MOUNTAIN LIFE - Blue Mountains | Fall 2020

W hen Allison and I got the green light for this trip, I immediately joined the local gym. Two days a week became three became "ve. When the snow fell I hit the hill, re-learning the alpine turn (after a 20-year a#air with telemark). For "ve months I was on full-time prep for this "ve-day adventure, determined to absolutely grab it by the balls. Twenty years had passed since my last backcountry trip, my last big-mountain turns were 15 years ago, and had I even skied real powder in a decade? Memory foggy, I had to hope like hell for long muscle memory. A bit jet lagged and altitude-fuzzy, Allison and I emerge from our "rst gondola ride at Kicking Horse and huddle on the summit, where our guide attempts to give us the lay of the land. Dylan directs his pole this way and that, pointing out peaks, bowls, lifts and runs—none of which we can see. !e visibility is dreadful. Five feet at most. We take o$ down the cat track, snowplowing down the "rst pitch, uncertain of the steepness or even direction of the run. As I squint through the haze hoping to keep on Dylan’s tail, a woman barrels like so many freight trains through my periphery, just inches away. Hoping to pass me on the inside, she misjudges the edge of the track and launches into the bowl below, exploding into a yard sale of skis, poles and bouncing goggles. Good morning and welcome to Kicking Horse. Where there’s a 100% chance of getting your arse whooped, one way or another. !at "rst morning is a doozy. Knowing not at times if we’re headed uphill or down, alternately absorbing invisible bumps and losing our stomachs on unseen drops, I add vertigo to my laundry list of struggles, muttering expletives as I attempt to buy just one solid turn. To-die-for tru'e fries and a pint at Eagle’s Eye Restaurant—along with the brief emergence of the sun—turn the afternoon around. We tally up our top-to-bottom runs, thighs burning. After a full day on the mountain we head back to town, battered and shaken but grinning, two &atlander moms in just a bit over our heads. We drench our woes in pints at Whitetooth Brewing, carb up on tacos and margaritas at Reposados, and eventually make it back to the brewery, capping o$ the night with stellar sing-along live music. Walking back to our riverside lodge, I decide I’m pretty sold on this ski town and its unforgiving mountain. SKIER WORDS :: KRISTIN SCHNELTEN 47 KRISTIN SCHNELTEN