The Great College Alma mater Football Bet (Silverton Style)
February 3, 2012
Heath Bar Crunch vs. Cherry Garcia
February 16, 2012
Word Count: 840
Buckets and Buckets
Of The White Stuff
I really enjoy the physical nature of Skate skiing, and the skiing is only a minor aspect of the activity. I really like that you can pull it off with only a minimal amount of the white stuff. Extra snow to cover all the bare spots and rocks along the trail leading out to Howardsville would be nice, but I’m still able to skate ski despite paltry snow cover and extremely icy conditions. I just cringe a little while I’m sucking for air and skating the hard pack. Lack of moisture doesn’t seem like such a huge obstacle.
Thank God things changed in a matter of a week. First a minor low-pressure system came through, then four days later we got blasted by a little less than a foot. Suddenly we were welcomed back to a proper San Juan winter, and things were again right with our world.
This added moisture also changed the situation positively in a few other ways. First and foremost, it made walking around town a lot easier. Before this latest round of storms, sauntering on Silverton’s ice covered streets became a precarious act of gravitational defiance. Every effort was necessary to avoid up close and personal encounters with frozen Hydrogen Dioxide.
The new snow also made for a more picturesque panorama of the mountains surrounding our valley. Things just looked much nicer after these latest storms. There’s something truly amazing about a fresh blanket of white covering everything. You feel blessed by our surroundings as you walk outside and take it in.
On the other hand, a lot of folks don’t really like new snow because it requires a lot of hard work shoveling. In some ways I’m no exception to this predisposition. Clearing snow (especially a lot of it like we got off this latest “San Juaner”) isn’t exactly something you dream about.
Of course it’s cold while you’re shoveling that path and clearing the truck. Depending upon how hard packed it is, the stuff can get downright heavy too. Ample amounts of arduous physical labor is involved. Really wet snow has this nasty habit of sticking to your shovel as you’re throwing it too. Don’t ask why this is happening: better to just keep shoveling and suffer in silence.
An additional drawback to shoveling snow is that your back (and various other muscles) becoming very tired and therefore very sore. The task assumes colossal proportions as you’re cursing to the Heavens and continuing to muck. In these perversely masochistic moments, the alternative of sitting on the beach with a glass of rum seems mighty nice, mighty fine indeed.
As we all know, “All work and no play makes David a very dull boy,” so finally clearing that area comes to a triumphant conclusion. With that in mind you can now enjoy all the fun activities involved with the new snow. Shoveling it off a roof and subsequently falling into waist deep amounts of the fresh stuff is thrilling. This brings back all sorts of beautiful childhood memories involving flips into space. Knowing that landing in it is almost the best part of the activity.
Additionally, many were the times while growing up in Silverton that I would look longingly at the snowplow drivers as they pushed snow into huge fifteen-foot piles. This was the only time I ever envisioned myself becoming an architect. Thinking about all those tunnels and caves I‘d soon be building inside those mountains of white ice is a sweet memory.
Now that I’m an adult (at least chronologically) my favorite way to play in new snow is powder skiing. Immediately after finishing my shoveling tasks this last Sunday, and even though I felt dead tired, the first thing I did was change into my ski clothes and hit the slopes. Lying down to recover? No way. We’ll do that this evening when you know the probability of falling straight into La-La land is close to 100%.
There’s something truly satisfying about riding a chairlift and looking back at that freshly ripped set of perfect Telemark tracks you just made on that slope to your right. Skill, or the weather gods and the mountain combining to create the perfect palette to ski through with a smile on your face? Probably the culmination of all these factors.
While skiing the morning after this latest storm, I overheard a friend of mine tell his daughter that skiing through powder involves staying aggressive as you do it. My response? I emphatically yelled back at them that even if you fall while powder skiing, that’s part of the experience and a lot of fun.
So do I have some sort of perverse obsession with new snow? You darn right I do. One of my favorite activities while living in Telluride was calling a friend on this side of the mountain to compare notes. Hope for low-pressure systems, and the prospect of a big dump of moisture was a mutually agreed upon end result.
