Ski Slopes Quotes

No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crush our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees - trees are invisible.

It was right then, between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls' bodies ease from one place to another, from arc to the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to wait to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I'd noticed curves before, of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance.

The landscape was snow and green ice on broken mountains. These weren't old mountains, worn down by time and weather and full of gentle ski slopes, but young, sulky, adolescent mountains. They held secret ravines and merciless crevices. One yodel out of place would attract, not the jolly echo of a lonely goatherd, but fifty tons of express-delivery snow.

Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.

One minute it was Ohio winter, with doors closed, windows locked, the panes blind with frost, icicles fringing every roof, children skiing on slopes, housewives lumbering like great black bears in their furs along the icy streets. And then a long wave of warmth crossed the small town. A flooding sea of hot air; it seemed as if someone had left a bakery door open. The heat pulsed among the cottages and bushes and children. The icicles dropped, shattering, to melt. The doors flew open. The windows flew up. The children worked off their wool clothes. The housewives shed their bear disguises. The snow dissolved and showed last summer's ancient green lawns. Rocket summer. The words passed among the people in the open, airing houses. Rocket summer. The warm desert air changing the frost patterns on the windows, erasing the art work. The skis and sleds suddenly useless. The snow, falling from the cold sky upon the town, turned to a hot rain before it touched the ground. Rocket summer. People leaned from their dripping porches and watched the reddening sky. The rocket lay on the launching field, blowing out pink clouds of fire and oven heat. The rocket stood in the cold winter morning, making summer with every breath of its mighty exhausts. The rocket made climates, and summer lay for a brief moment upon the land....

Oh, misanthropy and sourness. Gary wanted to enjoy being a man of wealth and leisure, but the country was making it none too easy. All around him, millions of newly minted American millionaires were engaged in the identical pursuit of feeling extraordinary - of buying the perfect Victorian, of skiing the virgin slope, of knowing the chef personally, of locating the beach that had no footprints. There were further tens of millions of young Americans who didn't have money but were nonetheless chasing the Perfect Cool. And meanwhile the sad truth was that not everyone could be extraordinary, not everyone could be extremely cool; because whom would this leave to be ordinary? Who would perform the thankless work of being comparatively uncool?

If the demand for self-knowledge is willed by fate and is refused, this negative attitude may end in real death. The demand would not have come to this person had he still been able to strike out on some promising by-path. But he is caught in a blind alley from which only self-knowledge can extricate him. If he refuses this then no other way is left open to him. Usually he is not conscious of his situation, either, and the more unconscious he is the more he is at the mercy of unforeseen dangers: he cannot get out of the way of a car quickly enough, in climbing a mountain he misses his foothold somewhere, out skiing he thinks he can negotiate a tricky slope, and in an illness he suddenly loses the courage to live. The unconscious has a thousand ways of snuffing out a meaningless existence with surprising swiftness.

Now there was some motivation to get over this problem quickly. Chloe was a notorious betty.On the rare occasion when she graced the slopes with her prescence, boys zoomed toward her because she was so cute in her pink snowsuit,then zoomed away again as she lost control and threatened to crash into them. She'd made the local snowboarding news a few years ago when she lost control at the bottom of the main run, boarded right through the open door of the ski lodge,skidded to a stop at the entrance to the cafe,and asked for a table for one.

My mom would spy by satellite, turning down the air conditioning, colder and colder, with a tapping keystroke via her wireless connection, chilling that house, that one room, meat locker cold, ski-slope cold, spending a king's ransom on Freon and electric power, trying to make some doomed ten bucks' worth of pretty pink flowers last one more day.

Users of slippery slope arguments should take skiing lessons—you really can choose to stop.

Love is snowy, like the raincloud I left in the freezer. I would ski on the slope of your kiss, but I’d be fearful of an avalanche.

I can be unthinking and selfish when I try to live fully. But I've always loved that Ryke never stops me. Whatever wild thing I do, Ryke Meadows does too. Down a ski slope. In an ocean, caged with sharks. Off a cliff. Off a cliff. I was fifteen. I dove into the water. He jumped in after me. I couldn’t imagine any other guy willing to do that for someone they hardly knew.

I don’t believe in endings, happy or sad, so my relationships with you continue to this day. They are the kind of relationships you have with a pair of skis you know you’ll never have to strap to yourself again. Maybe you never really liked skiing, but enjoyed being a person who could say, “Looks like I’ll be hitting the slopes this weekend!” So you kept on even though it cost too much to get down a hill. Gave you windburn. I see nothing weird about keeping those skis in the basement. They offer a little nostalgia for crappier times. More importantly, they serve as a reminder that I no longer have to ski. Wake

As Eddie Edwards went flying down that ski-slope in Calgary it may have been a small jump for the Olympics but it was a giant step for the Eagle.

It had not rained, here on these north-facing slopes. Snow-fields stretched down from the pass into the valleys of moraine. We stowed the wheels, uncapped the sledge-runners, put on our skis, and took off—down, north, onward, into that silent vastness of fire and ice that said in enormous letters of black and white DEATH, DEATH, written right across a continent. The sledge pulled like a feather, and we laughed with joy.

that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls’ bodies ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc.

introverts and extroverts differ in the level of outside stimulation that they need to function well. Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.

