October 2nd, 2023

It rained like mad Sunday, five inches. I spent the day periodically working little drainage paths around the house, enjoying being out in the weathering, the blessing rains. Then it cooled right off and snowed all day Monday, ten inches at home, ran the blower when it tapered in the late afternoon, then toured to the Lake shore giggling at winter’s sudden arrival.

The snow was kind of crusty but with a little bottom to it to keep you off the reef, enough for a few little sets of turns on the dunes and mansion lawn anyway, and a sunset shore shuffle with just enough snow for striding dynamically across the exposed, distinctly boulder strewn lake bottom, feeling what I aspire to while speed walking across the boulder tops in the off season.

Skiing is like an archetypal ideal of motion across a surface, it is an exercise in physics, the holy math dance of the cosmos, a propagating wave form, that swinging kick and glide diagonal stride.

Up at dawn today fully stoked, I was figuring on going up high, south of the Lake. Still no sign of a plow on our street, but made it out of the neighborhood on the one set of ruts in front of me. Waved and grinned at the Park forester walking to work.

Flashing past on the deserted highway, I replayed the image in my mind of the sign there, which I think said ‘highway closed at emerald bay”. Wait, what? In puzzled denial I continued on, to go see. The gate at the bay was open so I drove through, vaguely noting the snow crumbs still on the fogline. At the creek the plowed swath narrowed to one lane, and then none.

There was a red pickup stuck in the unplowed snow beyond. I waved to the guys digging and messing with chains by the truck and figured they weren’t acting like they needed help, from the old guy with the bad wrist and the balding tires (since the studded snows aren’t even legal yet).

So I spun around and headed back up the west shore. The morning sun splattered color across the low clouds suspended in the Basin. I suppose driving the sixty something miles the opposite direction around the Lake to stubbornly stick to my plan would be silly, though not unheard of amongst my more determined partners. I could try to catch a buddy who said he was headed out for a quick run near home but it seemed too late for that spot and more driving. I wasn’t feeling it, and defaulted back to my woods, the path of least resistance to my happy place, in the Rubi oldgrowth.

Sweet cozy tree skiing, wide open corridors through towering, lichen festooned boles, the Sierra has some of the greatest mixed conifer forest old growth tree skiing in the known universe. For size and character, the most vigorous expressions of the many evergreen genera that grow all around the globe, are here in the Sierra. Not just the massive Sequoias on the lower western slope of the range, but also the ancient, expressively wizened Junipers and the grandly towering timber of our higher elevation forests thrive here.

Our sweet combo of low latitude and high elevation, and our kind Mediterranean climate, with atmospheric rivers that flow directly from tropical Hawaii, combine with cold Alaska lows to bury us deep in the winter, and then slowly melt and trickle on into the sunny, hot, dog days of summer. This is snow forest, and it gathers and harbors the accumulations, savoring them, keeping the powder fresh and sparkly in season, and later the sun ripened refrozen corn snow, dense and creamy on top, for all to enjoy.

Here I climb through the varying tree neighborhoods as I ascend, starting today at about 6800’, in the White Fir, Jeffrey Pine forest, with some majestic Sugar Pine and Lodgepole, just above the realm of the noble Cedar. Then a couple hundred feet higher, the White Fir yield to heartier Red Fir, and the Sugar Pine give over to Western White Pine, with narrow over lap zones, indicative of how precisely adapted these species are to their niches, and the manifest coherence of greater forest society.

And then further up, the Hemlock take the baton from the Fir, and higher still, at the very limits of timberline, the Whitebark Pine succeeds the Western Whites, and finally at around 9000’ here, even the Hemlock will climb no further, and it is just the stunted, snow hunched Whitebark lapping up against the summit crag in tangled krummholz mats of entwined branches, hard like twisted iron, obdurate from long centuries bracing against the raw alpine elements. Taken as a whole, this is some mighty fine forest here, yet with outstanding individuals that we recognize and admire in passing again and again through the years, our families and theirs mingling through time, tracing up and down their trunks as the mighty Sierra snow pack ebbs and flows with the season. There’ll likely be ten fifteen feet of snow here in a few months.

