Skiing Powder Quotes

Just so you know, this is the last time I ever trust you," I say. "But you're so cute all covered in snow." "Shut up and help me find my ski." We search through the powder for a while, but don't locate my missing ski. After ten fruitless minutes I'm convinced that the mountain has eaten it.

At Last It's a perfect winter day. No wind. No Arctic freeze. Cloudless azure sky. A day to fly. Snow drapes the mountain like ermine, fabulous feather- light powder coaxing me to flee the confines of my room, brave the mostly plowed road up to the closest ski resort. To run from the cloying silence connected Mom and Dad, into encompassing stillness far away from city dirt and noise Far above suburban gridlock. Far beyond the grasp of home.

I Won’t Fly Today Too much to do, despite the snow, which made all local schools close their doors. What a winter! Usually, I love watching the white stuff fall. But after a month with only short respites, I keep hoping for a critical blue sky. Instead, amazing waves of silvery clouds sweep over the crest of the Sierra, open their obese bellies, and release foot upon foot of crisp new powder. The ski resorts would be happy, except the roads are so hard to travel that people are staying home. So it kind of boggles the mind that three guys are laying carpet in the living room. Just goes to show the power of money. In less than an hour, the stain Conner left on the hardwood will be a ghost.

Powder over power.

Sometimes the good parts and the hard ones are so close together—like the inhale and exhale of the same breath.

Studies have shown that people are happier when they don’t have as many choices. We don’t always want to be optimizing.

Life is like skiing in the powder snow. You can see where everybody else has gone and where they end up, but you must chose your own path and take it. You can never follow the exact same path.

In 2018, the average US weekend window lift ticket price was $122.30. That’s thirty times greater than the $4.18 it was in 1965. Over the same half century, US disposable family income grew slightly less than threefold. That means the lift ticket price grew ten times faster than people’s ability to afford them.

...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...

There are subtle markers that delineate space, as well as clothing, language, social codes, and behaviors that indicate someone might be an insider. I often make immediate judgy assumptions based on what other skiers are wearing, or how they carry their gear. If you look at the symbolism and the cultural clues about who is welcome—the athletes, the ads—they’re largely white. When you show up to ski, you’re facing everyday systemic racism, as well as the factors specific to these towns.

Psychologists have found that the most significant common trait among people who are pulled to the mountains is something called sensation seeking. “Neuroscience calls it novelty, it’s the willingness to take risks for the sake of rewards,” says Cynthia Thomson, a health researcher who looks at behavioral genetics. “Compared to people who don’t ski, skiers are higher on the sensation-seeking scale. They have a low threshold for boredom, and tend to look for more exciting experiences, even if there are dangers associated with them.

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.

We were on a family holiday to Cyprus to visit my aunt and uncle. My uncle Andrew was then the brigadier to all the British forces on the island, and as such a senior military figure I am sure he must have dreaded us coming to town. After a few days holed up in the garrison my uncle innocently suggested that maybe we would enjoy a trip to the mountains. He already knew the answer that my father and I would give. We were in. The Troodos Mountains are a small range of snowy peaks in the center of the island, and the soldiers posted to Cyprus use them to ski and train in. There are a couple of ski runs, but the majority of the peaks in winter are wild and unspoiled. In other words, they are ripe for an adventure. Dad and I borrowed two sets of army skis and boots from the garrison up in the hills and spent a great afternoon together skiing down the couple of designated runs. But designated runs can also be quite boring. We both looked at each other and suggested a quick off-piste detour. It was all game…age eleven. It wasn’t very far into this between-the-trees deep-powder detour that the weather, dramatically, and very suddenly, took a turn for the worse. A mountain mist rolled in, reducing visibility to almost zero. We stopped to try and get, or guess, our directions back to the piste, but our guess was wrong, and very soon we both realized we were lost. (Or temporarily geographically challenged, as I have learned to call it.) Dad and I made the mistake that so many do in that situation, and plowed on blind, in the vain hope that the miraculous would occur. We had no map, no compass, no food, no water, no mobile telephone (they hadn’t even been invented yet), and in truth, no likelihood of finding our way. We were perfect candidates for a disaster.

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.  

It’s pure joy, that physical exhilaration and overflow of emotion – it’s joy; the pure, sparkling joy of skiing on a snow cloud. 

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).

