I’ve been skiing since I was about six. We used to live in Washington DC and Maine was our “vacation spot” if you will. Just like everyone else who lives south of…Maine. Anyways, I got thrown out onto the bunny slopes most likely with some 22 year kid searching for direction in life who was to be my ‘teacher’ while mommy and daddy went and skied at the TOP of the mountain. It was awesome, until I realized that I wanted to get off the seemingly petty bunny slopes and ski with the big boys. It took a few years, but I made it up there. It was even better when my father left his position in the Navy and we actually could call Maine our permanent home. I spent a few years skiing at Sugarloaf- just like I did as a little kid. But then, we turned our sites westward. That’s when it really began.
See, my father had to attend a conference every year at some point to keep his medical license. I was in the third grade during our first trip. It was a whole new world for me. I had never seen such HUGE mountains and such amounts of snow. You’d think that, being from Maine, I’d have seen a lot of snow in my day, but NOOOOOO it was like nothing I could have ever imagined. Just feet and feet of white fluff. It was incredible being in the Rockies for the first time. The feeling I got cannot be replicated on this page, it’s just simply indescribable. Sometimes my favorite part of the day was riding up the chairlift because I could turn around almost 180 degrees (depending on where I was sitting- I had a much better view from the outside seats) and take in the beauty. For the first time in my life, I felt small. Not just small in the sense of being a tiny organism in an incomprehensibly HUGE universe, but rather, I can almost say that I was humbled by the majesty of mother nature. Anyways, I had a point I was getting to.
The first time I skied in the powder I completely tanked it. I just went head over heels; fell for maybe 40 yards. I hadn’t been going fast at ALL but it was very steep (at the top of Snowbird, UT) and I had no idea how to position my weight in the powder. It’s a completely different style of skiing, one must lean back and keep the tips from sinking too much into the snow.
Snow. That’s an interesting topic. Usually when I’m bored in class my first instinct is to check out the nightly snowfall for my favorite ski resorts out west (or at least those I’d like to travel to one day). Big Sky, Alta, Snowbird, Snowbasin, Powder Mountain, Vail, Beaver Creek, A Basin, Wolf Creek. Where is the snow? THERE IS NO SNOW THIS YEAR!! It pains me to see this. Those poor ski bums. Those poor fathers bringing their sons and daughters out west for the first time. It’s all gone to hell. Actually, from what reading I’ve done- it’s gone to the Arctic. Apparently, the northern Arctic has been been “bottling” a high pressure system and refusing to let it come south as it usually does. Parts of Europe are suffering from incredibly low temperatures and snowfall numbers practically unheard of prior to this winter. These parts of the world- Ukraine, Croatia, and even Alaska- are seeing record numbers and even deaths due to frostbite and hypothermia. It’s not cool at all.
Let’s hope the snow comes back next year. That’s all for now.
Article:
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5j_U6hx6Zk3CU7LM_Ul5Q31Pe6hXQ?docId=3bfd5cadb64b453e9eb16f90ced14ced
I really hope your “It’s not cool at all” pun was intended. But in all seriousness, I can really relate to this post, Kelin. The indescribableness of being so high in elevation just takes your breath away. But most of all, its the SNOW that takes your breath away. There is this inexpressible feeling of calm when you are in the midst of the snow in the mountains. It is so inexplicably perfect that you could look at it endlessly and still be in awe. If I attempted to describe the feeling I got when it snowed on us in AK, it was basically an ache deep in my heart from looking at the perfection of it all.
Let’s all go to some high mountains when there is snow.
I wish I had seen your post sooner, Kelin, we have so much ski things to talk about. This snow season has been unbelievable! I have ski bum friends who were left high and dry in Tahoe, and other devastated in Utah and CO. The situation is looking up now, but for a while it was grim and hopeless for all West Coast skiers.
Also, I love that humbling feeling you’re talking about. Shannon mentioned it in her post about being by the beach as well. Somewhere we get this concept that WE are the masters of the universe and have control over the world, but we are so misguided and proud! The mountains and the sea give you a glimmer of just how small and truly insignificant we are, and how much greater power there is out there than us.