My one crew is all about the trees. Its part of what we have in common. It’s not just the skiing or climbing or puffing and fraternizing. Its about this place. We all love being out covering ground deep into these charmed mountains, looking for the best skiing we can find in the region, all day long, and our shared context and narratives guide our consensus, and bonds us to this place and each other, fellow denizens of this forest. We travel as parts of a whole, fall line murmurating headlong down through the forest, to recoalesce at the base.

The road up into the ski hood had seen at least some plow activity this storm, but only minimally. The truck bucked and lurched in low range, glad I had put the sandbags back in for ballast.

There are a couple of ski vehicles already parked at the trail head, as expected. First I park in front of the corner rig without quite parking him in, but when I get out to look it over, decide I may be hanging out too much into the road. So I move it over parallel to the travel van instead, leaving room for the plow to clear next to me, hoping it looks like I tried anyway. The county guys seem to be okay with just plowing around skiers in this hood the last couple seasons so I proceed undeterred.

Parking is such a moving target here through the years. I have gotten used to feeling my way year by year, case by case, and generally being pretty bold yet nominally considerate, and have gotten away with it. So far. It’s been twenty years since I got a ticket up here, up top on a storm day, had six inches of new on my windshield when I got back to the truck, and settling in behind the wheel, I could see the ticket buried under the wiper from the inside, for two hundred and ten bucks!

But then the next day the sheriff came to my house and said he’d talked to the guys at the department of transportation who do the plowing, and told me to go ahead and tear the ticket up, haha. I love this place. This is Tahoe. We are skiers. Like ghostly coyotes sifting in and out of the shadowed forest at will, we’re all about our own bidness, no feks given. Don’t mess with the local fauna

I was a little disappointed to see the other skiers parked here, but only a little. I was not minding not having to break trail alone the whole way. The snow is looking kind of deep, and up high could be really deep. That was a record setting storm for October, and I intend to celebrate it to the max, to make the storm king feel welcome and appreciated.

I contort into my ski boots in my cab and hustle up into the woods hoping no one else shows. Its still blustery and cold, all wintery and fresh. As the sun climbs, clouds build, shading the mountain. There is a foot and a half of snow now, fluffy on the surface but denser underneath, seemingly giving pretty good cover to the minimal obstacles in this duffy, treated and thinned, low elevation second or third growth forest. The skin track knowingly stays down in the lee of the approach moraine. There is a bit of snow drifted into the boot top deep skin track, looks like there are three of them, and they are well ahead of me, the dawn patrol, likely the usual suspects. I stop and puff and relax into the climb. This should be good. The summit crag is shining above me. This is the best feeling in the world, the bracing anticipation, my fitness rising to the call, gathered beneath me, chomping at the bit like a stallion

Most of the way up the moraine, a couple skiers ski down the track towards me. ‘Hey guys the skiing looks great, thanks a ton for the track.’ I greet them.

‘Oh hey yo’, the first guy says with recognition and we chat briefly. They had an epic three hour breaking session by headlamp, sounding brutalized, and are now hustling off to work. He apologized for skiing in the skin track, maybe a bit demonstratively. Whatever, you broke it. They said their buddy stayed up there to ski some more. I thanked them again for breaking such a crusher trail, and continued on up.

I came on my final benefactor at the base of the actual skiing, putting his skins on. I stop and rap with him, thanking him and chatting idly, to let him finish up if he wants company for the climb. He too seems traumatized by the trail breaking. I didn’t tell him about our all time six hour full posse trail break here years back. I asked if the snow was trapping their tips but it didn’t sound like it, which bodes well for the descent skiing. He mentions they turned around a few hundred feet below the top. I drop my pack and peel my jacket off, down to my two t-shirts for the climb. He doesn’t seem to be in a hurry to go though so I get back to it. Seeya up there

Im feeling strong and move easily up the mountain, in my element. Their descent tracks look deep and stay close to the skinner, but they were making turns anyway. I feel conscious of my skinny old skis. Third string rock skis, trusty old friends. But like my buddy says, regularly, ‘I’ve loved every pair of skis I’ve owned.’ Some more than others though, and the performance of these never thrilled me, light and durable but not real snappy, and they’ve a few cracked edges by now. These were my first touring specific extra light weight Palonia constructed ski, and my first skis with early rise design, or marketing anyway. I got and used them as tele skis, then was wearing them when I blew up my knee, and eventually switched them over to alpine touring bindings, or randonee if you prefer.

