Note
Skied quite late in the day, finishing up at about dusk. There was about 2" of new snow; the trails had been groomed in the morning and the snow arrived that, and with few people being out on it, it was all but perfect. No wind either, even though by the forecast there should have been some.
I felt quite lucky even to get up there to ski. When I was looking over some local news early in the afternoon, I saw a report that the interstate was closed between Laramie and Cheyenne due to an accident (24 vehicles, mostly semi trucks) that happened hours earlier in the morning, with expected time to open maybe by 9-10 pm in the evening. I looked at the WYDOT site to check out the current status and looked at the web cameras, too. About 2 hours later I was wrapping up things at home and thinking about exercise for the day, and checked the road closure information again, and read what was posted more carefully, and whether it had been up there earlier and I had missed it or if the information had changed I'm not sure, but now I saw a sentence at the end that said local traffic was being allowed between Laramie and the Summit. I had no idea if that might be limited to people who live up near there, or if it might apply to even hikers and skiers, etc, and I figured I would at least give it a try. Glad I did. The gate was down across the interstate past the on ramp, and a State Trooper was there who waved me on through once I told him where I wanted to go. And a dozen or so vehicles had preceded me to the Tie City trailhead by the time I got there.
I didn't run yesterday and it was so nice out that after skiing I decided to do a night run, and I ran for an hour. By then the skies were clear, and towards the end of the run I was coming out of the trees from the south into a large clearing, and could look straight into the Big Dipper. It was so beautiful that I stopped in the clear to admire the night skies (which up there are incredible on a clear night), and noticed a plane was moving across the Big Dipper. Then I saw there were several other planes in view and realized it was a line of planes, spaced maybe 5-10 miles apart (my guess), one after another, flying at the same speed and altitude. At any given time I could see 4-5 planes, and I stood there for several minutes watching. I wasn't counting carefully, but between 17 and 20 planes went by, and I probably didn't see the first plane(s) going by. I had never seen anything like that before; in the end I was guessing it was probably something like FedEx or UPS. For all I know maybe there are regular flight convoys like this and I had just never seen any of them before. Somehow, what with all that is going on now, it felt reassuring to me to see that line of planes in the sky--as a sign that some necessary things are still organized and functioning well.