But what did everyone else do? The earth was frozen, the vines were clipped and dormant, it was too cold to hunt. Had they all gone on holiday? No, surely not. These were not the kind of gentlemen farmers who spent their winters on the ski slopes or yachting in the Caribbean. Holidays here were taken at home during August, eating too much, enjoying siestas and resting up before the long days of the vendange. It was a puzzle, until we realized how many of the local people had their birthdays in September or October, and then a possible but unverifiable answer suggested itself: they were busy indoors making babies. There is a season for everything in Provence, and the first two months of the year must be devoted to procreation. We have never dared ask.

...Following the bird you lay into a deep turn in the steepening descent. It [the snow] is super soft, bottomless and amazingly light, yet supportive. It feels like something in between floating on top, and within the top of a deep-pile carpet as you link turn after turn down the open glacier. Each side of you are fellow riders, though not too close, whooping with exhilaration and flying down, down towards the valley below. The pitch gets steeper and the slope widens out, with seemingly endless space to the sides and an untracked oblivion ahead and beneath you. Each turn is delicious softness; you can almost feel every snow crystal reacting with the base of your skis. Those skis feel like extensions of your feet, and you connect with the mountain through a portal link created by the snowpack, as the spray from the turn hangs in the air behind you...

The interior voice nagging me not to be a fool - to save my skin and take off my skis and walk down, camouflaged by the scrub pines bordering the slope - fled like a disconsolate mosquito. The thought that I might kill myself formed in my mind coolly as a tree or a flower...I aimed straight down...A small, answering point in my own body flew towrds it [the sun]. I felt my lungs inflate with the inrush of scenery - air, mountains, trees, people. I thought, "This is what it is to be happy." I plummeted down past the zigzaggers, the students, the experts, through year after year of doubleness and smiles and compromised, into my own past. People and trees receded on either hand like the dark sides of a tunnel as I hurtled on to the still, bring point at the end of it, the pebble at the bottom of the well, the white sweet baby cradled in its mother's belly.

today’s psychologists tend to agree on several important points: for example, that introverts and extroverts differ in the level of outside stimulation that they need to function well. Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo.

You’re going to love it.” I nodded and tried to smile back. “We’re getting off at the beginners’ slope so you don’t have to worry.” “I’m not worried.” “You look scared to death.” “Don’t be silly…I can’t wait to learn to ski.” But I was thinking, we’re going up so high…how will I ever get down? My father was right…I am going to break a leg…I am going to fall off this chairlift and break a leg…maybe even two…probably two legs and an arm…possibly more than that even.

This time he asks his audience to join him in a mental exercise. As Boyd states, Imagine that you are on a ski slope with other skiers [. . .]. Imagine that you are in Florida riding in an outboard motorboat, maybe even towing water-skiers. Imagine that you are riding a bicycle on a nice spring day. Imagine that you are a parent taking your son to a department store and that you notice he is fascinated by the toy tractors or tanks with rubber caterpillar treads’.38 Now imagine that you pull the ski’s off but you are still on the ski slope. Imagine also that you remove the outboard motor from the motor boat, and you are not longer in Florida. And from the bicycle you remove the handle- bar and discard the rest of the bike. Finally, you take off the rubber treads from the toy tractor or tanks. This leaves only the following separate pieces: skis, outboard motor, handlebars and rubber treads. However, he challenges his audience, what emerges when you pull all this together?39 SNOWMOBILE

I found a photo of Mom standing between Mick and Dad, who were both wearing basketball uniforms. Mom was perfectly groomed, of course, and looking very ladylike. I said I must have been adopted. Ma-ma-oo laughed and said that when Mom was a little girl, she was always doing things like tying two cookie sheets to her shoes and attempting to ski because she'd seen one of her movie star idols in a magazine, elegantly poised on the slopes of Switzerland. Mom flew down the hill, hit a bump and crashed into a bush. She broke her leg and earned the nickname "Crash.

Ah, New England. An amalgam of picket fences and crumbling bricks; Ivy League schools and dropped Rs; social tolerance and the Salem witch trials, Henry David Thoreau and Stephen King, P-town rainbows and mill-town rust; Norman Rockwell and Aerosmith; lobster and Moxie; plus the simmering aromas of a million melting pot cuisines originally brought here by immigrants from everywhere else searching for new ways to live. It’s a place where rapidly-growing progressive cities full of the ‘wicked smaaht’ coexist alongside blight-inflicted Industrial Revolution landscapes full of the ‘wicked poor’. A place of forested mountains, roaring rivers, crystalline lakes, urban sprawl, and a trillion dollar stores. A place of seasonal tourism beach towns where the wild, rank scent of squishy seaweed casts its cryptic spell along the vast and spindrift-misted seacoast, while the polished yachts of the elite glisten like rare jewels on the horizon, just out of reach. Where there are fiery autumn hues and leaves that need raking. Powder snow ski slopes and icy windshields that need scraping. Crisp daffodil mornings and mud season. Beach cottage bliss and endless miles of soul-sucking summer traffic . Perceived together, the dissonant nuances of New England stir the imagination in compelling and chromatic whorls.

And not just beautiful, but hot, too, with her breasts straining against her tight tank top, her curved legs swinging back and forth beneath the swing, flip-flops dangling from her electric-blue-painted toes. It was right then, between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls’ bodies ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I’d noticed curves before, of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance.