Everyone uses such big fat skis out here these days and they are easier to ski in soft snow, and more surfy and fun in deep pow, but I already learned to ski deep snow, using that lateral skidded motion on my tele skis back when skis were all much skinnier, so I don’t need easier, the descent is already the easy part. But they are more work going up, wider skins offering more resistance, and more surface area for snow to pile on top of when breaking deep trail, and trickier to ride flat for purchase or keep a stable platform on edge. If you are only skiing one run anyway I guess it doesn’t much matter. Unless you’d like to ski more.

So much of it is fashion, and appearances and team identification and other superficial trivialities, acting like greedy spoiled children on Christmas. The herding instinct is strong, and has been completely gamed to control us by making the consumer trap self enforcing, shaming eachother to keep slaving away for them. And it just feeds the malignancy decimating our own habitat. Its pathological. Meh, in general I try to do more with less. It’s a style consideration

The skin track is deep and I commiserate with those guys up here in the dark, off the couch. I almost feel bad about my timing. Then I round a bend through the trees and see where they stopped and headed back down. Not as high as I had pictured. When he mentioned not going all the way to the top, I figured it was a weather issue and that they had stopped at the top of the trees or something but no. They must have just run out of time. Now I face oppressive fields of untouched powder advancing over head out of sight. Don’t you hate that?

I gird my loins and wade in. I sink maybe a foot and a half but its right side up and doesn’t trap my tips when I yard them up hill, rather it tends to collapse beneath my tails, leaving me clawing my way out of a hole. But I persevere, patiently working my skis up the slope one after the next, in my accustomed inexorable trail breaking trudge mode. The mountaineer’s rest step. The slow progress is a bit demoralizing, but I know the math, steps add up. I refrain from trying to psychicly project myself into the future peering longingly towards the summit. I just focus on the next step, and where this tack lies.

I carefully follow weaknesses in the terrain, subtle ramps traversing steep spots, lining up long legs between kick turns. As I get higher on the mountain the effects of the wind become more apparent and the breaking feels easier as I float up a bit better, though it doesn’t feel particularly surface dense, or boardy or punchy.

Finally the crag hoves into view, across the unbroken snowfield. It is a wild and beautiful sight. I thrill to the unique privilege of breaking trail solo on an untouched mountain. this will be the first ski track of the season to grace the mountain. periodic wary glances over my shoulder have revealed no sign of anyone coming up behind. Which is a little surprising, as I’ve slowed down some with the trail breaking. But I am not looking for help.

Coming up through the thinning forest I enter the open loaded zone along the ridge. Here I am unsure of the snow stability. Ive never seen it slide, but its conceivable and I don’t really know what all this storm did up here, with high winds and temp fluctuations. It occurs to me I should dig a hasty mit pit but I don’t quite get around to it. the snow isn’t acting at all slabby, no cracks forming around my skis as I push through it, all swishy and loose. I probe around with my poles, feeling how it gets progressively denser as I go down as deep as I can make it go, how soft and uniform it is when I drag my tip sideways through it. the snow feels friendly, from all the little signs I have been reading, mostly subconsciously as I moved through it for the last couple hours. Pattern recognition is a powerful tool, and I’ve grown to trust it more and more, with my ever growing data set. I try to cultivate my conscious ties to that part of my critter brain, like trying to coax a wild thing.

