There鈥檚 no other way to put it: My skier friends and I are hedonists. We chase the pleasures听of a 100-day ski season, cold snow splashing in our faces as we make turns in deep powder. We stay up late dancing, eat fondue and sip a cold beer on a sundeck under an azure sky. We minimize discomfort by shelling out beaucoup bucks for absurdly expensive outerwear and spend hours in a ski shop tweaking our plastic foot-coffins.
Despite this dogged commitment to skiing, I’ve recently made a compromise, to preserve my sanity while chasing snow 12 months a year, to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, I will no longer wake up at the crack of dawn on powder days to chase bottomless turns alongside the early-risers.
I know. I know. That鈥檚 what it鈥檚 all about鈥攖here鈥檚 an early morning ritual that skiers hold sacred. Rise early, brew coffee or grab a cup and a breakfast burrito at the local cafe, boot up in the lot well before the bullwheel spins, and snag first chair and an untracked run.
For dedicated skiers, that experience is universal. But I鈥檓 over it. My old early morning routine will give you a clue as to why.
It went something like this: I’d wake up bleary-eyed (I have never been a morning person) at 6 A.M. Fumble upstairs and realize the temperature of my living room has dropped to 48 degrees Fahrenheit.听
After an arduous experience shoveling and loading the car, I would drive to the mountain. Rubbing a slim circle in the fog on my windshield so I could see if I was still on the road, I would hit traffic. Some crossover driver who thought all-wheel drive is the same thing as having snow tires spun off the road and stalled the creeping line of also ill-equipped cars to a standstill.
By the time I make it to the resort, boot up, and get in the lift line, I can see nothing but ski tracks on every bit of choice terrain on the hill.
It’s just not worth it. I鈥檓 done waking up early for pow days.
If you鈥檝e read this far, you鈥檙e probably thinking, 鈥淒oes this guy even like skiing?鈥 No. To be clear:听I love skiing. I eat, sleep, and breathe skiing. I’ve built my life around it to the point where I live 20 minutes from the resort, an incredible privilege that has ravaged my savings account to its core. In fact, I’m so obsessed with the sport that I couldn鈥檛 care less what kind of snow conditions I ski. Skied up chop is just as fun to me as deep powder, so I鈥檒l be as happy showing up at noon on a powder day, just as the early birds are starting to leave from their primo parking spots.
I鈥檒l spend the afternoon hours popping off soft moguls, finding air anywhere and everywhere. I鈥檒l hunt for stashes of snow that the wind has picked up and recirculated. I鈥檒l lap the chair that crowds have abandoned, thinking it鈥檚 all been skied out and laugh as I find pockets of pow and ski right back onto an empty chair lift.
I鈥檓 a backcountry skier too, and I live among a range that is more than 200 miles long and populated by fewer than 15,000 people. So don鈥檛 worry. I still ski powder. But to me, that鈥檚 no longer what resort skiing is for. It鈥檚 for hot laps with your friends and not stressing over morning lines, car accidents, traffic, or powder panic.
This weekend it鈥檚 going to snow another foot and a half, and you can find me lapping Mammoth Mountain鈥檚 Chair 22, the best chairlift on earth, from 2-4 P.M. Because I鈥檓 a hedonist, and I鈥檒l be having more fun than anyone else on the mountain.
Jake Stern is a digital editor at听国产吃瓜黑料. He spends the winter months skiing as much as humanly possible. He just needs his beauty rest.
