4/26/09

Day 50

Conditions: 8+ inches of the best snow on earth
Location: Snowbird, UT

If I had a million dollars, I would buy a powder day in Utah for our last day of the year. I don’t have a million dollars, but somehow we got just that. We woke up and it was snowing hard, but there was still decent visibility. We snatched first tram and headed up for three non-stop hours of powder run after powder run.


First Tram

The conditions were excellent. Sure, there was no sun and it was windy, but everything was covered with fluffy powder. And the best part was that there was no one else around.


And to think, some people don't like weather like this. Weird.

Skier Andrea Mead Lawrence once said “There are few times in our lives when we become the thing we are doing.” This quote made me think of today – and all the other days this season – when we were doing more than just snowboarding: we became snowboarding. In the powder there are moments of complete and utter flow. There is no time or space, just floating turn after floating turn. No neurosis, anxiety, or any of those other things that I strive to escape from everyday. Often in powder, I tell myself to savor it, to enjoy every second. But it is still an ungraspable moment. It slips away in an instant and leaves you wanting more. Yet it is still somehow so satisfying. There were many of those moments this season, and we are eternally grateful for them.

Highlights:

- Every run was full of fresh tracks all morning long.
- Wide open powder fields. The kind where you come over a ridge and look at the snow and think no way am I the first person in here...wait, I am...woohoo!
- Logging day 50 for the first time together.

Lowlights:

- Well…we did have to leave in the midst of an epic Spring dump.

Après Ski:

We flew back to Detroit, and back to Spring. We got in after 11pm and it was over 80 degrees.

Days to go: 0