My Two Writing Teachers colleagues and I are hosting the 14th Annual March Slice of Life Story Challenge, in which teachers from around the world participate in posting a story per day.
Grey clouds rolled in the wind above us, as we trudged along on backcountry skis, across the mix of ice and drifted snow. I pulled my face mask over my nose to protect it from the -8F chill, but quickly pulled it back down once the climb had my heart rate pumping and it was too hard to breath through the mask.
Brinton, with his long legs, walked along casually. One step for him, for every two steps for me. But he needed to keep moving in the extreme cold, so he soon was far ahead of me on the trail disappearing around a corner.
Near the top, we ducked under a rope marking the resort boundary and into some trees, hoping the snow would be better protected from the wind. We made our way through a tight traverse, surrounded by pine boughs. The ice below our feet was covered with deep drifts of wind-affected snow.
We switched our equipment over as quickly as possible. In place of my lighter layers for hiking, I put on my warmer down jacket, my helmet, and my mittens. Shivering, I buckled up my ski boots, tore the climbing skins from the bottom of my skis, and switched my bindings over to ski mode.
Every turn was a challenge. We call affectionately it “survival skiing” when the conditions are so challenging that everything you know about “good skiing” goes out the window. The drifted powder looked exactly the same as the white ice. I would point my skis through the tight trees toward deep fluffy snow, only to discover the snow was hard as a rock. Brinton and I tossed ourselves through the icy and heavy snow, making our way through the woods a few cautious turns at a time.
When we popped out of the woods onto the snow-covered road we were both exhausted.
“Welp, that was interesting!” we both said.
“Yeah. My legs are toast.”
“Those ice bumps were nasty.”
“The snow was so heavy.”
Then, after a long pause, we looked at each other, a grin spreading across Brinton’s face. “Wanna do it again?”