She had the kind of eyes that predisposed you to supporting her every endeavor. And not just beautiful, but hot, too, with her breasts straining against her tight tank top, her curved legs swinging back and forth beneath the swing, flip-flops dangling from her electric-blue-painted toes. It was right then, between when I asked about the labyrinth and when she answered me, that I realized the importance of curves, of the thousand places where girls’ bodies ease from one place to another, from arc of the foot to ankle to calf, from calf to hip to waist to breast to neck to ski-slope nose to forehead to shoulder to the concave arch of the back to the butt to the etc. I’d noticed curves before, of course, but I had never quite apprehended their significance.

today’s psychologists tend to agree on several important points: for example, that introverts and extroverts differ in the level of outside stimulation that they need to function well. Introverts feel “just right” with less stimulation, as when they sip wine with a close friend, solve a crossword puzzle, or read a book. Extroverts enjoy the extra bang that comes from activities like meeting new people, skiing slippery slopes, and cranking up the stereo. “Other people are very arousing,” says the personality psychologist David Winter, explaining why your typical introvert would rather spend her vacation reading on the beach than partying on a cruise ship. “They arouse threat, fear, flight, and love. A hundred people are very stimulating compared to a hundred books or a hundred grains of sand.

The smooth, flat rocks were exactly the same, the sea pounded down on them in the same way, and also the landscape under the water, with its small valleys and bays and steep chasms and slopes, strewn with starfish and sea urchins, crabs and fish, was the same. You could still buy Slazenger tennis rackets, Tretorn balls, and Rossignol skis, Tyrolia bindings and Koflach boots. The houses where we lived were still standing, all of them. The sole difference, which is the difference between a child’s reality and an adult’s, was that they were no longer laden with meaning. A pair of Le Coq soccer boots was just a pair of soccer boots. If I felt anything when I held a pair in my hands now it was only a hangover from my childhood, nothing else, nothing in itself. The same with the sea, the same with the rocks, the same with the taste of salt that could fill your summer days to saturation, now it was just salt, end of story. The world was the same, yet it wasn’t, for its meaning had been displaced, and was still being displaced, approaching closer and closer to meaninglessness.

For the accomplished skier, powder skiing is one of the best experiences you can have. Letting your skis just point down the slope and bouncing to turn, making fresh tracks, the powder flying in your face is about as good as it gets.  

Two rows of wooden cabins, more than a dozen of them, stretched up the slope behind the hotel. The cabins had pitched roofs, vaguely suggesting ultra-utilitarian Alpine chalets. Only two of them had lights on, one in the middle and the last cabin at the end of the row. The last cabin would be where she was meeting Ghanbari, he thought, parking the Toyota around the side of the hotel, next to another SUV. He checked the windows of the hotel and the other structures before getting out of the Toyota but could see no one watching. It was a shame he didn’t have his night vision goggles, he thought, but bringing them through Iranian customs would have been a dead give-away. The Iranians were all over him as it was. He took out the ZOAF pistol, attached the sound suppressor, put it in his ski jacket pocket and got out of the SUV. The night was cloudy. He couldn’t see the stars. A cold wind filled with tiny snow particles blew down from the peak. He walked through the snow behind the first cabin, then higher up and across the slope behind the cabins so he could approach the last cabin from the rear

We went everywhere. I gave him the grand tour, the best the Pacific Northwest has to offer, which is nothing short of spectacular. Everything revolved around wildlife. We hiked the Coast Range out of my parents’ beach cabin to look for black bears, and traveled to eastern Oregon to see white-tailed deer, coyotes, and the eastern Oregon antelope, animals that Steve had never experienced before. He skied Mount Bachelor. I wasn’t much of a skier, so I went off to track down wildlife while he had a great time on the slopes. Meeting him at the lodge afterward, I had to head off a leggy blonde who was intent on teaching Steve how to use an American pay phone. Not the kind of wildlife I was interested in him experiencing.

He skied Mount Bachelor. I wasn’t much of a skier, so I went off to track down wildlife while he had a great time on the slopes. Meeting him at the lodge afterward, I had to head off a leggy blonde who was intent on teaching Steve how to use an American pay phone. Not the kind of wildlife I was interested in him experiencing.

Ahead of us, cleared and revealed by the same vast sweep of the wind lay twisted valleys, hundreds of feet below, full of ice and boulders. Across those valleys a great wall stood, a wall of ice, and raising our eyes up and still up to the rim of the wall we saw the Ice itself, the Gobrin Glacier, blinding and horizonless to the utmost north, a white, a white the eyes could not look on. Here and there out of the valleys full of rubble and out of the cliffs and bends and masses of the great ice-field's edge, black ridges rose; one great mass loomed up out of the plateau to the height of the gateway peaks we stood between, and from its side drifted heavily a mile-long wisp of smoke. Farther off there were others: peaks, pinnacles, black cindercones on the glacier. Smoke panted from fiery mouths that opened out of the ice. Estraven stood there in harness beside me looking at that magnificent and unspeakable desolation. "I'm glad I have lived to see this," he said. I felt as he did. It is good to have an end to journey towards; but it is the journey that matters, in the end. It had not rained. here on these north-facing slopes. Snow-fields stretched down from the pass into the valleys of moraine. We stowed the wheels, uncapped the sledge-runners, put on our skis, and took off- down, north, onward, into that silent vastness of fire and ice that said in enormous letters of black and white DEATH, DEATH, written right across a continent. The sledge pulled like a feather, and we laughed with joy.

A melancholy thought occurs to me that one day he’ll find a partner, and the two of them will go skiing every winter together, laughing and happy. I wonder if he will ever pause on a snowy afternoon and glance at the nursery slopes, and see for a second the ghost of a man who was there the first time that he did this.

