There is something so exhilarating about a perfect descent. Just the pure animal joy of tearing down a steep, snowy hill with a thin plank of wood strapped to your feet, on the edge of control, almost skipping over bumps, just carving and tearing into the snow as you pick your line. It's like flying, only indescribably awesome.
Today was a good day. Some days on the mountain, the surface conditions are less than ideal; too hard-packed, tracked up, or icy. Other days, you are socked in by fog and low visibility, meaning you can't even see where you are going, or the change in grade or terrain at your feet. That can actually be kind of dangerous. And if you goggles get fogged up on those days- you're pretty much done.
But today, it was soft, spring like corn snow. My favorite conditions. You could get good speed and tear through it without hitting any ice or hard bumps, but it wasn't so soft that it was slow and wet-cement like. It was also the last day of the snow season here. I made it up about a dozen times this year which is pretty good. Sometimes we forget how lucky we are here. Other places, season passes cost over a thousand dollars, a lift ticket runs over a hundred, and that's after a four to six hour drive plus factor in the cost of lodging, gas, and so on. Here, a season pass is affordable, and it's just a 35-40 minute drive up the hill right outside town.
But it's over for the year. Until next December anyway. Time to stash the board in the closet and focus on mountain biking and summer activities. It is spring, after all. A renewal time. Maybe I'll take the board in to get waxed and tuned; it definitely needs it. But for now I'll remember some of those runs, shredding and ripping down those hills, giving me the same wild animal thrills I had as a little kid pretending I was Luke Skywalker flying through the Death Star trenches. That is an awesome feeling.