Typically the skin track stays in the trees left of the snowfield, but the snow loads in there too and I feel more inclined to get more right, further windward to where its more stripped, and stays more out of the good skiing. here I get the inspiring views west further into Desolation.

Sun streams through a gap in the clouds lighting up the open water on crag and hidden and shadow lakes, and the surrounding freshly snow flocked forest. Crag peak looks surprisingly lumpy, the three foot coating of snow apparently insufficient to smooth out all the ten and twenty foot boulders. Its easy to forget just how bloody much snow we get in a typical season up here.

Its windy here on the ridge, and I stop to put my puffy on, and switch to heavier gloves, or glove I should say. The hand with the brace seems to maintain pretty good homeostasis, whether climbing or descending, which is good. This is part of the ritual, stopping when you can see the summit, to layer up for the final push into the exposed alpine world above treeline, to warm up your insulation layers and get the core temp up. I bow my head to the buffeting.

The usual drifts have formed up at the top of the ski run, up against the very base of the crag. I follow all the way back around for the view even deeper into Deso. I gaze fondly rapt at my beloved wilds, my hearts home place, in some mythic place, in a slightly different dimension of space time. The usual fetched out swath down the middle of Dicks peak looks plastered in. Between my tips, I can see the grid on Sugar Pine Point, aligned due north like a compass cut into the landscape, hashtag Tahoma.

I shuck my skis and peel off the skins, buckle my boots and step back in. The snow is cold and soft and I swish down the rib and over to the top of the natural ski run that leads gently down the ridge, the one I avoided on the way up due to avi considerations. Now it only looks inviting. Last time I was standing here after some cold April storm, a mere six months ago. I was likewise blessed with having this run completely untouched. I like shoulder season skiing. Keeps the undevoted at bay. Mostly anyway.

Most powder days it is shredded shortly after daylight by the dawn patrol pre-work contingency. This morning they didn’t quite make it this far. In April it may have looked like this but sure didn’t sound like it. It sounded all skritchy from the crust beneath the meager helping of powder. But today there is no no crust, no noisy skritching. I ease in lightly around the low tide rocks until I am all the way in, then let the skis ride the fall line in the deep welling, shoving them around a bit to get a fall line rhythm going, the skis floating up as I accelerate.

Then with my typical immaculate timing, just as I reach the bottom of the opening, the guy from below is coming up my track. So I pull up real quick, kinda dropping into a void mid thigh, laughing and panting, all lit up. He is psyched to see me, thrilled that I have broken a trail to the top for him, apparently still traumatized from helping break the whole rest of the trail this morning. I don’t think he was so sure about me before, but now I guess he figures maybe I’m ok after all.

We rap for a bit and he thanks me profusely again and I jam on, getting right of the skin track looking for a little steeper openings. In the forest below the wind loaded ramp, the boulder lumps were more pronounced, but I jabbed one hard with my pole as I went by, and it felt solid but I didn’t hit actual rock. I gave them a slow wide birth regardless. It seems it cooled slowly enough during the storm, that when it finally changed to snow here it dumped a good layer of dense heavy snow and then got progressively lighter, floating my skis up in the fluffy sweetness, while providing a supportive base beneath. That layer at the bottom of the storm is what my tails were dropping through at times on the cllimb, down into the rotten rained-on old snow beneath.

With momentum and glide working for me I float right up in it like a water skier rising up as the driver hits the throttle. Down in the forest the snow is less wind affected and deeper as I go, waking up the dormant ski muscles, the invigorating thrill of skiing kicking in full strength, a strong hit of those blessed endorphins. I frolic and frap my way down the mountain, snow billowing up in my lap, until my quivering quads can take no more, and I pull up panting and grinning like a glad fiend. I wriggle lightly through where the trees get tighter, staring intently at the snow surface for riffles or subtle sign of submerged rocks or logs, or branches broken off in the storm. I exaggerate my turns, further completing them across the fall line to scrub speed gradually, without plunging too far down into the pack. These old skis don’t do that surfy lateral drift as well as my newer wider more shaped skis do, but I can sweet talk and finesse them into it. I’m enthralled by the improbability of it all, this is skiing like full winter here in mid October. I was immersed in a weeding project just a couple weeks ago. Now im right back charging pow like I never left.

