Last week, when the weather warmed and an hour slipped through our sleep like sand through an hour glass — too quickly, so softly, it seemed a tenderness unfolding — I turned once again to the happily irrational acts of welcoming spring early.

We’ve reached the point in the 2012-13 season when we’re able to assess just how good it has been, both from the standpoint of skiers and boarders and the ski area operators.

Have you been awakened this March by a loud con-ka-ree? The song of the male red-winged blackbirds is ringing through the air again. Male redwings have been arriving back in Maine since the first of March. Females will not appear for a month or more. The reason for this striking difference in arrival between males and females can be understood as the result of an unequal partnership.

Back in the day, there were two types of skiing — on-piste and backcountry. You were either skiing on lift-serviced trails at a resort, or you were hiking for your own turns on unpatrolled, often unmaintained slopes. In recent years a third option — sidecountry, or “slackcountry” — has been growing in popularity.