I was with Hilary’s pal Lois, because Hilary hasn’t been able to ski this stuff ever since she broke her neck (not doing exercise!) seven years ago. She’s fine, but she can’t do this. Lois, forty-four, has an excellent job, an excellent husband and two fine children, but not that morning. That morning, it was his turn to stay home with the kids, and, for her, “Powder Rules Apply.” That’s the sign they put up in shop windows when they lock the door and head for the mountain. All bets are off, and appointments will not be kept. Ecstasy trumps care. Lois

Cedar Valley It's well offthe beaten path, and that's just how wilderness-lovers like it Nick Nault Photography Island Lake Lodge, about 15 kilometres outside of Fernie, offers in-chalet luxury and pristine mounds of snow as far as the eye can see. Mark Sissons | 878 words They say there are no friends on a powder day. This may be true at most North American ski resorts, where it's every powder hound for himself in the mad morning rush to lay down first tracks after an overnight dump, but not from where I'm standing, perched on a ridgeline overlooking the

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.

The true skier does not follow where others lead. He is not confined to a piste. He is an artist who creates a pattern of lovely lines from virgin and uncorrupted snow. What marble is to the sculptor, so are the latent harmonies of ridge and hollow, powder, and sun-softened crust to the true skier.

Being able to avoid thinking about something is the embodiment of privilege and for white people that is deeply embedded in American land use, social structure, and politics.

The theory of person-environment fit says that you might be happier and more fulfilled in certain places because of your temperament, values, and goals. That your characteristics might match up best with a landscape or a location. It’s often applied to business structure, and organizational psychology, but could just as well apply to life in the mountains.

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.

on a seagull poo–like texture when mixed into cold water. Amelia saved my palate and joints by introducing me to the Great Lakes hydrolyzed version (green label), which blends easily and smoothly. Add a tablespoon of beet root powder like BeetElite to stave off any cow-hoof flavor, and it’s a whole new game. Amelia uses BeetElite pre-race and pre-training for its endurance benefits, but I’m much harder-core: I use it to make tart, low-carb gummy bears when fat Tim has carb cravings. RumbleRoller: Think foam roller meets monster-truck tire. Foam rollers have historically done very little for me, but this torture device had an immediate positive impact on my recovery. (It also helps you sleep if used before bed.) Warning: Start slow. I tried to copy Amelia and did 20-plus minutes my first session. The next day, I felt like I’d been put in a sleeping bag and swung against a tree for a few hours. Rolling your foot on top of a golf ball on the floor to increase “hamstring” flexibility. This is infinitely more helpful than a lacrosse ball. Put a towel on the floor underneath the golf ball, lest you shoot your dog’s eye out. Concept2 SkiErg for training when your lower body is injured. After knee surgery, Amelia used this low-impact machine to maintain cardiovascular endurance and prepare for the 2014 World’s Toughest Mudder, which she won 8 weeks post-op. Kelly Starrett (page 122) is also a big fan of this device. Dry needling: I’d never heard of this before meeting Amelia. “[In acupuncture] the goal is not to feel the needle. In dry-needling, you are sticking the needle in the muscle belly and trying to get it to twitch, and the twitch is the release.” It’s used for super-tight, over-contracted muscles, and the needles are not left in. Unless you’re a masochist, don’t have this done on your calves. Sauna for endurance: Amelia has found using a sauna improves her endurance, a concept that has since been confirmed by several other athletes, including cyclist David Zabriskie, seven-time U.S. National Time Trial Championship winner. He considers sauna training a more practical replacement for high-altitude simulation tents. In the 2005 Tour de France, Dave won the Stage 1 time trial, making him the first American to win stages in all three Grand Tours. Zabriskie beat Lance Armstrong by seconds, clocking an average speed of 54.676 kilometers per hour (!). I now use a sauna at least four times per week. To figure out the best protocols, I asked

…fresh, bottomless powder is the Holy Grail, but pow is elusive. True enlightenment can be found in things like soft corduroy on a 27-degree bluebird day. It's times like these when the perfect wax, sharp edges, and strong legs can make you feel part of the mountain, allow you to create carves as organic as the snowmelt streams that'll rush downhill in April.

The groomed trail was narrow, and there was about an inch of ice on both sides. My right ski went under the ice sheet, and I fell over on my face. My forehead, cheeks, lips, and chin were slashed. We radioed Dr. Lukash and learned that he was treating Superintendent McFadden, who had had a spill and cut his face even more severely. I rode back to Camp David on a snowmobile, bleeding badly. Dr. Lukash treated all the superficial cuts on my face, and we skied the next day. The big problem was that I was scheduled to make a speech at Georgia Tech on Tuesday. We called Lillian Brown, who was a superb artist with cosmetics, and she applied several layers of greasepaint and powder and accompanied me to Atlanta. I got through the ordeal without embarrassment, but I had to be careful to avoid any broad smiles, which caused the thick makeup to crack.