Matt Duffy
New member
When you spend a lot of time skiing a particular mountain, you are setting <BR>the table for one fantastic feast. Over the years, you find many main <BR>courses, little treats, appetizers, desserts, and tall, cool ones to put <BR>on the table. If you're lucky, the fruit of your explorations, your <BR>collection of secrets - your kitchen-, holds enough ingredients to make <BR>every feast unique. You've got enough tasty choices at your grasp to <BR>satisfy a variety of cravings; whatever happens to suit your taste on any <BR>given day. <BR> <BR>You'll know where you can find untouched snow. You figure out which of <BR>those places to go first on a powder day and beat everyone to it. You get <BR>to know which places you can save for later, with vast amounts of <BR>delicious smooth white to devour in the afternoon. <BR> <BR>On a powder day at the local hill, my friend Dave met me early on; our <BR>appetites whet by the soft white surroundings. With a well-stocked kitchen <BR>in our possession, it was time to start setting the table. On what has <BR>become one of my favorite appetizing powder runs, we went ballistic on a <BR>fresh roller-ride directly under the Sterling Lift. Filled with <BR>boot-top-plus pow and tracked only by patrol and a precious few others, <BR>this was a phine appetizer indeed. Diving down over rollers, flying off <BR>ledges, swooping faaast and big in the wider confines, hoots rained down <BR>from the chairs above. Adrenaline pumped nicely, stomach tickled at times, <BR>and a teary eyed floater came and went like lightning. Electrifying. <BR> <BR>On the M1 chair, our minds not made up on where to ski, we spied the rope <BR>across Robin's Run and the few patrollers standing above. Yes was the <BR>answer to the question. Yes was what the man said when I inquired of the <BR>dropping of the rope. Yes was what we said upon entering the classic, <BR>winding, steep trail with plenty of bottomless untouched for us to chew <BR>on. <BR> <BR>I gave Dave the honor and he stormed over the first drop into a silent, <BR>white explosion. Lost sight of him immediately, just for a second, until <BR>he went bee-lining from the cloud he left hanging, suspended in time, <BR>while he sped up the clock before him. I criss-crossed his path of spewing <BR>dust, thus creating my own and enveloping the whole trail in a complete <BR>white-out. Hard, twisting lefts and rights off the deep end… my stomach <BR>jumped over the final vertical wall… into a gaseous compression of a <BR>runout, blinded by the silence left hanging in the air. <BR> <BR>Soon, it was time to bring a tall cool one to the table. Watch me pull a <BR>rabbit out of my hat. A vertical shot of pure skiing. Virgin. Drink it <BR>down. The rush is greater when you drink it down fast. We stood atop the <BR>beast, staring down its throat. Our tips were at the edge; atop a few <BR>hundred feet of pristine, sparkling, wall to wall white. In a moment, I <BR>jumped into nothing. The volume was muted. Steep – the kind of steep and <BR>narrow where each pole plant involves reaching far downward. Pivoting, <BR>uncoiling, swinging the skis around high in the snow. Floating angulation. <BR>A rounded float into the next apex, then sinking deeply into detonation; <BR>setting off a splashing, blinding discharge and losing 10 feet of vertical <BR>in one turn. Reach down through the cloud, plant, rise to the surface and <BR>angulate. Uncoiling, diving back around, roaring into the next detonation… <BR>repeat. Repeat, repeat, repeat, until you're skiing in a living, moving, <BR>wall of snow. Sinuous. Gushing. Run with it. Run rabbit, run. <BR> <BR>The powder feast had gained momentum. I arrived at our next destination, <BR>slightly ahead of Dave. Skis over my shoulder, Dave clicking out of his, <BR>we were in for another steep and deep one. An onlooker stopped and stood <BR>with a wanting stare. As his young teen counterpart (presumably his <BR>daughter) arrived, Dave and I turned our backs to walk away. Then came a <BR>voice. It was unsure; he'd worked up his nerve to ask: "Where are you guys <BR>going?" I turned, noticed one more telling detail (rear entry boots) and <BR>said "To a bunch of cliff bands." Translation: "Get out of my kitchen." He <BR>seemed to lose interest rather quickly. He and his daughter took off <BR>without another word. Maybe it seems cold and maybe I lied a bit, but <BR>none-the-less did both parties a favor. Plus, it was entertaining for <BR>Dave. <BR> <BR>We clicked in at the top of a place where the trees are a little shorter, <BR>the drifts a little deeper, chutes a little more narrow, a little more <BR>twisting and something else… There are a few places like this at <BR>Smugglers' Notch - Rimed evergreens have branches growing only in one <BR>direction. Many knotted, twisted, gray trees stand dead. Looks like they <BR>lived a torturous life in harsh elements, as evidenced by writhing limbs <BR>and snapped trunks. They creak and moan in the wind like zombies. Feels <BR>like a very desolate place. <BR> <BR>On with the show. I plunged first into the white, straight and fast until <BR>the first corner. Rounded it phine, but the next one came quickly enough <BR>that I missed it. Entangled in scrub and deep snow, I yelled up at Dave <BR>not to miss the turn. He didn't miss it, and proceeded to feast in a smoke <BR>scattering frenzy. Not far behind, gorging myself in a feast of my own, <BR>soon I caught up to where he stopped to ponder where the twisty chute <BR>chokes off. Soon we'd be hucking ourselves over a mandatory drop and into <BR>a highly volatile stockpile of white TNT. When the candle was lit, we'd <BR>ignited an invisible wildfire. Upon the muffled 'thwups' of our landings, <BR>an obscuring cloud of ash and soot lingered in the air long after we were <BR>gone. <BR> <BR>There were more little treats sprinkled between main dishes, but the most <BR>filling courses had still yet to come. Three big laps were to follow; each <BR>with their own version of the same kind of freedom. Freedom to roam <BR>wherever we wished, untouched bottomless powder at every turn. <BR>Straightlining steep shots, less than a ski length wide, shooting like <BR>speedboats into vastly open hardwoods; trees sporadically poking up <BR>through the unbroken white sea. The great wide open. Turning at times <BR>wherever we chose, at other times where it was dictated, all in silence, <BR>all without hitting bottom. I tend to be a screamer, both literally and <BR>figuratively, in that while I'm burning a phast track into the deep snow, <BR>I'm inclined to let out piercing screams that can be heard over a long <BR>distance. Near the end of one of those laps, Dave commented to me how cool <BR>it was to hear my voice echoing off a wall of rock. It was a tribute to the unique <BR>lay of the land, and I think, to the phantastic skiing we did that day.