With the blessings of the most fantastic woman ever, I found myself up at one of the crappy little snothills around here, oogling the succulence of mounds upon mounds of snow. The overnight total had been only 8", but it was 11 F and the storm accumulation has been around 16" or so.
But I concede that I was in the depths of my delerium, spiralling away into some delusion of my own twisted design.
Reality is for people who can't handle powder.
The usual suspects had assembled, murmuring, cracking jokes and fingering the stoke, jostling and ready to go.
The main summit lift was on maintenance hold and the habituated cadre' got agitated. With snow piling down, things were getting ugly when they finally started loading an half an hour late.
Hit the Doors first, a ritual for the first run. Wafted in and out of the little alpine firs spitting and spewing, eyes darting looking for the next window and cranking another turn down into that facial carwash of cold bristling crystals.
You can have your provocative squats! Slather them with truck stops, jelly beans and bombs! Take them with massive doses of viagra suppositories. Today wood rool.
And so it did.
West Face, Snorting Elk, and Upper Exterminator all fell, washing me with the white firehose of luscious powder. It was too good. I was shaking.
Standing around in thigh deep snow and hitting chest deep pillows convinces me that I am getting shorter. Oh well, age will do at least this to me.
But there was a plot. A feeble hint at trying to hook with with other like minded weirdos and so I headed over to chair 6. Lo and behold, there resided other maggots. And so we ripped a quickie out to the Throne Bowl, some call it Hamburger Hill. Names will be protected unless they want to admit their involvement. More face shots. Then running into another posse member from bygone days, we head out to Northback and score fresh waist deep, applying powder to our faces like Tammy Fae slaps on mascara on speed. I coulda been a bible humper too, but only in the Church of Powder and only if the Rev digs my scapular.
Then headed down to meet up with another suspect kook and rendezvous with the first fistfull of maggotry I had callously ditched when I went Northback. To compensate, I took them all back there again and it was almost as sweet, with only our previous track to cross. I believe that a good time was had by all.
Then it was back to 6 where the King beckoned. With some pressed for time, the fistfull shrank and only 2 of us headed up that half hour slog up the King. I couldn't believe it was open.
First run down Appliances was one of those memories etched into your cerebellum (the smooth muscles will not forget). Blast after blast of searing cold smoke while the hill slowly falls away getting steeper and steeper. Then over the hump and sailing down to the lake. Hi fiving white guys are ready for more.
Another slog up the King, one bootstep at a time. I'm wheezing, I'm way outta shape. I hope I don't have a seizure (no joke there). But there finally on top and wait until others have fallen away. It's 3:20 and the light is changing to that amber tint. We push off and float down, ducking sideways into the windows that opren to our left, snow and snot streaming when we can see. It's all too good.
I hope that all you wackjobs get some. Now I have to get back to the slower things.