Today, Americans who enjoy the most popular national forests have Roosevelt and Pinchot to thank. The famed rafting in Idaho’s Salmon-Challis National Forest, the Absaroka high-country fishing of Montana’s Custer Gallatin National Forest, the backcountry ski slopes of Utah’s Uinta National Forest, the soaring Sierra Nevada granite of California’s Inyo National Forest, the mule deer hunter’s dreamscape of Arizona’s Kaibab National Forest—each one exists because of our twenty-sixth president and his right-hand man.

dragging Katie with her, half-patting her back as she slid the cardboard box onto the island. In the box, Ariel’s phone dinged with a new message alert. Ariel picked it up as she scooped Katie into a full hug, making soothing shushing noises. She let her daughter cry into her shoulder, waiting it out. Over Katie’s shoulder, Ariel opened the screen for her messages. Maybe it would be Dylan, with some uplifting birthday getaway planned that would help both Ariel and Katie get over this awful day. But it wasn’t. Ariel gaped at the phone screen. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The text was from Dylan, but it wasn’t anywhere near about mistletoe and ski slopes. It simply said: This just isn’t working out. It seems like we’re going in different

One beautiful winter morning when Utah’s deep powder snow was perfect for experienced skiers, he and Elder W. Craig Zwick headed to a nearby resort for a day on the slopes. As they hopped on the four-person chairlift for their umpteenth ride up the mountain, a young man skied up and got on with them. They remarked how wonderful it was that Monday morning to be out in the fresh Utah snow, and the young man responded, “Yes, but my life is in a shambles.” Elder Zwick remembered, “I felt like saying, ‘This is your lucky day,’ and about then the man realized he was on the chairlift with President Nelson and gasped. “In about four minutes,” Elder Zwick related, “President Nelson taught that young man the importance of the Book of Mormon and promised that if he would read it every day, his problems wouldn’t go away but they would be alleviated. That is how clearly he taught” (Church News/KSL Interview, January 5, 2018).

Now must of the time that you're on the slopes you're going to be on skis.

A woman’s voice came wailing on the wind. Norman looked up and spotted Sandra high up on an even steeper funnel of snow and ice. She was crying: ‘Your father is dead. What are we going to do?’ One of her shoulders was hanging weirdly. There was a bloody wound on her forehead, matted with hair. Then he saw his dad, still in his seat but slumped awkwardly forward. Norman turned around on the steep slope and inched over towards him, sneakers pathetically trying to hold an edge. He slipped and almost plummeted like a bobsleigh down the mountain. He caught a hold. Then he started crawling back up. It took him thirty minutes to climb 6 m (20 ft). His dad was doubled over. ‘DAD!’ No response. Snow was falling on his father’s curly hair. Above him, Sandra sounded delirious. By the time he was four, Norman had skied every black run at Mammoth. On his first birthday, his dad had him strapped to his back in a canvas papoose and took him surfing. Reckless, perhaps, but it had given the boy an indomitable spirit. Eleven-year-old Norman hugged his dad for the last time then tracked back across the slope to see what he could salvage from the wreckage. There were no ice axes or tools, but he did find a rug. He took it and scrabbled back to Sandra. She couldn’t move. Somehow he got her under the ragged remains of the plane’s wing and they wrapped themselves in the rug and fell into an exhausted sleep. Norman was woken around noon by a helicopter. He leapt up, trying to catch the crew’s attention. They came very, very close but somehow didn’t see him. They were going to have to get off this mountain themselves. A brief lull in the storm gave them a sudden view. The slope continued beneath their feet, sickeningly sheer, for hundreds of feet. Then lower down there were woods and the gully levelled a little before a massive ridgeline rose again. Beyond that lay a flatter meadow of snow and, at the edge of the world, a cabin. Sandra wanted to stay put. She was ranting about waiting for the rescuers. For a moment Norman nearly lay down beside her and drifted off to sleep. The

Participants go down slopes with their feet attached to skis. This takes quite a bit of lower body strength and balance to stay on the course. While it is a fun sport to do on your own, there are also competitive levels of skiing you can participate in, including in the Winter Olympics.

And I’ll definitely read as much as I can before our debate.” “Hm.” He returned her gaze. “I may have made a tactical error. I’d hate for reading my book to cut into…uh…your free time.” She smiled. “Diplomatically put.” “I’m trying like hell not to come across as teasing and tempting.” “You’re doing better, and I promise that given a choice between reading someone’s book or spending quality time with the author, I’ll take the one-on-one option every time.” He chuckled. “Good.” “But if we have any chance of finding quality time, we’d better get cracking.” “Aye.” Walking over to her desk, she laid the book on it. Then she hit the button to open the curtains. “Let’s see what’s happening outside.” “Must we? With the lights on, anyone out there will be able to see in here better than we can see out there.” “Exactly.” After reading that inscription, she was feeling way too mellow about Duncan MacDowell. “You’re a determined lass, I’ll give you that.” With a sigh, he came over to gaze out into the darkness broken only by the lights on the ski slope. “Am I imagining things, or are there a bunch of wolves out there playing in the snow?” “Are there?” She peered out toward the lit slope. “That’s what it looks like to me.” Duncan laughed. “Whoever’s out there, they’re having one hell of a good time running and sliding. Whoops! That big one just wiped out. I wish we could…but we can’t.” “Not until we have something to give Howard.” But Kate watched the wolves with equal fascination. “How long since you’ve shifted?” He was

The Ozarks are mountains in the Deep South sense of the word, not pyramidal peaks or potential ski slopes or alpine crags, but irregular elevations, a succession of low, deep green ridges, a sea of long, lumpy hills to the horizon in a dramatic panorama. That there is an identifiable and sundown-framed horizon in their midst gives the Ozarks their uniqueness: mountains that allow a great, gaudy, and effulgent sunset. No single Ozarkian topographical feature is apparent, but the whole of it – the broad shifting vista of elongated hills – appears like flattened and thickly forested mesas. And the view is especially moving because it seems unpeopled, the isolated communities hidden in hollows and behind the slopes, some of which are bunchy with old-growth trees, still remote and beautiful.

