Unexcused Absences

This morning I woke up to snow (Heather is due in later today from DC).  We’ve actually had a number of snowy mornings, but today I finally had some time to write about it, after all our training, working, and just generally being busy.  More on today’s skiing later in the post.  First, a little background.

For non-skiers reading this, a powder day is very special.  A great day of normal skiing is terrific, but a powder day is sublime.  There’s a special excitement hearing, through the fog of sleep, a snowplow scrape by at 3am.  It means that when morning comes, life will be very, very good.

It’s difficult to explain, exactly, why skiing in powder is so much better than anything else.  For those of you who caught my earlier post, where I said that windsurfing was my number one favorite sport, I’ll have to amend that statement.  Powder skiing is number one, windsurfing is number two, and regular skiing is my third favorite (although ask me after a north-shore wave-sailing session on Maui and I may just change my mind again!)

A powder day unleashes unspeakable joy.  Maybe it’s the way the normally firm boundary between ski and slope dissolves into a sensation of floating.  Words fail at this point, because “floating” isn’t quite right.  Neither are “skimming”, “gliding”, or any of the other synonyms, so I’ll try to describe it.  You push against your ski, and the mountain pushes back, but gently.  Very gently.  No vibrations, no harsh sensations, just… a feather pillow wrapped in flannel.

A couple weeks ago we had a powder morning, and we actually got first, I mean absolute first, tracks down Gold Dust (a nice intermediate pitch that drops from mid-mountain).  The slope had been groomed the evening before, and about 8 inches of snow had fallen overnight.  Imagine the most perfect snowfield you’ve ever seen, tipped at a decent angle, and no one else around.  Heather and I skied about half way down and then fell into each other’s arms, laughing and smiling.

For me, this was the moment our adventure became real.  Up until then it had been a blur of getting organized, packing, driving across country, working the World Cup races, going through new hire training, but now it was real.  We were living at a major ski resort.  We were out on a perfect powder day, all alone.  After years of dreaming about it, thinking about it, and talking about it, we had finally done it.

Please don’t wait too long to take your adventure, whatever it is.

And now back to this morning.  As predicted yesterday, a storm moved in overnight.  Beaver Creek was reporting 5 inches by 6am, and it was still snowing when I woke up.  At the top, where the trees and terrain catch the wind, there were closer to 10 inches by the time I reached the summit at 8:55am.  A traverse over to the Golden Eagle men’s downhill course, a drop to the right where the powder would be deepest, and there it was, that impossible to describe sensation of absolute bliss.  First tracks down a steep, snowy pitch.  This was just the first of many great powder runs this morning.

Top of Ripsaw, barely tracked at 11am

Two hours later, things are beginning to get tracked out.  I contemplate heading back to the condo to put in some time on the computer, but decide to take a run down Ripsaw, an uncrowded, off-the-radar expert slope at the far eastern edge of The Beav.  It’s off the radar because you access it by skiing through some pretty tame beginner runs.  And it lives up to its billing.  It’s two and a half hours since the mountain opened, yet I still have sections of untracked powder to work with.  At the bottom, I glance farther to the east and see two skiers emerge from the runout of the Stone Creek Chutes, which gives me an idea.

Now, Beaver Creek is known as a luxury, guest-services-oriented resort, with lots of grooming, expensive restaurants, and $3,000 ski outfits.  But that’s just what the brochures try to sell you.  Luckily for those who know where to look, there is some pretty serious terrain located in-bounds.  And not just “serious” by luxury resort standards.  I mean “serious” as in make-a-wrong-turn-and-end-up-in-the-hospital serious.  Steep chutes where the bottom-suddenly-drops-out-and-you’re-over-a-20-foot-cliff serious.

Entrance to Stone Creek Chutes

I had heard about the Stone Creek Chutes from several locals, and seen them in Warren Miller movies.  But they’re so far removed from the main skiing areas on Beaver Creek, I had never really thought about them.  The entrance is through a gate tucked off to the edge of a really tame beginner run at the summit.  I had passed the gate several times before, while teaching a class, and never seen it.  But now that I’m looking for it, here it is.  I figure I’ll just ski through to the access road above the cliffs, and scope things out from above, then come back with a ski patroller or local some other day before dropping in (safety first!).  But both the mind and circumstance play funny tricks, as we’re about to see.

I start down the access ridge, a fun run in itself, passing chutes on my right every 75 yards or so with names like 1st Chance, 2nd Chance, 1/2 Chance, and No Chance.  I ski up to the edge of a couple and look down through my ski tips at the tops of large pine trees directly below me.  And it’s snowing, dumping actually.  It is very, very quiet.  The falling snow is so thick I can’t even hear my own breathing.  The snow in the air, on the trees, on the ground, is absorbing every last bit of sound.  My ears are actually ringing from the quiet.  The chutes look fun, but I tell myself to turn away and come back with someone another day.

Another 100 yards, and here is a sign pointing right that says “Last Chance” next to two black diamonds, and beside it a sign with a green dot pointing left that says “Cinch.”  The person who put those two signs together was particularly cruel.  Cinch is listed on the Beaver Creek trail map as “easiest way down,” and no self-respecting skier is ever going to take the “easiest way down.”

I know, at an intellectual level, that it’s important to ski with a partner on out-of-the-way extreme terrain.  This section of the mountain is probably a quarter mile wide, with steeps, woods, cliffs, and almost no traffic.  Skiing here without a partner and getting injured would be the height of irresponsibility.  And yet my alternative is the shame of “easiest way down.”  Then an idea!  Oh please oh please oh please let there be cellphone coverage… take the phone from my pocket, flip it open, and YES!  Three bars.  At least I won’t be lost in here forever if something should go wrong (assuming I can still operate my right arm to reach for my cellphone).

Looking up at Last Chance Chute

Smiling now, I work over to the dropoff and peer down.  No other tracks today.  I’ll have first tracks on a sweet sweet sweet chute.  Skiers dream of this moment their whole lives.  Take a deep breath, and… go!  The powder is not quite bottomless, but it sure feels nice.  Make some turns down a section a few ski-lengths wide, thread through some volkswagen-sized boulders, then into the main gully as it broadens into the valley.  Stop, catch my breath, and take a photo (which does not even remotely do the place justice).

There are steeper chutes (Mt. Rose in Nevada), longer chutes (Alta in Utah), narrower chutes (Solitude in Utah), but at this moment none of that matters.

I made it, I’m all alone on a beautiful powder day, and I’m smiling so hard my face hurts.