I will never forget my first true powder experience.
If you have skied deep powder before, you know the kind of powder I am talking about. The champagne powder you can put into your hand and blow it off with ease, no matter the amount. The kind that when you ski or board through rushes by your clothing with that brisk flowing sound as it washes into your face making it difficult to see. The kind that lets you point the skis steeper down the fall line, or lets you actually jump that first cliff with no fear. The kind that literally floats you from edge-to-edge. The kind of powder that you wish of every single morning you wake to go skiing. That's the powder I am talking about.
When I first started skiing, more times than not, the norm was ice conditions. We would call that hard packed. I thought is was normal to hear a constant deafening sound of ice beneath my skis. I would seek out the sides of runs to find whatever snow may have been pushed off to the outskirts. That constant noise would quiet at times, but it seemed I could never fully escape it.
I was in Vail, Colorado it was the first run of the day and I headed to Riva Ridge. For me it's one of those runs that offers it all, some steeper sections, black and blue, long, wide open and groomed off and on offering some pretty great terrain. The snow was coming down like I had never seen before, to the point you could not see the chair on the lift in front of you. It was right at the Prima, Riva Ridge verge, that it hit me in an instant.
This is what powder skiing is all about!
Thigh high powder. Trees covered in pillows of snow. No other skiers around. Not a sound under skis, certainly no ice this time. Carving huge effortless turns. Floating from edge-to-edge. It was bliss. It was the perfect powder day.
I will never forget it.
It is the snow that I pursue to this day!