Most moderately active children – as long as they have full stomachs – cope well with exotic experiences, but parents should get fit for their trip. Young children will expect their parents to be All Powerful so they would be wise to prepare properly and arrive with toned quads or they might not keep up on the slopes.

Today I didn’t actually ski on anything other than the bunny slope, but at least I graduated from ski class.” She jerked her thumb at Leah. “Klutz over here has to take the class again tomorrow.” Leah wiggled her eyebrows, not at all offended. “You bet. Ian is such a hottie. He’s Australian and has the most delicious accent. I adore it. He promised to give me private lessons tomorrow if I don’t do any better.” She leaned forward and whispered, “I won’t do any better tomorrow.” “He’s that hot, huh?” “His presence melts snow.

I started on the bunny hill with the kids and on the second day got a little too over confident.  I also misinterpreted the symbols on the trail marks for the degree of difficulty and managed to find myself at the top of the mountain and the beginning of a double Black Diamond run.   I had no idea until I discovered the only way down was to ski, and that the double Black Diamond meant “For Experts Only.”      Marguerite had gotten off at a rest area, found a nice table outside, got a cup of hot tea and rented a telescope so she could watch me ski down the mountain.       She got a ski show all right; about 200 yards down the slope I lost complete control.  I saw the sky and ground so many times as I tumbled I lost count and when I did come to rest it was at the bottom of the run and I was minus a ski.  A nice Swiss couple had retrieved it for me and it wasn’t until they gave it back that I realized just how lethal a runaway downhill ski could be, I was damned lucky it didn’t go through somebody down the mountain.      I realized I was over matched and stuck with the bunny hill for the rest of the day.

About three blocks north, I found a train track, and began to follow it in the same direction I was going. The sun stabbed the immaculate white snow with a blinding glow, and I was thrilled to be a part of the show. The air was indescribably cold, but I was well insulated in my long dark wool coat. It absorbed the heat from the distant white dime of a sun which was rising in the southeastern sky but not getting much closer as it rose. Facing the icy dawn, my heart leapt with joy: I was free!  I slipped and slid and laughed on the icy rails. White was everywhere. The thick blanket made it impossible to read the terrain, especially the small details. After a time, I saw what seemed to be the perfect place to enter the freeway. There were no vehicles on it, I had seen none since I began walking parallel to it on the tracks, and that was more than an hour earlier. The entry ramp was less than fifty yards away. If I had wings, or maybe skis, I would be there in a heartbeat. When I took my second step, I was one hip deep in frozen powder; the other leg was awkwardly turned up the slope. Managing to bring the second leg down, it sunk up to the knee. As I put more pressure on it, I was now level again: both thighs hip deep in snow. I laughed at myself, then trudged forward, crawling out of the hole, slipping and landing on my face. It was both comical and frightening.

As I’ve said before, I never understand why people ski down a slope to a bar and then go on a lift so they can ski down the same slope again. That’s like walking to the pub on a Sunday, then going home and walking to the pub again. Madness.

A startling discovery awaits an American on his or her first trip into the Alps. Switching trains or filling up on diesel in some town at the junction of two rivers, one inevitably looks up to encounter a single mountain facade rising as much as 10,000 feet from the valley floor. A diversity of climates and landscapes is on vertical display: forests, vineyards, pastures, rocky talus slopes, glaciers—stacked one upon another on a steep face. The

Marco Cirrini had been skiing on the north face of Bald Slope Mountain since he was a boy, using the old skis his father brought with him from Italy. The Cirrinis had shown up out of nowhere, walking into town in the middle of winter, their hair shining like black coal in the snow. They never really fit in. Marco tried, though. He tried by leading groups of local boys up the mountain in the winter, showing them how to make their own skis and how to use them. He charged them pennies and jars of bean chutney and spiced red cabbage they would sneak out of their mothers' sparse pantries. When he was nineteen, he decided he could take this one step further. He could make great things happen in the winter in Bald Slope. Cocky, not afraid of hard work and handsome in that mysterious Mediterranean way that excluded him from mountain society, he gathered investors from as far away as Asheville and Charlotte to buy the land. He started construction on the lodge himself while the residents of the town scoffed. They were the sweet cream and potatoes and long-forgotten ballads of their English and Irish and Scottish ancestors, who settled the southern Appalachians. They didn't want change. It took fifteen years, but the Bald Slope Ski Resort was finally completed and, much to everyone's surprise, it was an immediate success. Change was good! Stores didn't shut down for the winter anymore. Bed-and-breakfasts and sports shops and restaurants sprouted up. Instead of closing up their houses for the winter, summer residents began to rent them out to skiers. Some summer residents even decided to move to Bald Slope permanently, moving into their vacation homes with their sleeping porches and shade trees, thus forming the high society in Bald Slope that existed today. Marco himself was welcomed into this year-round society. He was essentially responsible for its formation in the first place, after all. Finally it didn't matter where he came from. What mattered was that he saved Bald Slope by giving it a winter economy, and he could do no wrong. This town was finally his.

