Fairy Tales & Powder: Childhood Ski Dreams Can Come True

I came around the corner...
Wham!!
My eyes bugged out of my head.
My mouth dropped open
as I shook my helmet in disbelief.

I had dreamed of this moment,
of standing here,
at the entrance to this particular trail,
on a power day such as this.

SomeWhere
despite the absolute awesomeness of the day,
no one,
not a single person,
had been here.

I looked around,
first uphill then down,
making sure this wasn't a dream
wondering if someone was going
to pop out of the woods
and burst
the perfectness of my moment.
And then it sinks in.
I am going to ski this.
This will be all mine.

A tear forms in my eye...

oh my god,
Seriously?!
CALM DOWN.

But I cannot.
My heart is beating so wildly.
Here,
before me,
untouched and virgin,
lies a path through the snow.

And not just any snow.
Like feet and feet of wind drifted snow.
Like waist deep snow.
Like MY Snow!!!

The big selfish grin spread slowly across my face,
I Bit my lower lip in great anticipation...
I rocked back on my tails, swung those tips around,
and let my skis just fall down the hill.

For a while I ride my tails,
swinging my skis gently within the halfpipe like riverbed,
finally full of snow after this latest dumping.
slowly but surely
my speed increases
until I am bouncing from one drift to another.
Bouncing?
from drift to drift.

Wait, this is like...
rhe winddrifts are skiing like...

...PILLOWS??

A huge Whoop explodes from my throat
as I try to keep myself from laughing
at this.
So New
So unexpected
So absolutely freakin' awesome.

I drop from pillow to pillow,
the snow beneath me exploding
like feathers from a pillow during a pillow fight.
A Blazt of snow hits me in the face
with each pillow puff.

Pillows?!
Face Shots?!

What the hell is going on here?

How about a waterfall drop?
Sure,
whatever.
I'll take that drop and
Pooof!
Snow surrounds me everywhere and I rock forward and into the next turn.
Miraculously smooth and skiing like a dream come true.

I can't help myself.
My mind begins to go crazy excited now
overwhelmed by the drops and snow and
the whole entire freaking experience of it all.

I honestly never thought this would happen to me.
Not here in Vermont,
in Killington,
on this trail.
and certainly not today.

But here I was,
making swooping GS turns,
dodging around trees
Just enough space to redirect my tips
and land in the next pillow of snow.

It was so smooth
so sexy
so powderlicious.

As a Child,
I had heard tales of this trail
This secret place,
hidden so blatantly
among all the trees
in Killington.
A place where only the good grownups would go.

That's where I wanted to be.
Even though I had no idea what this trail could possibly have looked like,
I imagined my future self,
ripping up the powder
In my dream,
I was, like, totally super awesome, dude.

Eventually,
I found this trail.
I still remember the first time I skied it.
It certainly wasn't pretty.
or even like anywhere close to awesome.
More like:
Ohhhhh, this is what this trail was like.

And my dream changed.
Now I knew where the turns would be,
where the waterfall would
pop up
unexpectedly
around that turn,
you know, that one.

Sometimes it would be skied out.
Others would be fresh.
I skied it alone
(yeah, yeah, lecture me about safety another day)
Othertimes in a trail of two or three skiers,
right on top of each other in glorious powder eight style.
And it had always been super fun to ski.

And then,
it snowed a whole lot.
And then,
And then,
And then...

And Then...
A Childhood Dream Came True.

Skiing This Run,
On this Mountain,
On this Day,
was,
for me,

Epic.





May You Find the Spirit of the Mountain within You.