Apr 26, 2003

Apr 19, 2003

Fear
It must have been in high school when my parents bought me that thick and monstrously green parka. I recall feeling removed from the world in that coat; buried so far within the cozy warmth plush down and gore-tex as to be oblivious to the realities of the bone-numbing cold and howling wind while standing at the bus station. In fact, I have very little recollection of ever being cold as a child. I have significantly more memories of being overdressed. Toronto winters faced a formidable foe in my mom's exuberance in keeping us bundled.

These thoughts floated through my head two weekends ago as I sat at the Nevada end of the Skyline Trail at Heavenly waiting for the rest of my friends to make it through the deep powder of the unexpectedly flat traverse from the California side of the mountain (the resort rests across the Cal-Neva state line). It was cutting towards the end of an incredibly long day. We had got up early to use our free spring passes at another resort. After renting equipment and driving and hour and a half through white-out conditions on a mountain highway, we were turned back by Caltrans workers standing in the middle of the road in their yellow jumpsuits, citing that the rest of the highway was closed due to avalanche dangers.

Resolved not to let the trip be a complete waste, we headed to Heavenly after stopping for a quick lunch. Located minutes away from the town itself, we hadn't seen any sign of a mountain in the thick snow. People were already leaving by the time we pulled into the parking lot. We bought our $44 half-day passes and headed up the empty gondola. We spent a few hours snowboarding through the blizzard, the howling wind blasting snow against any exposed skin. Late in the afternoon though, we were rewarded for our efforts as the snow settled and the clouds finally parted. I remember feeling a warmth on my face, sliding down a steep, thigh deep powder run as it opened up with shafts of sunlight. It was one moment where the resort's name was certainly fitting.

It's 15:30, half an our short of the universal 16:00 time when all ski lifts shut down. We decide to check out the Nevada side of the mountain since we've paid to be here. The brief respite from the sun had faded and clouds were coming back in as we got off the top of the lift. We started down the Skyline Trail, but it wasn't long before we had to unbuckly and push. Eventually Billy and I got too far ahead, I slumped into a snowdrift to hide from the now furious winds. Billy began burying me, but a little too slowly. His story about not knowing where I was, and only seeing my snowboard in the snowbank worked for a few moments until Sinyee spotted the reflection of my goggles which weren't fully buried. After what seemed like endless skating through some flat and almost uphill portions of the extended traverse, amidst intensifying wind and snow, we made it to the end of the Skyline Trail.

I'm sitting there catching my breath, very thankful for my new goggles and my normally-too-thick green parka, straining to make out shapes that might be Sinyee and Xun catching up obscured in twirling snow. What little exposed skin I have is stinging from the icy pellets thrown against it, but the rest of me feels secure, bunkered in beneath layers of plastic, fleece and down. My thoughts flicker back to the evening we spent climbing our way out of the Grand Canyon, underdressed for the night time cold, and out of food and water. I wasn't particularly afraid then, mostly because I was too tired to think. Like that evening, here we are trying to make our way home, without being able to see our way to the end of the trail. Sitting on top of the mountain, in the middle of a snowstorm, it occurred to me how frail we were. Normally a ski resort with groomed runs presents a majestically primal structure of rock and stone tamed for human enjoyment. Yet in a blizzard, where your visibility is limited to 10 feet and all paths look alike covered under a virgin blanket of white, the mountain looks like any other wilderness.

And here I am thinking how warm and comfortable I am, armored against such weather. I understand quite clearly, that this were indeed a wilderness, and I was indeed stuck out here, it would be over pretty soon after I finished my last PowerBar. Who knows, my board would probably carry me to the base of the mountain. After that I'd perhaps make it a few miles, plowing through the waist deep snow, before I run out of calories, or find myself a warm cozy shelter, strike up a match, and find myself face to face with a rudely awakened carnivore. I often wonder how much faith we put on the trappings of civilization. Whether they be the physical shelters warding off Nature, society's structure protecting us from Anarchy, or even our theological suppositions hiding us from God. It took a snowstorm for me to realize how thin my coat really was, despite the fact that I was warm inside. Sometimes passages like Leviticus 10 makes me wonder how thin my moral righteousness may be, and despite my comfort, how safe am I underneath it all.

The grey shapes finally caught up to us, and as we continued, feeling for the stiffer snow that indicated the packed trail underneath, we eventually found a clear downhill slope to take us to the bottom. What happened after that? We decided not to risk our lives driving home in that weather and instead stayed over onto Monday to experience the absolutely fabulous powder at Kirkwood.

Apr 9, 2003