The snow is deep and I am somewhat marooned unless gliding down hill. Eager to avoid needless additional deep trail breaking, I am leery of straying too far from the lifeline skin track, on my space walk here, floating through the alien snow shrouded forest, spooky hemlocks reaching out with drooping snow laden zombie arms. I love Halloween skiing. its been a few years. Hopefully it doesn’t bode ill. I seem to recall post Halloween skiing duldrums years back. I intend to make the most of it while I can, just in case.

Like I need an excuse. Things look fat right now, like its game on, blam insta-skiing. one of those guys said, were good to 6500, like it would just keep on dumping every week like full winter was on. Maybe, hopefully, but its still early, autumnal, the leaves not fully changed, the landscape and atmosphere still hold a lot of summers warmth. This snow may sit here for a while settling and sublimating away till more arrives. One never knows, do one?

Lower on the mountain, getting back down into the white fir and Jeffery pine, the coverage is diminished, logs becoming obstacles. There was maybe three feet of snow up high but maybe only half that down here, where more fell as rain. I start traversing back over towards the skin track breaking a trail I figure on reusing. It’s a bit of a struggle but I pop out on the skin track eventually and quickly drop my pack and pull out my skins.

I can hear voices coming up below me but they don’t seem to be moving very fast, so I hustle to get out in front of them. They are just visible through the trees below lead by a dog, as I accelerate up the on ramp, striding purposefully. Just put the pedal to the metal and don’t look back. Their chatter gets louder and seems to stay with me, like they have sped up, and raised their voices, a natural enough reaction I suppose, if you can see that someone is trying to avoid you, and you are obsessively competitive. A guy and a gal, doing a weird demonstrative call and response kind of thing like summer camp kids, it isn’t conversational, rather some kayfabe performative jock routine? yacking for the sake of yacking, a cry for attention, afraid to be alone with their own thoughts? idk

Oh well, if they catch up, whatever. I’m not going to race, but I do keep a smart pace, consciously lengthening my stride, swinging loose and easy, poling one handed to favor my wrist, and eventually their voices recede behind me, and blessed silence returns to the thickly flocked forest, just the rhythm of my own breathing, and my skis moving across the snow. Surprisingly there doesn’t seem to be any new tracks on mine, except the kid I saw up top, who helped break the original track. I feel strong and swift and energized by the fantastic skiing and fresh new season’s dawning. I remind myself not to overdo it, since I haven’t climbed a mountain in quite a while, but my body knows how to do.

On top I pop my skis off and put my puffy on. As I am putting my second skin on, a squat bone headed boxer in a sun faded harness with a handle on top, crests the horizon of the skin track directly below me. Dogs with handles always make me wonder, like why does he need a handle? didn’t the training take?

I am reminded of the crazed Chesapeake Bay retriever that chased me down the Emerald Chute one time, snapping at my heels the whole way. Too bad his dumb shit owner wasn’t holding the handle when we took off skiing. Bad owner. Go lay down.

The boxer comes up to me warily, not to greet me apparently, but rather I suspect to see if he can mug me for my lunch. He wont meet my gaze and his tail is not wagging. I talk nice to him but he avoids letting me pet him. Dogs that are afraid scare me. And who even brings a dog out on a day this deep?

His people show up eventually, without comment, taking their packs off to futz with their gear twenty feet below. I’m surprised it took them so long, must kind suck for folks like that to get schooled by grandpa. ‘Morning’ I greet them cheerily. ‘Gotta love October showers eh?’ They return the greeting some what frostily. I shrug. For all their demonstrative yacking below me in the skin track, on top they fall silent.

They sprawl now below me, gear strewn, directly in my path, nearly blocking my exit from the narrow summit snowfield, with no apparent situational awareness or consideration. I fiddle self-consciously into my ancient third string rock ski bindings, then dart right between them since they haven’t excused themselves. ‘have a great run’, I say in passing.

