Nothing says "good morning" like the sound of explosives, resounding through the mountains. A low rumble that ripples through the quiet monoculture forest. They're setting off avalanches again. A mere formality; a cautionary measure to keep catastrophic news from circulating. It's been snowing for five days straight. The sun hasn't made an appearance in days. 25, 50, 65, 75 cm of progressively fluffier snow has accumulated on top of the existing, mid-winter foundation and there is still no sign that the precipitations are abetting.
A chiseled, youthful American is grilling his fellow rider: "What's a metre, anyway?" And, after a brief pause: "I'm sick of the Canadian metric system: I never know what's what." 'Neither do I!' I feel like shouting, as they absorb me into their party, on our way to the front of the line. The mere thought feels liberating: as if I'd been holding it back, for a really, really long time. We plunder forward, a trio of athletic figurines scooting forward like base-mounted G.I. Joes.
A foot is a foot and an inch is the length of the pad of my thumb and everyone knows what an ounce is. Our neighbors at the lodge were up drinking all night, again. They haven't been seen or heard from as of 3AM. In these parts, peace is only to be got when one's eclectic bedfellows are weighed into submission by the uncompromising urge to sleep. I ordered my coffee in the village as a four-ounce pour: a testament to how bad it tastes. Even then, I couldn't finish it. But I couldn't leave it either. People can get pretty raw over these sorts of things. Even if it's evident that they're product is as stale as three-weeks-old baguette. I wouldn't touch the stuff if it weren't for the need to dial my brain into Continuous High Speed mode to handle the summit.
The peak has been closed for four days, due, in effect, to the extreme avalanche danger warning. We went as high as we could, then secured out gear. Remember not to sit. I leaned back on my elbows, sunk into the snow. Getting up is hit-or-miss, most times too much of a struggle. A grom in a camouflage jacket got lost halfway down, at daybreak, and ended up riding right up to someone's bedroom window. A quiet mountain cottage, it was: dissimulated behind the curtain of a checkerboard distribution of pines. Time stood still as the young man caught the eyes of the snoozing couple, startled awake; as they gaped at one another.
The lost boarder's mom - a woman with the rosy complexion of an ice pond skater and the athletic body of a 40-year-old misanthrope living off the grid - thought it was all pretty amusing. She laughed without reserve as he related the story, and the inflection of her voice chimed: here is a woman who is truly free. During the brief, late morning moment of respite that we shared, we were at once old family friends and, simultaneously, complete strangers. They spoke freely before me, at times discussing amongst themselves as if I weren't there. An uncommon, warmhearted connectedness that was born out of our inescapable proximity: I could be nowhere else but there.
There were times when I felt like hell would freeze over before a heated cabin would come into view. Then there were times when I wished the tiny ants down below would disown their fate and decline from turning into people as they grow closer and closer. There were times when I couldn't haul ass out of the cold fast enough, juxtaposed on the times when I'd wish that the Base camp would just disappear and never come into view.
There was the time when I ended up Where I Didn't Want to Go and a giant bird vultured around me in circles, clucking like a wild turkey. There was the time when I got so disoriented from the flat light and the blinding snow and the complete absence of colour that I wound up in a valley with no momentum and sunk thigh deep in snow and couldn't move. With nothing but my hands to dig myself out, I waded through the abominable land of the yeti to get back onto the flat-topped freeway. There was the time when every time I stopped, someone close-by would stop. Every time I started, someone would materialize out of nowhere and take over my space. Combined with the otherwise static landscape, it made me wonder if life was anything more than a video game: sophisticated, yet visibly flawed when you start to really See; when you start to wander into the nooks and crannies. There was the time when I sat atop a steep dip like a little monk and melted into the face of the mountain, which was melded to the sky, which was one with the clouds, which were all full of snow. I thought of Jerry Seinfeld, and transcendental meditation, and everything made sense as it was. There was the time when a tectonic sheet of snow tore off the ground as the capped edge of my board sliced into it, and it went careening away from me like a landslide. The thoughts of careening downhill, blind and without anchor, chased by an unstoppable torrent of snow, commandeered my thoughts like a premonition. The sheer velocity of the idea made me feel as if I had experience this Holy Rapture in a parallel space and time. Without knowing how many tones of snow could be pried off peak, I felt that I knew how it would weight on my body if I were to tango with its downward spin cycle. I'm not a very morbid person, having embraced impermanence as a permanent state of flux. I did, however, conclude that I'd rather curl up in the nest of crystalline snow below a firmly planted fir tree and slowly fade into incoherence, followed by oblivion, rather than fight to breathe if oxygen were to be taken away from me. Violent mishaps, I feel, seem to defy the gentle waning of memory as time marches on.
If I find myself staring into a bowl of raw breakfast oats one more time, I'm going to fast. The thought: fruit; dried foods; enriched foods; nutrient-free meals prepared by others make me mentally and physically buckle. Also: I'm sick of being so goddamn tired.
A couple of lodgers whose stay has just expired are taking swings at their sports utility vehicle's wheels. The underside of their tires has congealed into the frozen lot's surface, and they are trying to pry their ride loose with the business end of a shovel. Chack! Chack! Chack! The thin edge of plastic is not breaking through the invisible layer that has sealed their wheels and their fate to the spot. That's what Suspense sounds like: the sound of a fine mystery novel in the making.
Yesterday, the lowest layer of cloud parted for a brief moment, letting a bit of daylight invade our afternoon: the only reassurance, in this unassumed land, that the sun hasn't fully extinguished itself. I proceeded up the face of the mountain, all the way to the very top. A 7,051ft altitude. I strapped my feet to my board and took the plunge headlong over the lip of the steep incline that flows into Cedar bowl. With the snow blowing in my face, and the lighting as flat as a primed canvas, I tried to keep track of sensations like 'up', 'down', and 'sideways'. With the snow under me constantly rearranging itself, shifting even before it became my wake, I shed all pretenses of control; all absurd posturing; all illusions of laying a foundation for The Future. Time ahead is always headed for the hills, always disappearing into the next sunset.
