Even though I know it'll be there, there's something startling about coming up out of a frigid, foggy inversion, with snowflakes floating around in the low, gray sky in Boise, into brilliant sunshine above it all up at Bogus Basin. It was like an island of blue sky and sun up there today, with an ocean of cold fog lapping at the edges of all the surrounding mountains down below us.

Bogus is still going strong despite the thin snow cover, but rock skis still are in order.