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8:30 A.M.
A scandalous, scandinavian smile blooms next to me.
“mmmm…skiing, or sex?”
She taps her finger twice on my lips.
Still smiling, a seductive head tilt.
“toughquestion”
Brutal question. There are few tougher decisions in a man’s life than choosingbetween making love with a bombshell, or making bomb holes in untouched fluff.Both are ephemeral, and conditions aren’t always ideal. When you’re older, youwon’t be able to perform as well. And neither one ever seems to last longenough.
On any other frosty February morning, it might have takenthe jaws of life to pry me from that bed. But it was still puking outside.Khybers beckoned.
I take my gaze back off the flakes, and fix it on a pairof deep blue eyes. I smile.
“Let’sgo”.
The beauty of dating a skier is that “pillow talk” refers to pillow linesrather than sweet nothings. A cup of earl grey tea and an egg, and I’m off.
Yesterday this sidewalk would have crunched with the soundof road salt being driven into the concrete. But this morning my ski bootshardly make a sound, muffled by the newly fallen.
For me, the excitement doesn’t hit when I sling my skisover my shoulder and feel the binding dig into my back. It doesn’t hit when Istep into the gondola either. Hell, it doesn’t even hit when I get out. There’sstill that bit of hesitation. What if the visibility sucks? What if thecoverage isn’t that great? And, on this day, shouldn’t I be at home in bedright now?
The nanosecond the detatch quad fixes itself back to thecable, all of these questions are answered. The mechanical drone is broken bythe rickety-rickety-RICK of the cableaccelerating through the wheels. In that moment of liftoff, with the wind in myface, the vision changes from the sled-dog ass ahead of you in line, to apanoramic plethora of skiability. Right then is when I start searching,imagining.
I hung a right off peak chair, then dipped left, slicingmy shins through some soft wind lips on my way towards the ropes that ended thejurisdiction of INTRAWEST. It wasn’t the deepest powder I had ever skied, butthe small spaces in between the thick Canadian pines were still enough to losemyself. As I darted through the trees, my hat gobbled as many flurries as itcould - the helpless crystals sticking like Velcro- before they had a chance torest on the forest floor.
Real skiers understand the importance of giving thanks forgifts like today. They also understand the protocol for doing so… It’sdifferent than, say, praying at a meal. To pray before getting faceshots on the untouched blanket below would be a waste of what you’re thankfulfor. It’s not greedy; it’s your responsibility, to go, now. That is whyeverything else is so quiet on a powder day; so that your prayers, can be heardloud and clear to the gods. For me, the “WOOHOO!!” is the “Our Father”,and the “YAAAAHHH!” is my “Hail Mary”.
Prayers said and thighs repenting, I stopped at the edge ofa small ridge. Along a fallen log were a trail of squirrel footprints, no doubtfrantically trying to remember where his stash was through all the new snow. Otherthan that, my two planks left the only prints. But not for long.
Soon I heard the “prayers” of another powder hound, and my trackswere joined by two more. I couldn’t see her blue eyes through her mirroredlenses, but I could clearly make out my own smile. And although the snow hadsuccessfully masked most of her face, she wore the same distinctive expression.I had made the right choice that morning, and was handsomely rewarded.
Pure joy; courtesy of Khybers, B. C.
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