Best Run Ever

Maybe it was, maybe it wasn’t. But at 61 I felt like I was hitting on all cylinders. I can’t ski as many days as I want so when I ski, I ski a lot. 300 runs this year, minimum. Each run improved my technique. I had lots of different conditions to practice in. Even on this, my last trip of the year I had to work through some soft mashed potato snow. I’d dealt with it several times already this year and I’d learned to handle it. But let’s get to that last run. Here’s how it felt:

I watched the kiddo get her snowboard strapped on and start down the hill on the far right. It was bumped up and she wanted to give it a try. Once I saw her head down I waited for an opening and headed down the groomed left side. I’d been down this part 3 or 4 times already so I knew what to expect. Sometimes I’d carve wide arcs and skid a little when the pitch got real steep. Not this time. Visibility was great, bright sun under a bluebird sky. The temperature was 9 degrees setting up the snow on the still fresh corduroy. It was hero snow on a hero day. I just had to do everything right…and I did.

I pointed the skis down the fall line and started carving tight turns. As I put each ski on edge in turn, pressuring the downhill ski, I was pumping my legs and articulating ‘mad angles’ like a racer. I’ve raced before, though not well, and I’ve gone fast before, at least for me. But speed was not what I was after. I wanted perfection, I wanted fearlessness and no holding back. As the hill pitched over even more, I had the carve dialed in, I could feel the snow kicking up a little and hitting me behind the knees, this told me I had the right angles going and was getting down close to the snow, each knee in turn.

I knew I had it going on, I was perfect, I was feeling it. I was letting the skis run, only turning to keep the speed under control. Then the pitch let up, and the skis were really running, I hit the runout, skied a straight line just past the loading area and turned a wide gradual hockey stop, spraying a rooster tail. I turned to watch Brynne, she was navigating some moguls so it took her longer…but she was looking pretty damned perfect too. Before long she was next to me feeling the glow of her own run. As we turned into the loading area I said “That was perfect.” She said “Yeah.” She had felt her own perfection.

And then we just shut up and rode the lift up into the sunshine.