Yet Another Powder Day at Killington

open my eyes,
Slowly,
It's my one day off from work
and I really, really want to sleep in.

I get up like I always do,
The first thing I always do
I pull back the window curtain like I always do...

SHIT!

It snowed.
A lot.
Again!
How is this happening to us?
It's the East Coast!

I have got to get to the mountain!!!!

Sure, it's rediculously cold.
Sure, it's ridiculously windy.

But none if that matters
as I make my first turn
snow hits me in the knee
And then right at my groin.
What?
I'm not in the woods
Or in a snow drift
I am out here, on a regular ole trail
And getting powder shots up to my waist??
Holy crap --
What must the trees be like??

I can't get enough.
Every spare moment
Every spare thought
I cannot sit still
Knowing there is untracked snow
Out there
In the mountains
Waiting for me to leave my mark

Sometimes it is gorgeous
A perfectly drawn line in the snow,
The leaving of a schuss on a clean, pristine white blanket.

Othertimes it is ugly.
Hooking a branch or a tree
And I end up in a tree well
Or upside down and backwards

And sometimes,
The woods they leave their mark on me.
A bruise on my left wrist from a random sideways stump,
Scars across my face from the constant whipping of tree branches,
Bruises on my shins from when my skis went on one side of a lowflying branch and my body on the other.
A bruise on my knee when a not so nice tree decided to stop me during a fall.

But who cares?
The snow has been so soft you can go anywhere.
Do anything.
Be anyone.
Be yourself.

May You Find the Spirit of the Mountains Within You,
Merisa