Powder Trip

Just finished a day of soft, deep, flotation on Mt. Bachelor.  That is to say, an epic day of powder skiing in a raging snowstorm.

What is it about performing this type of sliding across a landscape that tickles the neurons like nothing else?  I believe the sensation is so blissful because it involves two mind enlarging factors that are unique to skiing.

The entire activity is performed in a temporal setting.  It is performed on a surface that is temporary, created by nature in only a few specific areas.  Temporary in season, and temporary in condition on a day to day, even hourly basis. The tracks you leave are written in invisible ink.  When the snow is gone after the season, and you revisit that same place, your experiences there seem like some kind of dream you must have experienced, because there is no remaining evidence you were actually there.

The other mind expander comes from using the most powerful force on the planet, gravity, to SLIDE across an undulating landscape.  Humans use their feet to walk or run, or wheels to transport ourselves across the surface of our planet. Sliding is generally a mode employed in a piece of equipment, where one component slides past another.  But humans keeping their feet still while the landscape slips by without the use of wheels? Completely unnatural. Sliding up and down across the natural rises and dips in the land feels like caressing the curvy surface of mother nature. Only in this season and in this way can you speed on that line across the landscape.

If those factors aren’t trippy enough, when that snow surface is a deep, dry, light powder, that gravity powered sliding across an undulating landscape takes on a new dimension, that of floating, untethered to the ground. The remarkable cushioning and springiness underfoot does not occur anywhere else that humans cross the landscape while connected to it, perhaps only in a flight above the surface.  That flying, floating sensation comes right up through the lighter than air soles of your feet, rises up through your body and expands your cheeks into a huge smile.

A champagne powder day on Bachelor