The wind was blowing hard from a
dark sky when Mike and I drove into the back parking lot of Mt. Ashland. An
inch or two of new snow gentled an ice-hard base. We started skiing down the
lower road, where there was less wind, and though the way was bumpy with
underneath chunks of ice, the skiing was good. Occasionally we stepped aside to
climb an uphill slope thick with new snow so we could come down it, practicing
turns. We wound fluidly down the road until blue diamonds turned us through the
woods. We didn’t know where the trail would take us, but the day had a momentum
of its own.
The trail took us past a gurgling
waterfall splashing holes in the snow, then uphill through the woods. When I
made a wrong turn and looked up to see blue diamonds marking the trail above us,
I suggested we climb the hill instead of retracing our steps, so we side-hopped
up several icy, narrow humps, then chevron-stepped the rest of the way to the
trail, where we took a minute to catch our breaths before continuing.
It was beautiful skiing through the
forest, with its dark trunks and snowy branches, but maneuvering between close-set
trees, where the skimpy snowfall hadn’t reached the ground, was tricky. Time
and again we side-stepped between trees on ice before skiing smoothly for a few
yards, then crossing between trees on ice again.
Then the forest opened up, and the
trail took us more steeply uphill, before depositing us on a snowy road, where
the skiing was superb, on silky smooth snow through a pristinely white
landscape with trees lacy with snow on every needle. Three skiers coming down
as we went up had wide smiles on their faces.
Before crossing an open field and
turning towards the wind, which we could hear above us, we stopped for lunch. Afterward
we were skiing into the wind, but the snow was still good and the skiing
excellent. Ahead of us we could see a long traverse across an open slope.
There a ferocious wind was blowing
directly towards us. It had blown all the snow off the mountainside, exposing a
long steep slope of ice which we would have to cross step by step, jamming the
metal edge of the uphill ski into the ice, hoping it would hold while we picked
up the other ski to do the same. The effort was intense. The wind was biting.
The ice was hard as metal. A ski would slip; recovery took strength; the going
was slow. Occasionally I stopped to straighten my legs and rest a minute. Then I
started again, cramming one ski into the icy hillside, then the other. At one
rest I turned to Mike, behind me, and asked if he were having as much
difficulty as I. He assured me he was. The slope was interminable.
Finally I suggested we take off our
skis and walk. In spite of Mike’s warning that it would be easy to lose a ski
that way, I somehow, between taking off my skis and picking them up, got
tangled in the mangle of skis and poles, and one ski escaped and fled down the
hill. “Stop!” I cried after it. “Please stop!” As I watched, it hit a snow-filled
gully and stopped. Mike carried my other ski with him as he walked up the trail
towards the road while I walked carefully down the hill to retrieve my ski.
Then I joined Mike on the trail, where we thought there was enough surface snow
to try skiing again. We still had long stretches of ice, but we were closer now
to the road and its flat surface.
When we got to the road, we rested again,
as much for our nerves as for our breath and strength. Mike mentioned how
dangerous that crossing had been. In my concern for the difficulty, I hadn’t
thought about the danger.
As if in reward for the difficult
crossing, the rest of the way was good skiing. By the time we reached the car,
exhilaration trumped exhaustion. We had wide smiles on our faces.
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