The musclebound boxer immediately, and no doubt predictably, leaps aggressively into pursuit, handle notwithstanding, and the guy bellows at him with a bit much anger. I stop without even turning around, patiently, patronizingly, waiting while they get their shit together, with no acknowledgement forthcoming, not even a mumbled ‘sorry’. Haha. Go figure. I’m just a random bystander in their little video game.

Gliding off, back into my own world, I resumed my assignation with my beloved snow draped forest, laying down another smooth track, spooning my first, again relishing the improbability of our instant winter. I see that the first kid followed my track, as expected, and I move over one more corridor for a fresh line, bounding like a deer the snow billowing up into my lap as I bob and swivel, in time to the rhythm of the passing trees, skiing the spaces, the unfolding energy path below, drawing me down the mountain, grinning ear to ear.

My early season thighs are feeling wimpy, and I pause frequently to let the lactic acid clear, trying not to overdue it right out of the chute, leery of making any promises my quads cant keep. But the skiing is so good, my cup runneth over. I feel calibrated and accurate in the tight spaces between trees and carry considerable speed where they open up.

At the bottom I pick up my traverse track and zip back to the skinner, relishing how much easier it is to cover this horizontal so readily now that I have the trail broken from last time. Skis are such awesome tools.

I switch over and am skinning up around the low knoll above the weather station when the posers finally ski down to me, the dog charging down the skin track as expected, full body post holing, chunks flying, trenching our hard earned, nicely packed skin track, down into the wet snow below, dredging it up to glom onto my skins.

She skis past with a bland greeting. I’m not even sure if she even recognizes me from ten minutes ago on top. But he knows. I let the dog bull past me in the boot top deep skin trench, then say “oh look he freshened up the skin track for me’. Haha The guy seems slow on the uptake, sarcasm evidently lost on him, apparently unaccustomed to extras in his movie actually speaking to him. Right. bye bye. You got your insta pix now begone

The third climb its catching up with me and I stop to eat, finally, up where I started breaking trail this morning. First pause of the day, been pretty much charging the whole time, running on powder power, riding the resounding energy of the storm aftermath, for four and a half hours, five grand. So amped I don’t really feel like eating, but I know if I don’t I’ll regret it. And there’s still more skiing to do, so I make myself pause and throw some nuts and fruit in the furnace, staying stoked, like totally.

Read something recently (NYer Paumgarten, ATP) that the bonk is really just mental, that our body actually stashes extra energy for primary functions (as if skiing isn’t primary)? They found even just a taste of sugar made our bodies release some of that stored energy. Apparently the mitochondria may make those calls, via the direct ties they have to their ‘cousins’ amongst the intestinal flora, since mitochondria evolved from when an anaerobic bacteria engulfed an aerobic one, and upped their oxygen consumption dramatically. We contain multitudes, we are each our own ecosystem, like autonomous starships traveling through space/time.

Its still quiet on top. The sun has been taking its toll, even with some clouds still lingering, and I decide to shift to the more north facing terrain. I expected more folks would have come skiing on such a stellar day, wondering where the real Tahoe backcountry skiers all are. But then the forecast for warming temps may have scared the practical minded away. That and the three foot base. A few days ago this was all bare ground.

I skied down along the exposed edge of the north ridge, reminding myself that this spot is often stripped by the winds, having hit notable rocks here in the past. But the snow is supportive and I manage to run the gauntlet without incident, while eying the slope below for a likely looking opening, and then when I spy it, I bank hard and drop in, cranking turns.

The snow is more wind affected than it was around on the more easterly side of the mountain, gusts apparently working around the summit, coming down the sloping ridge. It improved as I descended, working little corridors in the hemlocks until they closed off, then shifting down to pick up another opening, solving a spontaneous maze unfolding before me on the fly.

Nearing the bottom of my run snow melt was starting to drip out of the trees. Kind of made me want to cry. If I was being practical, I would just cut bait and go home, but I am still too fired up. I figure it will ski okay on the way back up anyway, in the packed trail. I don’t want to appear unappreciative after all, by not finishing my plate. It is so nice to be back at it.

