inches of the fresh white stuff over Utah. The weather in Utah has definitely caught most off guard, with many of my friends itching to ride bikes, but still feeling the need to buckle up their boots and get after the fresh because…well… “this might be the last storm of the season”.

While it is quite tempting to jump in a plane and head back west to join my friends in the April and May powder crazed emotion, I realize that as a professional skier in the winters and a full time guide in the summer times, these short couple months between seasons are some of the only time I get to see family and childhood friends.

So I stick to the plan, spending a week at my childhood home northwest of Manhattan, watching my mom walk down the isle with the man of her dreams, spending time with my grand parents who taught me how to ski way before I can remember, and kicking back with my cousins aunts and uncles.

After soaking up the family love I head into my sanctuary outside of the rugged world of jagged peaks and swooping valleys, New York City has been a place of inspiration and comfort for me since the time I can remember. Whether it’s the rhythm of the subway cars vibrating beneath the busy city streets, or the collective energy of 1.5 million people living within 22miles of one another, the city has always spoken volumes to me. So I use it to revive my cultural and spiritual being, as well as to catch up with some great friends from my past, before heading south to Miami to catch up with my father.

Miami is a strange place to find yourself when you still have a goggle tan, a stark white body, and an alternative sense life. None the less, the bleach blond hair, fake boobs, and overly tanned bodies can be something to appreciate and like any community, there are misfits, hippies, and punks in Miami, you just might need to look a bit harder to find them. One of those who has always beaten to his own drum of life is my father, and while his New Yorker heart still flutters irregularly with out the city’s bustle keeping him on beat, he is still staying true to himself in the city of plastic. Getting to spend time with him is always special.

So with my soul, now filled by family and friends, I am in the airport heading back to Salt Lake City, where yet another storm cycle is expected to hit and I will return to the mountains to join my friends and industries in excitement over this fluke endless winter!

Tags: Family, Manhattan, May Snow, New York, South Beach, Travel, Wedding