The Ski Journal • Volume 16, Issue 1 • RECKLESS ABANDONED

When toeing the line goes wrong. Drew Peterson rolls one out at Alta, UT. Photo: Adam Clark

The run looks like a big funnel—a giant “Y.” It’s the type of run that’s so steep and rocky that, when you see the slope in the summer, you’ll look at it in complete disbelief. Wait, we ski that?

It’s the granite choke, right where the tail of the Y-shaped chute begins, that keeps people out of it. It’s not wide enough for a pair of boards to step through—you have to point ’em. Once you learn exactly where the rocks are—right there in the heart of the beast—the move is pretty straightforward. Just make sure to pick your skis up enough to float over the gnar.

On a recent post-storm day, those rocks, I figured, were irrelevant. With two feet of fresh snow and no tracks through the narrowing couloir, there would be plenty of powdery cushion between P-Tex and granite.

I dropped off the cornice and into nirvana, linking two deep turns before pointing it through the tight passage.

Glory. I was flying. And at the absolute edge of control—that pure, uninhibited rapture. Is there a feeling more wild, more unadulterated, than the freedom of recklessness?

Since I learned to ski, the double-edged sword of speed is buried deep within my psyche. I know the devastation it can bring. Isn’t that what makes speed feel so damn good in the first place? The knowledge that at any second, due to circumstances completely out of your control, it can all go horribly wrong?

How infrequently we get to actually feel this adrenaline. We’re supposed to be in control. Responsible. Reliable for our families, our jobs. To be reckless, we’re taught, is to be on the fringe. A little out there. Not trustworthy. Loose.

The way I was skiing was definitely loose. I was letting them run. Holding on. Pushing my own finely calibrated line of control. Isn’t that the point of it all anyway? The absolute heart-throbbing joy of flirting with disaster. As long as you pull it off, of course.

I needed to shut it down. This speed, I knew, was not sustainable. I got low and used all my strength to trench a big swooping turn to the left. I was buried—the type of turn that gives meaning to our lives. That keeps us up at night. That keeps us seeking more. I took another.

And that’s when I felt it. The slightest inconsistency in the snow grabbed one of my skis. Before I could think it was over. My momentum took my face straight to the snow. Head plant. Cartwheel. Head plant. Airborne this time, cartwheel again. It felt like slow motion, even though my body was rocketing down 100 vertical feet of its own accord. Meditative tomahawking, I guess.

I finally came to a stop on my stomach, head facing downhill. Everything was completely full of snow. My skis were buried above me, somewhere toward that beautiful choke.

Defeated, I made the long, slow posthole back up the “Y,” through snow up to my chest. Even on our best days, the line—the edge—is finer than we know.

The Ski Journal - Volume 16, Issue 1

RECKLESS ABANDONED

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