Throw in a smattering of ski writing deadlines, which
sometimes involve traveling to other ski areas, and it all means ski season is
an all-consuming entity. The mudroom is a muddle of skis and boot bags and
helmets. The gear collection spills into the living room, where ski boots are
lined up to dry by the radiator, which is piled high with hats, mittens, and
neck gaiters.
Notes about night skiing and spring skiing and adaptive
skiing are scattered around my makeshift office at the dining room table. House
projects we started months ago, including an ambitious plan to shift bedrooms,
have been abandoned in the fullness of ski season. Non-skiing plans are delayed
to that vague point of “after ski season,” and there are some friends we just
don’t see as much this time of year.
This ski-centricity is a phenomenon probably impossible to
explain to someone not involved in skiing. But my skiing friends and cohorts
will understand: skiing is not merely a hobby, or a way to pass the normally
cold and snowy months of winter, or even a passion. It is an inherent,
un-extractable part of simply being.
Skiing is why we wake up before the sun during the darkest
days of winter. It is why we don innumerable layers on the coldest days of the
year and are willing to face the elements, whether sub-zero chill, gale force winds,
sleet, rain, snow, or sunshine. It is why we forgo other things to buy
equipment and passes and why we stay up late tuning skis. It is something we
think about, sometimes dream about, during even the dog days of summer.
Skiing is why I moved west after college, seeking higher
mountains, deeper snow, a skiing life in a skiing town. And it is why, when I
came back East five years later, I landed in the mountains, why I am here
still.
My dad used to tell me when I lived out west, probably in an
attempt to lure me home again, that skiing is skiing. Doesn’t matter where you
do it, it’s the same. I’d scoff at such a crazy concept as I headed out to ski
Colorado powder on a mountain whose base was 5,000 feet higher in elevation than
my home hill’s summit.
The snow in Crested Butte is a good bit different than the
snow on Cannon Mountain. And it’s different, probably, than European snow and
Tahoe snow and Midwestern snow. But it turns out that skiing IS skiing. Yes,
skiing powder is different than skiing hard pack (and goodness knows there have
been days this season when I have lamented the ice and longed for a deep dose
of Rocky Mountain powder). Groomers are different than bump runs or glades.
Flats are different than steeps.
But there’s something in the feeling of it all that is
intrinsically the same. Skiing is freedom and grace. It is strength and
precision and the thrill of self-made speed. It is unbridled joy at each
perfect turn – and the imperfect ones, too.
Some ski seasons are longer than others. This one, here in
the East, has been particularly challenging in many ways, and there are moments
when I feel ready for the busy shuffle of ski season to shift definitively to
spring, ready to pack away all the gear and move on to the next season, ready
to sleep in and not hurry everyone out of the house for first chair.
But then I click into my skis and arc my way down a mountain
and everything else fades away. There is only skiing then, and it is worth a
little shuffling.
Original content by Meghan McCarthy McPhaul, posted to her Blog: Writings From a Full Life. This essay also appears as Meghan's Close to Home column in the March 11, 2016 edition of the Littleton Record.
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