At the top of Vail Pass, I got out to throw a couple of snowballs. There were only two cars in the rest area parking lot: us and a tele-skier, cranking the Dead and putting skins on his skis. We had to talk to him. Turns out that his name is Jeff Cricco and he’s a photographer for Powder and a blogger for Freeskier. In our minds he is also the season’s “first skier.”