Pushing the Ski-now Button

          The new-fallen snow was already six inches deep by the time the fourteen members of the Grants Pass Nordic Ski Club who had come to Lake of the Woods Resort for a weekend of skiing were strapping boots into skis and adjusting hats and gloves at the Pederson trailhead. After pizza the night before, we had walked from the restaurant into rain, which, overnight, turned into this beautiful new snow that had been pushing my ski-now button ever since I had waked up and looked out the window of my charming cabin.

My charming cabin

          Now I was waiting impatiently at the edge of a smooth white meadow. When Stacy took off in the lead, I pulled in behind her, too eager to wait longer, willing to yield as faster skiers caught up.

          Snow was falling lightly through the trees, padding thickly the ends of evergreen branches and turning inner limbs to lace.

Jan and Wendy just coming into view

When Stacy and I stopped to wait for the others, silence enfolded us. After a short time two skiers appeared, Jan, who had taken a moment to ski some small hills, and Wendy, who had been skiing with a maimed ski. Now that she had stopped, she pulled off the broken metal edge that had been dragging in the snow. No one else appeared behind us, so, after a reasonable wait, the four of us took off again.

          The whole group regathered where the trail met a road, untrammeled and white with new snow. We ate our lunches standing on skis.

Diana, Joan, Wendy, Stacy, Anne

After lunch, Joan, Dani, Anne, Ron, Paula, Tom, and Kathy took the road to return to the cars, while Stacy, Jan, Wendy, Magdi, and I skied farther up the hill before turning around for a superb float-on-skis trip back down to the lunch spot. There Stacy, Jan, and I turned into the woods to take the trail back to the trailhead, while Wendy and Magdi skied the road.

          First Stacy, then Jan, then I swept through the woods, separated by distance and a big silence. When Stacy and Jan stopped to let me catch up, we stood for a few minutes under the big trees with their snow-drooping limbs and dark trunks, listening to the whistling calls of small birds in the tree tops. Their tiny, occasional whistles pierced the silence like shooting stars in a dark sky blinking suddenly and going out.

          That night we crowded into Ron and Paula's cabin for Mexican-style hors d'oeuvres, then bundled up and walked to Joan and Dani's for burritos. The food was good and plentiful, amplified by margaritas and wine. We ate and drank and laughed and told stories. I read a piece I had written about cross-country skiing in the full moon years ago on the back side of Mt. Ashland because, before dessert at my cabin, we would also be doing a moonlight ski.

          Eight of us skied that night, under a nearly full moon, its light diffused by clouds. The moon turned everything into either white snow or black other. The forest was but charcoal strokes on white paper. We ourselves were black silhouettes. Dani's ski clothes are black anyway, but Anne's turquoise jacket, Stacy's red one, Jan's blue one, Magdi's and Joan's purple coats, even Wendy's bright red one turned black by the moon. I, in my white jacket, looked like the albino pigeon I saw a few weeks ago in a flock of dark gray pigeons. The moon occasionally broke through the clouds rewarding us with electric-bright light and sharp, deep shadows. Skiing in the moonlight, we sang moon songs: "Moonshadow," "Blue Moon," "Moon River." We skied till my feet were aching and I called for a return to the cars.

          The after-dark non skiers had, quite sensibly, not waited for us for dessert, so we took the remainder of the raspberry marzipan cake (Magdi's dinner contribution) to my cabin and had it and my marshmallow fudge brownies for our apres-ski treats,

Marshmallow fudge brownies

along with some port Magdi supplied. When my guests left, I filled the spa bathtub with hot water and a good dose of Epsom salts and sank into it.

          The next morning more new snow promised another superb day of skiing. Joan, Dani, Stefanie, Wendy, and Jan skied the moonlit route in daylight for nine and a quarter miles. I hated missing it, but my feet refused to go, so I put my skis in my car, scraped snow off its windows, and set out for home.

          If it was the last ski of the season, it was a good one. I could put away my skis well satisfied. In spite of too-warm weather and too little precipitation, the skiing has been great all season. Who knows? Maybe there is another good snowfall ahead of me yet to give my ski-now button one more good push.