"We discover a new world every time that we see the earth again after it has been covered with snow." – From Thoreau's Journal; 1860
With a friend visiting, it took coordination to get to the chairlift. First off, it was a cold morning, no degrees at all-zero. So, naturally, the furnace quit. I eavesdropped as my wife spoke with the furnace guy at 8 a.m. “Well, we’re down two guys, so it could be a while. We could be out there in an hour. Is that ok?” The woodstove with its dependable “tic-tic” would keep the place warm, so out the door we went. The furnace obstacle was just one of the “Ten Thousand Things” that would be encountered before we loaded a chairlift.
Going skiing means that everything must be just exactly perfect, or at very least, better. I came across Karen Anderson, a Vermont Strong kinda gal, as she was booting up to the hill. She always smiles at the prospect of making turns or extending kindness to animals. I wondered which one was causing her to smile at that moment.
At the top of the Heaven’s Gate chair, the liftie was looking eastward across The Valley. We asked what the temperature was, and he said, “Cold.”
Cold toes can still feel, they just feel cold, which is sub-optimal. You need all the feel that you can get in order to feel that hill. Sometimes it takes 30 mph to get to the point where you can feel that hill. It is probably a function of turn radius. You must be bending the ski through the turn radius and in relationship to the fall line…to feel the hill.
Skiing – we’re going skiing. The mind reels off all kinds of emotions and memories of previous trips when things went well and otherwise. Another obstacle: my friend forgot his goggles. We overcame. In the Dao de Jing, there is a pinnacle statement, “If all obstacles can be overcome, none can discern your limits.” The Dao De Jing suggests that by embracing gentleness, flexibility, and non-interference, you possess an unmatched, enduring power to overcome any challenge, a wisdom rarely understood but profoundly effective.
The glaze on Grinder seems particularly resistant to metal edge this year. I don’t blame the surface. I think that I need to cut back my sidewalls, improve on that 87-degree bevel and polish my edges.
The skiing on Friday was cold, but balanced, by a high UV index, sun-soaked and cold. As I was loading the Heaven’s Gate chair, I noted that it was 10:25 and we had already skied untracked on Ripcord and a top-to-bottom Grinder. Another top-to-bottom OrganGrinder and it’s…10:30? Only five minutes to ride HG, ski from top to bottom, ride Super Bravo and arrive at HG at 10:30? It seemed like we were not just frozen, but frozen in time. I know that we don’t ski that fast this early in the season.
There is no pressure or competition. This is luxury, delight. It is pure pleasure to place skis into fresh and sunlit snow. It pays to love snow like an Eskimo. Read it, interpret it, estimate it. I heard a sound like “SSSSsssss,” a gentle hiss while slicing through untracked. The fresh, early season natural snow is deceptive. Is that wind-drifted soft snow, or is it a rock with a disguise of snow? When skiing with friends, especially those visiting from away, it is your duty to ski their legs off. That takes training and continual learning. Don’t deny yourself any phase or form of learning. Learning may come on a laptop, a video, or a word document. Racers don’t discern training from racing. Every run is an event.
In Buddhism there are the Ten Thousand Things, which is as good a number as any. If you imagine that you have encountered, say, 734 of them so far, or even 9,999 of ‘em. You should not be surprised when confronted by a new one, or even the revisiting of one that had been long forgotten. And what happens when you reach 10,000? That is where you learn that it is like life, it’s a circle.
The last flocks of wild geese resound overhead and have found a southbound formation. The snow crows have been caw-cawing the early arrival of winter. The ruffed grouse, particularly those that live in the elevated peaks of the Roxbury range, have been crashing into windows this winter. I found this on the Vermont Fish and Wildlife website: “When snow depths are sufficient, grouse prefer to use snow roosts for protection from severe cold and predators. They will plunge full flight into a snowbank and bury themselves.”
Make sure that your windows do not resemble snowbanks and fire up that tuning bench. Rocks linger under soft snow.
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