28 December 1998: End of the Road

End of the Road, geographically:

When we got back from skiing today I swore I would never leave the apartment again.

End of the Road, as an Era

The television lies along the wall to my left, so I can hear it but see only the edge of the rounded screen. Therefore, being too lazy, particularly after skiing, to get up and peer closely at this travesty, I have only my tortured ears to tell me that the commercial jingle I just heard for trash bags was derived from the Violent Femmes' "Blister in the Sun." You know I'm the one.

However it could simply be my own particular brand of madness. The dial-up of one modem sounds (to me) exactly like the opening measures of The Who's "Who Are You?"

Now the CBS news is back on, talking about methamphetamine, saying the Nazis invented it. Nazi meth? Did they invent crank? They're responsible for global warming, too. No, honestly--is this worse crank than Nice Unbigoted People's Crank? I should have listened to the whole story.

End of the Road, physically

I am going to die. This is my usual après-ski conviction. The first run of the day, especially when it's also the first one of the season as today's was, leaves my feet numb, my legs shaking, and my whole being concentrated on the fact that this is the stupidest thing anyone has ever done. I mean honestly. Skiing down a mountain to get somewhere else makes sense, particularly if you live in the Alps, but did anyone really ever deliberately climb up a mountain just to ski down it? Yes, anyone, someone, and lots of people did. Madness. Lifts do not mean people are now sane, just that the "sport" is now expensive and with greater environmental impact.

An excellent reason for me to snow-board would be the sensible shoes. Ski boots are nasty. Ever heard of the medieval torture device, "the boot"? Esmerelda got it in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (at least in a movie version I saw once--I bet she didn't get it in the Disney version). How different are ski boots than that? Not very. N.B. I hate shoes anyway. "When in doubt of your surface, bare feet* are best." Ski boots even when not attached to skis are an über-cruel means of being shod. With skis, you are lucky to escape with your life.

By the second or third run, I feel better. I have stopped in the lodge at the summit and gulped dozens of little cupsful of water, which relieves the dehydration that causes my head to ache and my legs to tremble. My feet have receded into themselves and stopped fighting the boots. If the sun is shining, that makes me smile. If snow is falling, then that's pretty too. However, wind should not gust--not when I'm on the mountain--and temperatures should hie themselves above 10 F, including wind chill. Please.

In fact, the wind today helps me formulate a new guide to skiing: if the wind is such that your braid is inadequate to insulate your head, get off the mountain or wear a hat. If you do wear a hat, do not forget that you're wearing a hat just because you never do wear a hat such that when on the lift you wish to wipe your goggles and pull them off, the hat falls into the trees below, never to be seen again. Goodbye, hat.

By the fourth run, I clench my hands in the palms of my gloves on the lift. I notice the inadequacy of ski pants and thermal underwear when the wind bites into my legs. I realize I really should have laundered my face mask, which smells pungently of last year's breath. Fifth run. I'm wobbly, my electrolytes are low. The nausea of exhaustion struggles with my major muscle groups' demand for nourishment.

Post-lunch, back to the summit. Ravens caw raucously in the subzero chill above tree-line. I listen and look: these are ravens not crows. Some day I will distinguish them by tail and not by voice. Habitat helps too: at Grand Canyon and on mountaintops, ravens; in cities: crows. But it's not an absolute.

Now I'm stronger. My muscles remember what they're about, the clear still mountain air refreshes me, the close-up beauty of snow in the trees and the long-range grandeur of the Continental Divide (when I can see it through the driving snow) remind me of skiing's little perks. Plus lunch. So I can seek out blue runs, and not just green runs with so little blue they're yellow. Why, you ask, do greens so exhaust a skier now in her sixth year? Butt out, I say. As a cornice-and-bowl expert has said of me, "It takes a lot of strength to ski the way you do." That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

But it's afternoon, and hours of skiers on powder have created moguls. Well, to me, they're moguls. To good skiers, they're mounds of powder to plow through. To me, they chart my course.

Oops. Now I'm suspended by my tips, fore and aft, between two heaps of snow. I call out to RDC, "I feel like the Edmund Fitzgerald!" but I push out before the skis snap in two, not that they would. They're bendier than a tanker ship.

RDC coaches me throughout the day. "Keep your poles forward," he reminds me. I'm meant to be learning how to plant my poles. I'm meant to be learning how to use them to balance. "How would you hold your arms if you were crossing a brook on a fallen tree?" he asks, hinting.
"Dunno how I'd hold my arms, but I'd damn well be barefoot!" I point out.

Some of the runs have names from Wonderland or through the Looking Glass. "Do you want to go down Jabberwocky or Chesire Cat?" RDC asks.
"Twas brillig!" I shout, "And the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogroves,
And the mome raths outgrabe."
Although overall I prefer Wonderland to Through the Looking Glass, I certainly prefer "The Jabberwocky" to the Chesire Cat. Besides, I know but one of Cat's lines; just one, but how appropos: We're all mad here.

Aha! say I, looking it up later. This is perfect for skiing:

"In that direction, the Cat said, waving its right paw round, "lives a Hatter; and in that direction," waving the other paw, "lives a March Hare. Visit either you like; they're both mad."
"But I don't want to go among mad people," Alice remarked.
"Oh, you can't help that," said the Cat; "we're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad."
"How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice.
"You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here."
Alice didn't think that proved it at all, but I do.

If I'd remembered more of this conversation, I might have chosen Chesire Cat instead. For me to choose a ski run based on its namesake makes about as much sense as Hostess Quickly's linguistic leap:
Boy: Yes, that 'a did, and said [women] were devils incarnate.
Hostess: 'A could never abide carnation; 'twas a color he never liked.
(Henry V, II, iii)

You can tell I'm more comfortable quoting Shakespeare than skiing. Chacun à son gout.

When we got home, RDC made coffee and we dug into the remnants of the Christmas cookies. Did you know any cookie--even those baked by Master Baker Moi--is improved with a slather of Nutella?

Okay. At this point I'm deliberating putting off the inevitable getting up, showering, and hair-washing that seem like a lot more effort than typing whatever comes to mind. I'm going. Right. Now.

And when it's sunny and maybe over 20 F and slightly more snow has fallen on the slopes, I'll want to go again. This was my first powder day ever, and oh! how much better it is than groomed styrofoam. That's what really gets me--not altitude, not my feet screaming, not snowboarders hanging out in the center of a traverse--but the squeaking of unlatched ski boots, of dry snow, of dry groomed snow. I should hire more ravens to drown out the squeaking.

* That's Duncan Idaho's advice to Paul Atreides in Dune, but applicable to everyone everywhere and everywhen.