Powder days

When you work 12 hours a night in a bar, any time you’re not too exhausted to get out of bed becomes an exciting day for searching for any powder that might be left on the mountain. My friend and I did just that two days ago. We were lucky enough to finish work the previous night by 3am, giving us plenty of time to sleep and still ski before we had to start work again at 6pm. It’s always an amazing feeling to get back onto my skis and dominate the mountainside. This time we decided that there were too many people on the slopes, so we would do a little exploring and find fresh untapped powder in the trees and forests where most gapers (tourists to the mountain who can’t really ski) would not dare to go. What luck that we decided that. We had some of the most amazing powder runs through the trees, a few forays near the river that were a bit too close for comfort and an epic bail!

I was flying through the forest and had just glided off a fallen tree covered in snow, making it the perfect jump and was absolutely delighted as I cruised towards the road to wait for my friend. Unseen to my elated eyes the drop from the forest onto the road was slightly larger than expected, about 3 feet larger! If, as a skier or snowboarder you have ever dropped something onto a completely flat landing you will understand the pain involved in an unexpected flat landing! Due to gravity and laws of falling bodies and Newton and all that stuff, the ground stopped my feet but gravity kept my face moving, straight into my knee! It was an extremely fast, powerful slam of my poor nose directly into my leg, leaving in my excruciating pain, blood squirting everywhere and a hysterically laughing friend! Guys…. Well the good thing about falling in the snow is that there really isn’t a problem icing the injury. I’d hate to think what my nose would look like if I hadn’t instantly iced it. At the moment it’s about twice the size it normally is and when you have a large nose to start with that’s the last thing you want! Especially when you have to work in 2 hours’ time!

However, the moral of this story is that when it is a powder day, and you get to make fresh tracks through a forest, explore new areas and generally roll around in the snow, the minor discomfort of a swollen nose is completely worth it. Any time the pain becomes too much I remember bursting through powder cushions that covered my waist… ah pain? What? No, it’s a minor scratch, all worth it!

The important things in life

Sometimes I find myself completely bogged down by the problems in life that I no longer see what is important. I think many of us have this problem where we forget that we only have one life, we only have one shot and we should take advantage of every moment. Life is not worth wasting on trivial problems, bullies who try to demean us and stressful jobs! There are always going to be reasons to be negative, to be worried, to be stressed. Then there comes that moment of clarity when you suddenly realise that all those feelings are not important. All the worry that's been needlessly eating you up inside is never going to solve anything, that in fact worrying is perhaps the most useless passtime of all. Anyone who has ever criticised someone about being a lazy layabout should look to themselves first and ask how much time they have spent worrying. I feel that I would rather waste an entire day being too high to do anything than waste 10 minutes worrying about something that cannot be changed. But I'm getting distracted here. The moment of clarity.

So as you know I'm now living in a tiny village in the Swiss alps called Lenk. I discovered just how tiny the other day when I went skiing on a powder day. It was one of those days where the visibility was next to nothing and it was dumping with snow. It was also my first day out on the mountain this season. We could barely see where we were going but it didn't matter at all. Every run we did felt like getting first tracks. As we rode the chairlift back up the snow covered all tracks and once again we had clean lines all the way down. The groomers had about a foot of snow on them and even more to the sides. The snow covered my knees and thighs with every turn. My skis glided over fluffy whiteness with absolute ease. No obstacles, no challenges. Buttery as snowboarders would say! As it was our first day up on the mountain with zero vis we stuck to groomers, but who can complain when you're skiing a foot of fresh snow on a mountain that had about 5 people skiing. Its one of those days most people look out and think, I'm going back to bed. For us it was one of those days where we thought thank goodness most people are pussies!!!!

The next day arrived with clear blue skies and the promise of new snow. Now if you've ever skied in Europe you will know Europeans have a very distinct "on piste" vs "off piste", for Americans that means groomers vs the rest of the mountain. Unlike in North America though, ski patrol only take care of the piste. Anything off piste is completely your own responsibility, which means that a lot of Europeans have this terrible fear of anything a snowcat hasn't mutilated. For me this means kilometres of untapped powder fields where every trip down gives me the opportunity to create a fresh line. This is the first time I've lived in a small resort. Think I've been sold on it! Sure the mountain is not as huge as the main resorts in the alps but then how many people in those resorts can say they get a fresh line every time they come down?

It is in days like that you realise that there are no problems, that nothing is insurmountable, anything is possible and that life is fan-fucking-fastic! We are not on earth to suffer, we're here to enjoy every day to the maximum. So whatever you do, do it with passion! We only have one life. That's it. LIVE IT!!