CRUX BACK TO SCHOOL Going bell to bell means rubber legs, slushy Banquets, and recapping the best runs (and better falls) with your friends. At Wolf Creek, CO the Brothers Fuller and Mark Rauschenberger give praise to the snow gods for another storm in the San Juans. Photo: Chip Kalback Words Kade Krichko REMEMBER THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL? No, not the red circle on the calendar or that ridiculous(ly cool!) fleece Gap vest you saved specifically for the occasion. I’m talking about the feeling. The bubbling anticipation that pushed right up under your rib cage. The nerves that made sleep the night before nearly impossible. What would your friends be like? Would your crush remember you? Were you taller? Would they notice? Were you ready? When our world revolved around a nine-month school year, three months away could induce a cosmic shift in our lives. After all, a lot can change when people go away to summer camp. So what happens when our world doesn’t just shift, but goes completely supernova? Sitting in a Safeway parking lot during the wet December dawn, I couldn’t kick the idea. It had been almost 11 months since the planet unraveled, our known becoming anything but, the future suddenly spiraling into a shark pit of uncertainty. Crueler still, we’d been living this shared trauma in isolation, our social foundations—friends, family, classmates—off lim-its. We’d done the best we could, but to remain unaffected by a global pandemic had been, well, hard. Honestly, the fact that we were getting a ski season at all felt like a total miracle. But there was doubt there. We were different now. How could skiing be the same? My friend Abbie hopped in the car, snapping my brain fog and directing me toward Snoqualmie Pass, WA. The highway was heinous, I-90 a mix of rutted ice and defensive driving. We caught up through drawn ski buffs, plodding past the snake of tractor trailers idling in the breakdown lane. Like me, she’d been dealing—in a disjointed kind of way. No one was in the office, home was stagnant, and we hadn’t met a new face in months. We were some of the lucky ones, we knew, but it still hadn’t been easy, and this thing that had come so naturally before—just talking to one of your good friends—was now both strained and overly chatty. If that first middle school bus ride felt awkward, this com-mute rang in a close second. Rounding the corner of Alpen-tal’s Lot 4, my Subaru drifted into nine inches of fresh. The mountain report called for more up high and the snow would be falling all day. I pulled into the fifth row and set the parking brake. That’s when the dread hit. I’d been in that lot a hundred times, but this felt like a species of uncom-fortable newness. We’d packed a decade into the last year. Skiing—all of this—had felt so strangely far away. Panicked, I searched for an anchor, something recognizable to latch onto. Slowly my bearings appeared through the storm. Will’s Tundra. James’ Outback. Bronson’s Forester. Ski rigs that carried ski friends. I stepped out into a snow globe of fat flakes, the familiar wet crunch of compacting snow under my feet. I pulled one boot on, then the other. The shoes still fit. Abbie and I skated toward the lift, picking up momentum with each push. Phil hooted down at us from the chair. Far-ther uphill, Scott and his son navigated the first deep day of the season. This wasn’t a ski day. This was a homecoming. Rolling off Chair 2, we dropped into right-side-up perfec-tion. No, my legs hadn’t withered. Yes, powder skiing was still one of the best feelings on Earth. Each turn lifted a little more weight off our chests. For the first time in a long time, we were floating. When the lights turned on over at Central, we chased them, not wanting the day to end. Conversation flowed more freely and, as we polished off a parking-lot baguette, an overwhelming wave of gratitude swept over us. After all, to do what you love is cathartic, but to rediscover it—that’s a different drug entirely. On cue, a text from Seattle popped up on my phone. “How is it up there?” “It’s good to be back,” I replied, picking up my skis and heading into the storm. 026 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 15, Issue 1: Page 26