I sit down in the open, out from underneath the dripping trees and eat some more sando. I love this time of day, relishing my fatigue, the runners high, feeling no pain. But the insidious sound of the tree drip weighs on my peace of mind, spurring me back into motion. Its warming up fast, falling from the trees now in clumps. I am so glad to be skinning on a packed trail, because breaking trail right now would no doubt foul my skins with wet snow clots glommed onto the plush, like barnacles killing your glide, leaving you dead in the water. I pulled my hood up as the pace of tree bombs melting from the canopy overhead gradually continued to crescendo.

My phone whistled at me from my pack, my buddy texting me, ‘skiing?’. At first I thought excitedly that maybe he was on the mountain, but then realized he was much more likely just torturing himself at work. So I sent him an update, ‘raining cinderblocks and frying pans, stranded up top eating and smoking till it refreezes, wish you were here (instead of me) haha’. He’s got a full plate, wife, kid, mortgage to feed. I don’t want to be fueling his fomo.

The skiing was admittedly better than I thought it would be, till it warmed up anyway, and I haven’t hit any rocks, so far, but its not the kind of skiing I would really recommend in good conscience, there being only three actual feet of snow on the mountain, substantially less down low. Many of my partners are just too big and strong for these conditions. They ski too hard and fast, with too much momentum, and not enough restraint. Their motor mostly just has one speed, full on. It’s kind of a resort powder day feeding frenzy pace. But we all know folks who have ended their season on the first day, by hitting a rock and then landing on another. Its that second rock that gets you. I have very few partners who will come out skiing with this meager a snowpack. It’s another of those things I really don’t recommend, but regularly do.

Its ridiculous how little snow we ski on sometimes here in the Sierra. When it comes in the right lay up, laminating over the obstacles, log and rock shapes are clearly delineated, but so well cushioned you can ski right over them without making contact, and your runs become intricate obstacle courses with various surfaces to play off, conducive to much turning.

It is an exercise in restraint, and applied physics, slowing way down, completing your turns across the fall line, keeping the forces in check, which is hard enough when you are hungry after a long dry summer, and harder still when your skis are big and fat, made for charging at the resort or cosplaying the sodapop shilling stunt skiers on the intertubes, like some people I know.

And its sort of a different technique, making individual slow, partially stemed, little turns smoothly distributing the forces, avoiding spikes in the pressure curve. Telemark gear and technique I found is particularly conducive, for those with the skills, offering mobility to step up over stuff, and shift your sweet spot more dynamically over a broader range where its particularly shallow, as well as performing spectacular skate board style recoveries and beaters.

And all the while staring intently at the surface, straining to read the buried obstacles, sonar on high gain, pattern recognition quietly discerning subtle riffles, bulges, discolorations in the surface, instinctively unweighting, prejumping little obstacles, ready to step off the top of anything that grabs, hitting the ground running or rolling, in full commando mode.

It also involves a certain disregard for your skis. It turns out skis are surprisingly durable. I hardly ever get core shots or blown edges, though I do eventually crack the edges but not enough to make them unskiable, for a few years anyway, but my bases do get quite scratched up, eventually to a ridiculous degree. We think of them as our work boots, we don’t worry about the soles. I figure there are just rock skis and skis that are becoming rock skis. I have a whole quiver of rock skis, each older and more beat up than the next, depending on just how bad its expected to be out there. That said your average resort charger bombing and hucking everything will destroy gear, which can make it a really expensive day of scary skiing. Or worse

I skin smartly, or quickly anyway, cringing as the snow bombs fall. ‘Kerplops’ Steve used to call them, in keeping with our cartoonish ski vernacular, befitting sarcastically self aware, cape flapping action heroes such as ourselves.

I am anxious about the dreaded glomming again, invasive thoughts, likely fodder for therapy. I have a deeply ambivalent relationship with climbing skins, which can oscillate between deep dependent gratitude and fraught existential angst, causing me to at times question my life choices.

