A Visit To Lost Winter
In Banff, the mountains are so big they could swallow Colorado.
Canada is winter’s prodigal daughter.
The pass narrows into twilight. Winter’s deep roots never died, they were just north of the border, buried on the other side of the Omega Block.
Alive snow shifts on the strange, humongous faces. Wind cries with the wolves, stiffening the pack. Sky-splitting peaks with their unfamiliar aspects pierce my heart and make me weep tears of snow.
We check into an AirBnB in Cranmore. The old cabin layered of lacquered logs sits 45 degrees to the road. The woodstove is big as a gondola but there’s no need to use it because forced air blows like a tropical wind through the house.
I find a ramen place for dinner and slot into the booths beneath murals of ski-themed manga. The broth slides steamy down my throat. A group of twenty-something ski bros crowds the booth beside us. Their hair is helmet tussled, cheeks still flush from hiking the steeps, as they breathlessly rehash the day’s lines.
Boots sink into snow
ptarmigan fading from sight—
a winter whisper .
Lake Louise has bowls that hold all of you. Bigger than your biggest Super-G turns; they make our Horseshoe Bowl look like a snack. It’s midweek, but the sun’s out and the parking’s free, so the mountain buzzes with enough energy to make it feel like February.
100% terrain open. There’s the boomerang, a groomer that rings the upper mountain and twists up along out-of-bound ribs before swooshing down toward the ridgeline’s hips.
I follow a duo of local twelve-year-olds who dart like sparrows into unmarked trees. They fly me to a rock garden where little boulders offer endless lips to launch off.
Top of the World chair whisks to a realm of rock and snow. Steeps that bind the throat are accessed by Paradise, an old triple fixed grip dangling high over a vast bowl. There’s no footrest, and the lowered bar offers a gap wide enough for a human torso to slip through.
By the third lap, I get used to the feeling of almost-falling.
At 3:25, I ride up with a guy from lift ops. The chair stops over the belly of the bowl. A tendon of rope below wriggles in the wind that wings its way into my belly. This mountain is not part of the mega corporation I belong to, but he’s dressed in black, just like our guys do.
I tell him where I come from and how shitty our season was. The chairlift ninja grins, and replies:
“We all have bad years
winter shits the bed sometimes—
it was just your turn.”