But more than the sins themselves, what upset her most was the effort the community put into covering up for the sinners, leaving their victims at the mercy of their tormentors, and all for the sake of preserving the unity of the village against the outside world. She thought bitterly of the pamphlets strewn around town, calling for a popular uprising against the new ski slope. There was so much activism against the “invasion,” yet nobody had lifted a finger to help these kids.

I wondered if Erica was right. At the moment, the nearby slopes were full of evidence that skiing could be difficult. For every skier who came down the mountain well, there were many others coming down badly. I could see a dozen people who’d wiped out at the base of the mountain. As I watched, one poor soul shot off the run entirely and fell into Vail Creek. And things didn’t get much better once everyone had taken their skis off. Ski boots seemed to have been designed to make walking as difficult as possible. Everywhere I looked, people were wobbling about in them like toddlers taking their first steps. One person crashed to the ground right in front of us, his skis and poles flying every which way.

Erica instantly changed her entire demeanor, shifting from spy surveillance mode to behaving like an actual teenage girl. Even her voice changed, ratcheting up a few octaves. “I am so psyched to hit the slopes tomorrow!” she exclaimed, taking a bite of pizza. “Aren’t you?” “Definitely,” I replied, trying my best to play along. “I hear there’s some major freshies coming in this week,” Erica proclaimed, leading me between the guards and across the street. “Maybe a foot. Twelve inches of pow-pow! How radical is that?” “Er . . . very radical.” I had no idea what Erica was talking about, but suspected it was skier-speak for something to do with snow. Erica shot me a peeved glance, as though she was annoyed I wasn’t holding up my end of the charade very well, and then decided to handle everything herself. She launched into a long, purposefully vapid diatribe about how much she loved skiing while we continued our circuit around the hotel.

Monday is my slope day. Wednesday's the summit and after that, it's all down hill until the next week. Have a great week skiing. I know that I will.

Snow is a changing, fragile substance, which accumulates in layers: a deep puffy storm, followed by an inch of rain. Wind crust followed by cold light flakes. Avalanches are a combination of three factors: a sliding surface, a slope steep enough to slide, and a trigger. Here in Utah—and in other high, dry parts of the Rockies—more often than not, there’s a deep unbonded layer in that snowpack that could always slide, given a trigger. It seems to happen the same way almost every season. The first thin snowfall covers the mountains in a crystalized layer of sugar and anticipation. Then it stops, like climatic clockwork, for a few weeks. That layer of unbonded snow is exposed to the air, which sucks out moisture, creating slippery, faceted snow crystals called depth hoar. It forms a perfect sliding surface. When the snow starts in earnest, that surface, which avalanche forecasters call a persistent weak layer, is at the very bottom, slick and unbonded, ready to slide. That’s one of the constant hazards of skiing, you always know it’s down there. Just how big it could break is a question of what comes in on top of it.

Getting his job as president of Morgan Stanley had been a struggle, and Mack was there to stay. Years earlier, he had ousted former president Robert Greenhill in a palace coup while Greenhill was on the ski slopes entertaining clients. Greenhill had not been a pushover; his tightly knit group of loyalists had earned the nickname Branch Davidians. Nevertheless, after a bitter contest, Mack had won, and Greenhill’s group, like the Waco, Texas, cult, was out. Mack was a charismatic leader, charming as well as intimidating. One Morgan Stanley manager described him as “the best salesman I’ve ever seen.” He scheduled informal lunches with all of the lowest-level employees at Morgan Stanley, in groups. His office had two glass canisters filled with candies and a gumball machine, to encourage colleagues to stop by and chat. Mack was worshipped for his patriotic addresses to the firm as well as his inspiring locker-room pep talks. Even the most hard-hearted of Morgan Stanley’s managers were moved by Mack’s most stirring speeches. He had given many of them goosebumps, and even made a few cry. Mack seemed adept enough to resolve just about any conflict. When the trustees of socialite Doris Duke’s $1.2 billion estate needed someone to step in and settle the brawl over her estate, including accusations of murder, whom did they ask? John Mack.

If wealth were the creation of individuals alone - even if it were the result of their ability to cheat and steal from one another - it would fall to earth in the shape of a bell curve. It would not land in the form of an insane ski slope.

A sudden motion pushed them away from the wall, and then he thought he heard Casati’s oar slide into the water, and they were off. All he heard after that was the soft rubbing of the oar in the curve of the fórcola, the hiss of water along the sides of the boat, and the occasional squeak of one of Casati’s shoes as his weight shifted forwards or backwards. Brunetti gave himself to motion, glad of the passing breeze that tempered the savagery of the heat. He hadn’t thought to bring a hat, and he had scoffed at Paola’s insistence that he bring sunscreen. Real men? Brunetti had rowed since he was a boy, but he knew he had little to contribute to the smoothness of this passage. There was not the slightest suggestion of stop and go, of a point where the thrust of the oar changed force: it was a single forward motion, like a bird soaring on rising draughts of air, or a pair of skis descending a slope. It was a whish or a shuuh, as hard to describe as to hear, even in the midst of the silence of the laguna. Brunetti turned his head to one side, then to the other, but there was only the soft, low hiss. He wanted to turn and look at Casati, as though by watching him row, he might store the motions away and copy them later, but he didn’t want to shift his weight and thus change the balance of the boat, however minimally.

