Powder Nirvana

The sun's rays stretch out their arms towards the barren white ground as if to plea for help. The deep orange and bright yellow emit a kind of mystic mist that brings out the greatest details of each individual snowflake. Feeling the luke warm air wrap around me like a light, soft blanket, it brings a calm sense of comfort and relief. It's a different type of comfort, a "powder comfort" like knowing you are on the doorsteps of heaven and about to walk in.

From atop the high chutes and the south rim lookout, I scoped the layout of the drop, a glacially etched crater that appeared to have been played around with by the revered Michelangelo, with vertical rock bands and spines parceling potential descents like creases in a surrounding cascade of soft silk. Just chilling with my cousin, a local hard-core, he knew the snow and rock catches on a day-to-day basis. I watched as he hit the rocky drop, hard and frightenly fast, squeezing through shoulder wide chutes that had been absolute closeouts before the previous night's snow. All three mandatory ingredients were in place: powder, sunshine, and an uncut, fresh slope.

The six to twenty-four inches of pure white fluff and the warm sunshine was unusual for a February day. The steep 50 degree slope was sheltered from the ice cold mountain wind by old-growth silver fir and mountain hemlock. I adjusted my Oakley O's around my head, with my glove covered hand. The band gave my head a snug comfortable feeling of rush and adrenaline. On my left was a severe coulair that dropped off 1000 screaming feet. I sucked in the scentless afternoon air through clenched teeth then exhaled a warm cloud that streamed out behind me like a banner in the breeze. It was as though my body had suddenly become only an exterior shell against the cold as my mind pushed me faster, closer still to the mountain. As I looked to my right, I saw the tel-tale signs that signaled an animal had trudged itself to this spot. I couldn’t help but think of flying through the white, flying like the eagles overhead, slipping in and out of the low-slung clouds. Gazing around I took in one last glance of the untouched chutes and cornices, cliff bands and open bowls, trees and wind drifts. It had all the daydream ingredients for a powderhog like me.

The mountain was so spread out that forays for freshies made you feel like you were a part of the beautiful backcountry. I looked down at my navy blue boots and strapped them into my 188 El Camino K2 skies. Pushing off with my poles I felt like some angel was gently pushing me towards the ultimate ride. Up and down and up and down in the thigh deep white the continuous motion that was addicting and made your heart skip two or three beats at a time. Trees, cliffs, snow, it was all a beautiful white blur that forced a thrill that I had never felt before. Face shots for breakfast, face shots for lunch and dinner, it was something that I could live on forever.

Call it heaven. Call it nirvana. That moment when the whole great big wide world is shrunk down till it becomes comprised of only snow and a mountain and gravity and joy and you. And you experience the unique sensation of standing apart from yourself, watching, as someone who really, really knows how to ski takes over your body and carves turns like a divine being.