There
is a clarity to the mountain air. You can feel it, the purity, palpably as Highway
#3 rises out of the foothills (a place with its own romanticized ethos) into
the Crowsnest. The horrible majesty of the Frank Slide, lunar still in the
scope of its desolation, even after more than a century, adds to the drama of
the drive; you know that now you are there, in a place where the Mother still
dictates her will on her children. Humbling, and pure, we ant-like sapiens
insignificant against the sheer backdrop of the earth thrust heavenwards.
The
Eagle joins the Elk, and the highway follows this confluence into the valley.
Fernie is ahead of us, we leave everything else behind. The sky closes in,
lowers itself onto us. The mountains become lost in thick woollen skies. Fernie
is not so much cloud-shouldered, as cloud enveloped. The snow itself is heavy
and plentiful.
A local
on the lift is gnashing in anticipation. “First tracks, brah! Two feet last
night, the pow is gonna be gnar!” He is a coal miner, just coming off of a
night shift. But sleep can wait. He, and most of this blue collar place, keeps
to a simple rule; more than 20cm of snow, and making fresh tracks in the powder
trumps all other earthly concerns. He heads off, boot packing to higher ground
not accessible by the chair. The descent from his new perch is severe. “Shred
the gnar, brah!” he calls back with a wave.
Avalanche
control is serious business in the mountains. Detonations are a common start to
the day. Some of the booms are felt, chest deep resonances, as opposed to heard.
At different times, powder bowls are closed, and the explosions ensue. The
knack is, to time your chair so that when the ropes are lifted, you are one of
the first to track up the virgin snow.
We
follow her out across the wide open top of Currie Bowl. Can’t see much, it is
snowing like a bastard, flakes as thick as dander from Satan’s own hounds.
Thoughtfully placed stakes mark otherwise invisible drop offs. We avoid most of
them; my powdered beard proves I didn’t avoid all of them. Leading us out onto
the high shouldered ridge between Currie and the Lizard takes coaxing. The snow
and wind howl, and this ridge, a narrow band of trail known as the Sky Dive
Traverse, is serious terrain. A false step or glide, and it is a long way down
a steep mountain. Fear, usually an unknown, rages. We pass High Saddle, where
she yells back “Don’t follow me! Cliff!” Like goats we scrabble down to an
alternate route, and see from the saddle the naked immensity of rock that she
had seen just in time.
The
Saddle passes, snow at its apex waist deep. The wind pushes us now, and at last
we say, “We need to get off this ridge,” acknowledging the fear.
We do
not know much about Zen, more familiar with its empty, modern commercial
incarnation, than with its ancient roots. But we understand it as this, as the
connection of all things, the oneness of the all. Perhaps that is a bastardization,
but it’s the best we can do for now. And we feel it, setting our ski’s downhill
somewhere between Tom’s Run and Sky Dive. The waist deep snow, the heaving
turns, ski’s buried in powder. Trees looming out of the snowy gloaming; the
turns, both graced and graceless. The descent, a canted 37 degrees according to
one skier’s app. Breathless anticipation, exhilaration, clarity in the mountain
air.
Shred
the Gnar, Brah.