The soft curves of her breasts are like two perfect ski hills with the right amount of slope to pick up speed and enough steepness to cause you to crash and burn.

Even living in Colorado, I’d never actually gotten out on a ski slope. Mostly because I was more of a spiked hot chocolate and fuzzy socks by the fire kind of gal and less of a “Hey, let’s hurl ourselves down the side of a cliff on slippery toothpicks” one.

The trip had been a dream for almost two decades, relegated to the back of the line behind an ever-growing list of responsibilities. Each passing moment brought a new list of reasons for putting it off. One day, Julie realized that if she didn’t do it now, she would never do it. The rationalizations, legitimate or not, would just continue to add up and make it harder to convince herself that escape was possible. One year of preparation and one 30-day trial run with her husband later, they set sail on the trip of a lifetime. Julie realized almost as soon as the anchor lifted that, far from being a reason not to travel and seek adventure, children are perhaps the best reason of all to do both. Pre-trip, her three little boys had fought like banshees at the drop of a hat. In the process of learning to coexist in a floating bedroom, they learned patience, as much for themselves as for the sanity of their parents. Pre-trip, books were about as appealing as eating sand. Given the alternative of staring at a wall on the open sea, all three learned to love books. Pulling them out of school for one academic year and exposing them to new environments had proven to be the best investment in their education to date. Now sitting in the plane, Julie looked out at the clouds as the wing cut past them, already thinking of their next plans: to find a place in the mountains and ski all year long, using income from a sail-rigging workshop to fund the slopes and more travel. Now that she had done it once, she had the itch.

No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crush our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees—trees are invisible.

No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crush our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees - trees are invisible.

Though maybe for a couple of years off and on with the railroad Webb might’ve seen some ray of daylight, he always ended up back down some hole in some mountain, mucking, timbering, whatever he could get. Leadville, thinking itself God’s own beneficiary when the old lode was rediscovered in ‘92, got pretty much done in by Repeal, and Creede the same, sucker-punched right after the big week-long wingding on the occasion of Bob Ford’s funeral. The railroad towns, Durango, Grand Junction, Montrose, and them, were pretty stodgy by comparison, what Webb mostly remembered being the sunlight. Telluride was in the nature of an outing to a depraved amusement resort, whose electric lighting at night in its extreme and unmerciful whiteness produced a dream-silvered rogues’ district of nonstop poker games, erotic practices in back-lot shanties, Chinese opium dens most of the Chinese in town had the sense to stay away from, mad foreigners screaming in tongues apt to come skiing down the slopes in the dark with demolition in mind.

The sensation of mentally awakening while your feet are moving you through the crisp dark morning air is hard to describe. It's like pulling down the covers after a night of sleep and discovering your bed is a sled careening down a ski slope.

Isaac stood alone in snow level with his boots, his hands shoved into his pockets and his chin tucked close to his chest. He ignored the frigid air and stared into the distance, at the point where icing-sugar inclines became jagged mountaintops. He could see the ski-paths tracing up and down each slope, and the ski-lifts above them like the ghosts of ley lines over cracked earth. Only, he couldn’t see earth; not for miles. Usually, that would bother him. Would make him itch. But the pine on the wind and the savage cold was close enough, it seemed. His breathing was even; his soul was soothed; his mind was as quiet as it ever fucking got. Quiet enough for the fragments of poetry that chased him to capture the whole of his attention.

No one sees trees. We see fruit, we see nuts, we see wood, we see shade. We see ornaments or pretty fall foliage. Obstacles blocking the road or wrecking the ski slope. Dark, threatening places that must be cleared. We see branches about to crush our roof. We see a cash crop. But trees—trees are invisible (p. 423).

He rolled off the bed and unzipped his overstuffed duffel bag. Clothes erupted from it with such force that a pair of boxer shorts sailed across the room and nailed Warren in the face. Warren screamed in horror, stumbled backward over his own suitcase, and collapsed on the floor. “It’s not really supposed to be a vacation,” I warned them. “Erica says our lives could be at risk.” Chip laughed and shrugged this off. “Erica always thinks her life is at risk. Remember last year when she got all worked up about us having a mole in the school?” “Um . . . there was a mole,” I reminded him. “And our lives really were in danger. I almost got killed. Twice.” “Oh, yeah,” Chip recalled. “That’s right. Hey, I wonder if anyone will try to kill us this time.” “I hope so!” Jawa said excitedly. “That’d be amazing!” “Assuming they’re unsuccessful,” Warren pointed out. Chip pegged him in the face with another pair of boxers. “Well, duh. No one wants a successful attempt made on their life, you nitwit.” “What if it happened on the slopes?” Jawa asked, his excitement ratcheting up a few notches. “And we got to have an honest-to-goodness ski chase? How fantastic would that be?” “It’d be the best,” Chip agreed. “Warren, stop playing with my underwear, you pervert.” He snatched the boxers Warren had just removed from his head and tossed them into a drawer, along with a handful of random socks and gloves.

If anyone tries to kill me on the slopes, I’m going to be a sitting duck.” I sighed. “Ptarmigan,” Warren corrected. “What?” I asked. “There’s no ducks in the mountains,” Warren explained. “Whereas a ptarmigan is a bird found in cold climates like the northern tundra. So you wouldn’t be a sitting duck. You’d be a sitting ptarmigan.” “Shut up, Warren,” Chip threatened. “Or the next time I throw a pair of boxers at you, they’ll be the ones I’ve been wearing for the last sixteen hours.” Warren cringed in fear and stumbled over his suitcase once again.

melancholy thought occurs to me that one day he’ll find a partner, and the two of them will go skiing every winter together, laughing and happy. I wonder if he will ever pause on a snowy afternoon and glance at the nursery slopes, and see for a second the ghost of a man who was there the first time that he did this.

