Colt has been checking the Whitefish Mountain Resort website approximately every forty minutes since February. I know this because he narrates it. Not summarizes — narrates. Present tense. Like a man watching a very slow sports event that he refuses to accept he has no influence over.
"Still says 'subject to trail conditions,'" he said Thursday morning, holding his phone at a distance that suggested the phone had personally disappointed him. It was 7 a.m. We were drinking coffee. It was 45 degrees outside and the kind of cloudy that looks like the sky is thinking about something.
I told him that was the same thing it said yesterday.
He said he knew that. He said he was just keeping an eye on it.
This is his version of doing something.
The thing about Colt is that he's not delusional exactly. He has a genuine, almost scientific confidence that sustained attention will accelerate outcomes. He watched a nature documentary once about wolves using persistence hunting — where they just follow something until it gives up — and he applied this directly and without irony to the Whitefish Mountain summer bike schedule. He is running down the resort with his eyes.
He pulled up the fuels-reduction trail reroute map next, which he has opinions about. He has been having opinions about the reroute since the Pilot ran the story, and he's been sharing them freely, with anyone who will hold still. The guy at the gas station on U.S. 93 knows about the reroute. The U.S. 93 construction guys probably know about the reroute. I would not be shocked if the construction guys know because Colt stopped and told them.
We had dinner out Saturday because of Restaurant Week — his idea, great idea, legitimately his best quality is that he will suggest a nice dinner with complete sincerity and no occasion — and we were having a really lovely time until the table next to us mentioned they'd been up to the mountain and he rotated toward them like a satellite dish acquiring signal.
I watched it happen. One second he was eating bread. The next second he had asked them about upper trail conditions and was listening with the focus of a man in a meeting where something actually matters to him.
They were nice about it. They said it looked promising.
Colt said he thought so too. He said he'd been watching it closely.
He said this like it was a contribution. Like he'd been doing field work.
The drive home he was in a great mood because "promising" is apparently a data point now. He had his window cracked even though it was probably thirty-four degrees by then. He said the cold air smelled like it was almost done, which is not a meteorological framework I'd heard before but which I have now heard several times since.
This morning he sent me an "It's Gonna Be May" meme at 8 a.m. with the note "except it's going to be bike season." It was a Justin Timberlake jpeg. The joke has been going around again because apparently 2026 is having some kind of retro internet moment, a great meme reset or whatever, and Colt has embraced this with a completeness that suggests he never fully left 2016 to begin with. He followed it up with the alpine emoji, the mountain bike emoji, and a question mark.
I responded with a thumbs up because I love him and I'm tired.
He texts me the resort page every time it updates, which it mostly doesn't. He has a Google alert. He mentioned the Google alert like it was a responsible adult decision, like having a 401(k). "Just staying informed," he said.
Saturday is the first day of official weekend operations. I know because Colt told me. I know because Colt told me in February, in March, in April, and twice already this week. I know the contingency plan if trail conditions aren't confirmed, which involves a different trail system and a level of philosophical flexibility he claims to have and does not have.
It's supposed to be fifty-nine today. He says that's basically warm.
He's outside right now. He says he's just getting some air.
He is staring at the mountain.