Traipsing from sun softened snow to shaded sharp crystaled wintery snow, the climbing skin plush dampens then freezes, accumulating snow. The key is keeping them dry, which is tough considering you are standing on snow which is water, melting it with the pressure of your weight, while shuffling around dragging it in and out of shade on differing exposures, under drippy tree boughs and out into the open sun, then back into the shady cool powder. Glom. You can almost hear it forming, feel it growing flake by flake, exponentially till your bases are caked tip to tail and you inexorably grind to a halt and freeze fast in place, and when the morning comes they will find only your skis and boots frozen here, with gnawed shin bones sticking out.

Skins are a tool but they are not mechanical, you cant just adjust settings to accommodate changing conditions, you must work with them, futzing and fiddling and fretting, warming the glue or cooling the plush, scraping and drying and waxing, and just rubbing for good luck. Skins are organic. They are finicky, aiming for a subtle balance of conflicting factors. They have to grip the snow, but not stick too it. They have to adhere to your bases, but peel off cleanly. Being as wide as you can for flatfooted purchase flush on a slope, without covering your edges to penetrate squarely where its hard and steep.

I find I relate to them more like a body part than a device, coaxing and limping them along by feel. I reckon this glomming experience has been a human trial far older than recorded history, from back when skins were made from skins. And they are absolutely crucial. With out them the hunt may fail and your people may go hungry, or you might miss freshies.

I linger on top in the balmy afternoon sun. That bullshitting about waiting up here for the temps to cool again doesn’t feel so practical sitting here, listening to the dripping still getting worse. So I gather my things and wrestle them back into my pack and click back in for descent.

The snow is curdling, transmogrifying into cream cheese, the warmth loosening it’s moisture into animation, the sharp stacked crystals oozing together, surface tension building, resisting my motion through it. Glop. Mashed potatoes. Sierra cement. What a difference a few degrees can make, turning deep fluffy pow into deeply sucking schmoo. I have to muscle my turns, the snow tugging at my scratched up old bases, committing skiing strait down mountain to gain the momentum to yard the skis around, making abbreviated arcs, strait down through narrow spots and past obstacles.

It’s a weird awkward technique requiring extra grace and purity of line. it is scary because it so wants to grab ahold of your skis and topple you into the sort of classic slow twisting falls that are like tearing off a drumstick, the classic knee injuries even the state pf the art bindings cant really protect you from, especially our funky rondo bindings that basically utilize release technologies from a half century ago. But it could be worse, and soon will be. But not nearly as bad as sometimes. It’s said to be character building, by masochists. Zhere eez no bad snowz, only zee bad skierz

I find it helps if I can dissociate and look down apon myself and my pain at a remove, and point and laugh. What a maroon. it’s a set up for slapstick. Why you…. as the snow jerks your skis to chuck you on your face, and stuff branch loads of snow down your back.

I defensively make my way down mountain, stopping frequently to peer and strategize my precarious dashes and spastic schusses through the snowbomb strafed forest. It got worse as I descended until, cowering, I finally put my hood up. The skiing was arduous, my quads maxing from holding position while gliding, waiting for the skis to come around, tense with constant micro corrections. Speed and momentum help with forcing the skis around, especially in the low angle terrain, but make the risk of falling all the more perilous. It would be an ignoble, unsexy place to hurt oneself. Finally I made it past the weather station, angling for the packed skin track leading back to the trailheads.

I arrived at the trail on the moraine as a young couple were shuffling up it. They acted startled like I was headed right for them (hint: because you are in the trail?), and acted surprised at my cheery greeting. Like ‘why is this scruffy old guy talking to us?’ City folk much? and when I cautioned about how difficult the skiing was becoming with the warming, she seemed taken aback, ‘well its still a beautiful day for a tour.’ Absolutely. Have fun. You can just flip your hood up when you enter the raining forest right there to start climbing and maybe try to avoid slow twisting motions on the way back down.