To make things even better, Erica hadn’t improved much at all during the next few hours of ski school, while the rest of us had. (The rest of us who weren’t faking being beginners, at least.) I had actually turned out to be pretty good at skiing—“a natural,” according to Woodchuck—but everyone else was getting better as well. Even Warren had made progress. He had obviously lied when he’d boasted that he wasn’t so bad at it the night before, but then, he wasn’t terrible, either. Meanwhile, skiing was like Erica’s Kryptonite. She couldn’t seem to do anything right. When she was supposed to turn, she’d go straight. When she was supposed to go straight, she’d turn. And she’d been falling constantly: on the slopes, on the magic carpet, even while merely standing still. According to my calculations, she’d actually spent more time on her butt that morning than on her feet.

Even though the slope was gentle, she was picking up speed, quickly closing the gap on the rest of the gang. It was at this point when Erica discovered that, while she knew how to start skiing, she didn’t actually know how to stop. And now she was heading right for everyone else. They all leapt out of the way as Erica barreled toward them. Except Warren, whose reflexes weren’t quite up to snuff. Erica clipped him as she shot past, knocking him into a snowdrift.

Despite the large number of skiers on the slope, Erica seemed to be on a path to hit nearly every one of them.

In the light snow on the slope behind our house I am skiing for the first time. I have to twist and turn so as not to hit the bare patches and so I'll stay within a sentence that is written in the snow as I glide down.

When you’re in need of a rescue the approaching thump-thump-thump of rapidly rotating blades is a joyous sound. To give the helicopter rescue the greatest chance of success, a suitable landing zone will have to be found. The ideal landing zone should not require a completely vertical landing or takeoff, both of which reduce the pilot’s control. The ground should slope away on all sides, allowing the helicopter to immediately drop into forward flight when it’s time to take off. Landings and liftoffs work best when the aircraft is pointed into the wind because that gives the machine the greatest lift. The area should be as large as possible, at least 60 feet across for most small rescue helicopters, and as clear as possible for obstructions such as trees and boulders. Clear away debris (pine needles, dust, leaves) that can be blown up by the wash of air, with the possibility of producing mechanical failure. Light snow can be especially dangerous if it fluffs up dramatically to blind the pilot. Wet snow sticks to the ground and adds dangerous weight. If you have the opportunity, pack snow flat well before the helicopter arrives—the night before would be ideal—to harden the surface of the landing zone. Tall grass can be a hazard because it disturbs the helicopter’s cushion of supporting air and hides obstacles such as rocks and tree stumps. To prepare a landing zone, clear out the area as much as possible, including removing your equipment and all the people except the one who is going to be signaling the pilot. Mark the landing zone with weighted bright clothing or gear during the day or with bright lights at night. In case of a night rescue, turn off the bright lights before the helicopter starts to land—they can blind the pilot. Use instead a low-intensity light to mark the perimeter of the landing area, such as chemical light sticks, or at least turn the light away from the helicopter’s direction. Indicate the wind’s direction by building a very small smoky fire, hanging brightly colored streamers, throwing up handfuls of light debris, or signaling with your arms pointed in the direction of the wind. The greatest danger to you occurs while you’re moving toward or away from the helicopter on the ground. Never approach the rear and never walk around the rear of a helicopter. The pilot can’t see you, and the rapidly spinning tail rotor is virtually invisible and soundless. In a sudden shift of the aircraft, you can be sliced to death. Don’t approach by walking downhill toward the helicopter, where the large overhead blade is closest to the ground. It is safest to come toward the helicopter from directly in front, where the pilot has a clear field of view, and only after the pilot or another of the aircraft’s personnel has signaled you to approach. Remove your hat or anything that can be sucked up into the rotors. Stay low because blades can sink closer to the ground as their speed diminishes. Make sure nothing is sticking up above your pack, such as an ice ax or ski pole. In most cases someone from the helicopter will come out to remind you of the important safety measures. One-skid landings or hovering while a rescue is attempted are solely at the discretion of the pilot. They are a high risk at best, and finding a landing zone and preparing it should always be given priority.

Many women who become mothers continue to alpine climb, surf big waves, ski steep remote slopes, fight wildfires, and more. And why shouldn’t they?

My mother said Nora was a good enough skier to know when a crash was coming. When Nora knew she was crashing, she would find a guy and take him down with her. It was how she liked to fall, with a young man under her; it was always a hotshot skier, the same type of dickhead who reminded her of her cousin Henrik. Nora—on the verge of losing her balance—would suddenly crouch down and tackle a skier she’d found offensive, her strong arms wrapped around his hips. I saw Nora knock guys out of their bindings; I saw her separate skiers from their goggles and gloves. Huge hunks of snow slid down the slope, dislodged by the force of their fall. The guy always landed under Nora, cushioning her fall. The tackled skier would be screaming or gasping in pain—or he would lie unmoving, as if dead. You could tell when Nora wondered if she’d killed someone; she pulled off her ski hat (later, her helmet) and pressed her ear to the unmoving skier’s cold lips. “I can hear or feel if the fucker’s breathing,” Nora told me. “You can’t fake not breathing, Adam—not for long.