In December I had my first powder day of the 2020 – 2021 season. It was a weekday, I was solo per usual. I was amazed with the grip that that powder day feeling still has over me, some 20 ski seasons in. Assuming an average 30 days/season (almost, I skied more than that pre-kids and less post), that’s 600 ski days. While not nearly enough (!) of those are powder days, I estimate a good 30 percent of them involved powder, so 200 days.
This time that powder day feeling started early in the week. I felt the butterflies jump in me upon seeing that Joel’s Open Snow forecast showed a storm approaching. I scrutinized my calendar and entered “hold” through 2 pm on Wednesday. My charge then became to protect Wednesday from life’s weekly task onslaught. I also made a sweep of Open Snow, snow-forecast, Seth’s Weather Report, CAIC, and a baseline of the national weather service to triangulate my Wednesday. Was that the right day? Would I be able to reserve a day (a new twist this year yay!)? Which ski area would get the most snow? These are not trivial considerations, but metaphysical dilemmas. I received the “I guess” eyeroll that suggested … hall pass!
The season had started off well in November but fizzled. A family trip was set for the weekend. I was irritable, lost in social media posts of one elegant turn or another. In short, I had powder fever.
Wednesday morning arrived. Winter Park’s cam showed only four inches. Joel wrote the storm was ending, but noted it was still snowing as of the writing of his report. Winter Park had enjoyed consistent snow for several days. This is often a recipe for a sneaky powder day, but it was risky especially early in the season. I queasily decided to go; because it takes a good deal of motivation to break the weekday pattern. Given the added cabin fever of the pandemic, just getting out of the house a motivator, because a bad day skiing is better than a good day working.
I hit the road after dropping Leo off at school. It was a bright morning, and then I hit construction traffic in Idaho Springs. Work emails started piling up as I sat still, some that had to be answered. My window was growing smaller and the down time in the car was making me question my decision. There’s a very thin ratio between ski time and drive time on a weekday ski even on the best days.
The first flakes flew by as I drove past Empire. That was a good sign – to have precipitation falling on the east side means the storm was hitting the mountains on the west side. As I drove up the pass, the snowpacked road started to ease my mood and raise my antennae that it had, in fact, continued to snow. By the time I turned into the lot it was a snowstorm, the anxiousness in my stomach had molted, and the excitement had me moving fast as I geared up. I was late, but I saw smiling locals heading back to work – another good sign.
I kept my emotions in check as I carried my gear to the hill. The line on the gondola was reasonable given the COVID-19 restrictions. As I was lifted uphill, I scanned the early season conditions and considered my options for the ideal first run based on my internal algorithm of total skiers, runs open, active snowfall, cross-referenced with past conditions.
Based on this hyper analysis, I decided to head to the front face of the Winter Park side. As I schussed over to the first run, I noticed snowfall on the side of the path. I pushed forward into the downhill, immediately sizing up the state of the snow, how much it had been skied, and when.
It was good. There were pockets of three to five turns of untracked snow. There were icy conditions in the middle where the snow was skied off. With years of power based radar, I took non-intuitive fall lines and cut a wide path. The soft snow allowed me to easily traverse the terrain. I found a pocket, about ten turns of soft snow, with small unbroken patches.
I headed into the trees. And there was a white carpet. Window after window of untracked lines. I stopped at the top of one that looked good. I took off my goggles and let out a deep, smiling breath. The breath of relief. The breath of being in the right place at the right time. The breath of connection to all the smiles and giddiness of power days past. To have made the right call starting in the days before the storm, the uneasy forecast of the morning. The flakes on the way up the past, the parking lot and the people already leaving(!), presumably having skied the best snow.
In one instant, it all washed over me like an easy surf. I had made it to the moment. I strapped everything back in and turned into the snow, cutting through the new snow and floating on top with quick but effortless turns in the tree tunnel. I popped out onto the soft run at the bottom and cut longer, straighter turns that are only allowed when the snow provides resistance. I was going faster than my muscles could handle, guiding my skis rather than pushing them. It was that powder feeling.
And then I was back uphill, searching pockets from the lift and noting features where I saw untracked turns. Each time I hit a line was a success, landing a big fish, a release into a place where you are the only one in the world. It mostly happens with untracked snow, though even soft broken up snow can provide the friction to make you glide down a slope.
It is amazing to me how strong this anticipation is, how cathartic the turns, twenty plus years into my ski career. The attraction to this feeling, like a surfer in a big set, like a guitarist mid-solo, is remarkable in its hold on me. It’s a feeling I’ve known for 23 years, since I moved to Colorado. The feeling traces to before then, though. It’s a feeling I’ve known since I went sledding through the steeps and trees of my neighborhood growing up, into the night with the lights above the garage doors providing our night sledding. It is a connection to a place deep within me, a through-line of excitement past the broken down relics of life along the road to create an umbilical cord to your prior self.
There remains nothing like that feeling of ducking into some trees, squeezing in a tight spot and bursting into a meadow with a blank canvas of deep snow. That powder day feeling keeps you young because it is so fresh and so fleeting in itself. Also, it taps into that axiom of joy stretching from all the powder days I’ve had to date and that buzz of excitement that has somehow managed to last a lifetime. Those days have an element of one part exploration, one part flow, one part ease, and one part full exertion. The reward is paid in breathless smiles. Not to mention, the feeling of peace as you drive down the mountain, and the blue sky starts to peek through the leading edge of the storm.