Chapter 32: The Rockies roadtrip – An exercise in weightlessness

Saturday was our skiing day. We woke up to a drizzling slowfall, and as the day progressed, the snow never really stopped falling, it only took slight brakes to catch its breath.

At Marmot Basin, they only have six lifts, which I thought sounded really little, but once you got to the top of the mountain, there were so many slopes to choose from that we wouldn’t’ve had gone down the same slope twice if we didn’t want to. The snowing made it hard to see, sometimes, but with my Bolivian sunglasses I did just fine. And since the temperature never got below zero, not atleast down at the base station, my makeshift skiing clothes never presented any trouble either. My riding jacket and rain pants, with the fleece and longjohns underneath, were more than enough. That I looked like a real amateur didn’t matter – fashion has never been my strong suit anyway.

I had forgotten how fun it is to ski. Between the ages of nine and fifteen I went skiing with my dad for a week or so every year, but if my memory serves me correctly, the last time I went skiing after that was the first year of high school, when our whole year went to a place called Romme Alpin for a day. I was seventeen then. What I remember from that trip is winning a race against two guys in my class who supposedly were quite good skiers. That doesn’t mean that I’m any good, I only like going recklessly fast. And that was something that I did this my one day of skiing in the Canadian Rockies aswell.

The black slopes were kind of tricky, especially up at the top, due to the abundance of snow combined with all the not very skilled snowboarders. By noon, the slopes were full of snow heaps that one had to maneuver around in order not to get stuck. Those slopes needed more tecnique and didn’t allow that much speed. But with only two hours left before the lifts would close, we found this section of a very mixed slope that was just perfect, not too snowy, kind of hidden and in one particular part really steep. And before the steep part, there was this kind of edge that, if you approached it with enough speed, would give you a natural jump before landing in the beginning of the really steep section.

Oh, how I enjoyed that particular slope. I just ran straight down, only turning a little so that I wouldn’t lose control completely. I had been skiing with Frida and Marit all day, but now I couldn’t control myself anymore, I wanted the speed and the adrenaline – and as the more mature, not as reckless skiers that they are, Frida and Marit couldn’t keep up with me. So the last hour of my day of skiing in the Rockies, I spent going up a lift called Eagle Express and down a slope called the Dromedary, getting the feeling of weightlessness every time I reached the steepest part. It was not as good as the perfect jump over a high fence with a good horse, but almost. It’s the tingling in the pit of my stomach, the same feeling that I got while biking down the world’s deadliest road in Bolivia. It’s the rush of life, the kind of high that lasts so much longer than anything artificially created.

But the slope ended too quickly and the lifts eventually closed and by quater past four I had found my way back to the car. And the minute I sat down, I felt just how tired I was, just how much I had asked of my muscles that day and that they now required rest in return. I was utterly content and happy.

But now that I’ve been reminded, I won’t allow myself to forget the thrill of skiing. I will not let seven years pass before I put on a pair of skis again. I will need company in the slopes next winter. Just putting it out there. You have almost a year to decide if you dare to race me in the Swedish mountain range when the snow returns.