2003
The warm Colorado sun kissed my cheeks as my boyfriend Jim and I loaded onto a chairlift. I raised my goggles and closed my eyes, tilting my face toward the rays. “Nothing like a suntan in February.”
The chairlift rose over a back bowl, a wide, open area where ski trails are so spacious that they’re really just suggested “zones.” The skiers below our lift were specks on a canvas of white that stretched for miles in every direction.
“Can’t beat that Colorado blue sky either,” Jim replied.
“Seriously, there should be a crayon called Ski Sky Blue.”
The sky was the piercing cerulean of flawless Murano glass, unmarred by a single cloud. I thought of my friends back East, waking up to New York smog, or shivering against biting New England cold. I took a deep breath and smiled.
I’d always felt I could breathe easier in Rocky Mountain air, despite its high altitude. Growing up in Connecticut, I’d ski instructed locally on weekends in high school and had skied out West on family vacations. I couldn’t wait to move to Colorado after college to spend a winter ski instructing in the Rockies.
I graduated from college on skis. Actually, to be fair, I was in a sled pulled by a ski patroller; the rest of my class was on skis, but we all came down the mountain in caps and gowns to celebrate our 2001 mid-year commencement in Vermont. A sign waiting at the bottom read: “Some were born to walk. Others were born to ski.”
I was on crutches with crampons attached to the bottoms so I wouldn’t slip on the snow and ice. Just a few weeks earlier, while interviewing for a ski instructing position out West, I’d torn the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in my left knee. Sailing over a ridge at too high a speed, I’d landed in an unexpected mogul field. Moguls, also known as “the bumps,” require a certain speed and finesse to conquer effectively. You have to start slowly, survey the field from the top, and pick a line of moguls to ski through. If you keep your ski tips pointed downhill, you can simply bounce off the sides of each bump, until you hit the last one in your line. It takes leg strength, good timing, and a real command of your equipment to successfully ski a whole mogul line.
The day of my interview, I never made it past the first bump. Wholly unprepared for what was waiting over that smooth ledge, I tried to skid to a stop when I saw the field below me, but it was too late. I crashed into the side of a mogul. My lower left leg slammed forward while my torso fell back, pulling my thigh with it. My knee could not sustain that kind of split and gave way with a sickening snap.
The injury put me out for the rest of the ski season and shattered my plans to ski instruct after graduation. I was set on moving to Colorado, though. I packed up my green Jeep, covered in stickers that read “Ski today, work tomorrow” and “Ski like a girl,” and drove 1500 miles west. I cheered at the prospect of adventure and exploration when my beloved Rocky Mountains at last came into view. I decided to look for a job off the hill that would still allow me to be part of the ski culture I craved. Years of camp counseling, and a lifetime of listening to my mother and stepfather talk at the dinner table about lesson plans, pointed me toward teaching. I became a third-grade assistant teacher, and then high school English teacher in Boulder, finding great joy in creating lesson plans, re-discovering favorite books, and bonding with students.
When I wasn’t teaching, I was working overtime on leg lifts and hamstring curls, on exercises with red elastic pulleys tied to the foot of my dresser, trying to get myself as strong as the skiers all around me. It took two years for my knee to heal. Eventually I was able to ski as hard as I once had, to bounce through mogul fields again, but it took much longer than expected.
As Jim and I rode the chairlift to the top of the bowl, I patted the trusty knee brace hidden under my ski pants. “Two years ago, I never could have imagined I’d be out here.”
Jim was taking me to a part of the mountain I’d never explored, a backcountry area accessible only on foot. After dismounting the chairlift, we glided to the outer limits of the authorized ski area. Flat areas, either on the top of trails or connecting them, are technically called “catwalks,” or “the flats” in skier lingo. It’s important to skate as fast as possible, like a cross-country racer, to gain momentum when heading into the flats. If you don’t have enough speed to make it all the way across, you risk slowing to a stop, and it’s nearly impossible to regain forward motion from there. Then it’s endless shuffling along, dragging yourself by your poles, trying to walk with big boards strapped to your feet.
Jim and I used our poles to get ourselves going faster, faster, faster. Some people curl into a tuck, hunching over like downhill racers to bomb across the flats, but I always preferred slipping into a steady glide. I pushed off on my left ski, glided as far as possible, pressed my poles into the snow to help me along, then pushed off on my right ski. Glide, pole, back to the left. As we skated across the ridge, I sensed that all at once everything was working in sync: my skis, my poles, the mountain, the air, my breathing.
I followed Jim along the catwalk, past the area where we’d spent countless hours tree skiing. We wove among groups of skiers trying to decide if they wanted to brave the trees, but the packs dwindled the farther we skated. Eventually it was just the two of us, gliding, poling, breathing. Without slowing my pace, I reached for the mouthpiece of the pack that carried water on my back. I was glad I had it to help keep me going. I also wondered what would happen if—when—I had to pee.
The flats thinned as we passed the last bowl. “This looks good,” I shouted. If we dropped down to our right, there was a whole area of fresh snow waiting for our tracks.
“Nah, keep going,” Jim called back without turning his head. I took another long sip of water. I could already feel sweat pooling in my armpits. Finally, several minutes later, Jim skidded to a stop below a crag. Snow covered only part of the rocks, dripping over them like melted frosting. “We’re here!” he announced triumphantly.
I opened the pit zips on my jacket. “You brought me all the way out here for rocks?”
“No, silly. This is where we climb”—Jim pointed above the crag, where I could just make out the glaring white of untouched powder—“to heaven on earth.”
