There is a big difference between skiing knee-deep natural, unconsolidated snow, and zipping across seventeen inches of solid man-made. Really? Ya think?
I’m not talking about obvious differences. Make no mistake, skiing fast on cold corduroy carries its own thrill. Lacking most all friction, acceleration and velocity are gravity’s playthings. And with those new shaped skis we paid so much for last fall, groomers transform velocity into sweeping, centripetal carves, consistent across the surface.
While I gripe about early-season “ribbon of death,” skiing, even lacking significant gradient, the groomed smooth and obdurate surface serves a purpose. Muscles and reflexes refresh in familiar use and tune me to edge and surface. If nothing else, I get used to the wind in my face. Ultimately tiresome? Yes.
Quickly, it seemed, early season turned into winter. This is good since if weather is colder than a well-digger’s ass, snow is more than a nice amenity. It is essential to my winter sanity and survival. I get to ski on it, and after all, I live in a ski town. Good thing, too, seeing as how I like skiing so much.
The ribbon of death is gone, buried under a foot or two of natural snow. It won’t reappear until next spring when temperatures and grooming will have transformed the surface into something quite different. But it snowed, and the wise powers-that-be opened the ski mountain. It kept snowing and snowed some more. My greatest hope at this point is that it just keeps snowing, although by the time you read this I’m sure it will have stopped…bite my tongue.
And that conjures a difference between natural and man-made snow. Yes, you can feel the difference under your skis or snowboard. I am not sure whether new snow is faster or slower—depending on temperature and wax—but it damned sure is softer. It carves and pushes, and when it’s cold like it is in December, it splashes and froths. When it finally gets deeper, you can float in it and push those big wide skis against it to turn or control speed. Or you can just let ‘em roll…but keep your tips up.
The sudden transformation from restrictive man-made snow to a blanket of the natural stuff stirred significant participation by local enthusiasts. Jokerville opened to a crowd anxious to test its mettle against more serious gradient than the kitchen table. Deep and with an established base, the natural snow quickly moguled up under the assault. They were natural moguls, though, and not hard and severe because like I said, it kept snowing.
Absent East River and extreme terrain, most of the rest of the mountain opened. As it continued snowing, I skied that knee-deep, natural and unconsolidated snow I was talking about. Down Jokerville—not a drop-in—next to the trees, I found da kine.
At first I was skeptical. It can’t´ be this good. It was still early season; we hadn’t gotten that much snow…had we? Damn; it felt like powder! After finding a few untracked shots tucked here and there near the trees, my pants had snow on them even past my knees. It finally hit me: That was the first powder day of the season. I’d been down in it and hardly even realized it.
There was a time when powder absolutely freaked me out. I remember standing at Vail when I was about eleven years old, powder up to my butt, crying in frustration. Those days are history. Now tears might fog my goggles, but they are tears of joy.
Dolores LaChapelle wrote, “We powder skiers…relinquish our human control and turn it over to the earth below us (the gravity) and the sky above (the snow which that sky gives us) and our way is laid out for us so we can live validly for those moments when we are so intimately a part of the fourfold…I know of nothing which teaches one to live validly as quickly as powder snow.”
Yeah. What she said.
Powder is best, but December powder is the best of the best because it’s so damned cold when crystals form and fall to the ground. Powder snow is the stuff of story and legend: champagne powder, cold smoke…totally sick dude. And there I was, knee-deep in the stuff on Jokerville. Totally sick, dude!
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