While I’ve skied my whole life, I’ve never before been as obsessed with it as I was this year. For one, it was a good winter. More snow than we’ve seen in ages. 1983 to be exact. Before I was alive.
But there was something else incredible about the activity that I couldn’t put my finger on.
The goal is more or less to use skis to walk uphill, moving through terrain that would be challenging to cross in any other way. On the way, I observe terrain and snow conditions, stabbing at the fluff or crust with my pole. Paired with this observation is some excellent cardio.
When I reach the top (or whatever good starting place I decide upon) I twist the heel of my binding so that the two little pins are facing forward. Then I step my heel down and it fastens to the ski. I do the same with the other and then I lift one ski, cross it over the other and reach for the tail to unclip the skin. Then in three (sometimes awkward) motions, I rip the skin from the ski. After folding and placing the skins in my pack, buckling my boots, and changing my gloves, I am a new beast. One that flows with the landscape, following paths determined by the particular slope and the snow conditions on that particular day, at that particular moment.
There is something about that connection to the mountain that I just can’t get enough of. What it gives me, I think, is an idea of what it is like to be something else. To be like raven, who hops over sandstone, alights on a tree, then catches an updraft and soars. Soars.