“Up over these rocks?”
“Up over these rocks. After that, it’s just straight uphill on snow. If we stick by those trees up there, the snow will be more packed, and it’ll be easier to walk.” Jim pointed to the few scraggly evergreens that had managed to survive at 11,000 feet.
I gulped. Nevertheless, when Jim crouched down, I reluctantly straddled his shoulders. He straightened, lifted me by the underside of my thighs like an ice skater, and hoisted me up so that I was essentially hugging the base of the crag. I felt my left boot thunk hard on Jim’s arm as I tried to swing my legs toward the rock. “Sorry, sorry!”
“You’re good.” He held me as I worked to steady my boots. I engaged every muscle in my arms and legs to scurry up and over the crag, landing on top with a belly flop. The bottom of my jacket scrunched up around my bellybutton. Cold, wet slush pressed against my stomach. I turned my face to the side so as not to get a mouthful of snow.
“Nice!” Jim cheered. “Now scoot yourself around so you’re facing me, and I’ll hand you the gear.”
Jim handed me our skis and poles. I planted everything in the snow so it would stay put and out of the way while Jim climbed up. He instructed me to lay flat on the top of the crag with my arms reaching out towards him. I was reminded of lifeguard training at summer camp, lying flat on a wooden dock to secure my own weight while pulling someone else to safety. I dug the front of my ski boots into the snow, just as I used to dig my feet into the dock, concentrating on keeping my weight on the bottom half of my body. I reached for Jim’s hands. Grasping them, he planted his feet on the rock so fast that I was only carrying his full weight for a second. I placed his hands on the top of the snowy rock, my hands over them, just as I’d secured tired swimmers’ hands on the dock.
“I’ve got it,” he said. “You can let go.”
I pulled my hands away and scooched backwards to give Jim room to land. As soon as he did, he clapped his gloves together. “Okay, let’s hike up! I’ll carry the skis. You take the poles.”
Slowly we made our way up the hill, keeping close to the trees, which grew sparser the higher we climbed. The ascent was akin to walking up a sledding hill, though the climb was much higher and sweatier. I kept the water backpack mouthpiece between my lips, so that my pace became huff, puff, gulp, step. At last, we reached the summit. Jim placed our skis in the snow, and I planted our poles next to them. We sat down with a gentle thump. The powder cushioned me like a fluffy cotton pillow.
“Feel how soft it is?” Jim asked. “This snow has been piling up all season, just waiting for us.” We were above tree line, the only living things in a sea of white that glowed against the intense blue sky. “Just think,” Jim added, “Next winter we’ll be able to come out here all the time!”
I had decided not to renew my teaching contract for the following school year, so that I could finally fulfill my lifelong dream of ski instructing for a season. I loved teaching, but I felt I was living on the periphery of the life I had truly sought out West. My students couldn’t understand why I was leaving them. For weeks I’d vacillated about the decision, feeling like a mother who was about to abandon her children. I wasn’t ready to be a mother, though, certainly not literally but not really even figuratively. I’d moved 1500 miles away from home to do what I loved to do: ski. Time seemed to be running short to fulfill that dream. I thought, It’s not like I can drop everything and become a ski bum ten years from now, wherever I might be, probably working and married with kids.
Jim was also a teacher, in a town closer to the mountains. We’d met on a chairlift. A friend and I were gliding into a quadruple chairlift line when a tall, broad-shouldered guy slid in next to us. “Single?” he’d asked. This is the term skiers use when they’re wondering if you have a single spot open in your group to share a chair ride.
I was feeling sassy that day, high from an exhilarating morning on the slopes, so I’d replied, “Why yes, actually, I am.”
Jim had skied with us that whole morning, and then asked for my phone number. I never thought he’d call, but he did, the very next day, and before I knew it, the random guy I’d met on the chairlift had become my boyfriend. While he wasn’t the reason I was moving to the mountains, being geographically closer to him was going to be a bonus. We each planned to spend one more year in Colorado. I had a dream of someday becoming a professor, and I hoped that after our final ski season out West, Jim and I would make the leap to graduate school together.
I scanned the glistening panorama below us and turned to Jim. “You’re right, this is heaven on earth.”
He shook his head and jumped to his feet. “Not quite yet.” He clicked into his skis. I stood up to put mine on too, holding onto Jim for balance. Once we were ready, we grabbed our poles and pushed off straight across the top of the hill. Suddenly, Jim dropped down to his right and made a wide, arcing turn. “This is it!” he shouted. “Drop in! Don’t use your poles. Just lean back and enjoy the ride!”
Nervously, I pointed my skis downhill. I’d never been in powder that deep, and I wasn’t sure I knew how to ski it. Back East, I’d learned to lean as far forward as possible, carving sharp turns on the edges of my skis. Days of soft powder in the Rockies had reversed that thinking, teaching me to lean back and let the snow guide me, but it had never been so deep or soft that I hadn’t needed my poles to help carve turns.
I pushed off and immediately started giggling. I was afraid I’d sink in all that powder, but my skis just glided right through it like I was skiing in a cloud. I attempted to carve a turn but realized that wasn’t necessary. All I had to do was lean a little bit in one direction or the other, and my skis simply drifted. My poles dangled at my sides.
“This is so cool!” I squealed. “I’m floating! No, I’m FLYING!” I shouted and laughed all the way down, wishing the ride would never end.
If I had known how quickly it would, I might have insisted that the hands of time be stopped.
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