The anticipation is no longer killing me. It’s animating me.
Everyone with a calendar knows that December marks the coming of Christmas and the impending arrival of another year, but right now the onset of the holiday season is running a distant second to the arrival of the ski season in my world. One offers hope; the other offers purpose.
Of course, that has almost everything to do with the fresh snow that began falling from the heavens soon after the long Thanksgiving weekend. Just as you can’t force peace on earth and goodwill toward men, you can’t coerce ski season. It comes when it wants, how it wants.
Yet, on its eve we still find ourselves brimming with eagerness and expectations, some to the point of sleeping in parking lots for the opportunity to be the first to slip down a lift-served slope. Others of us wait it out as patiently as possible, seeking distractions wherever they lie, in an effort to stave off the dreams of winter’s bounty.
It would seem impossible for the reality of any Colorado winter to live up to the idyllic images dancing in my head beforehand, not of sugar plums so much as sugar snow, or better still, sweet champagne, light and dry to celebrate the times and traditions. So when bursts of winter such as we’ve seen for the past week actually manage to bring the dreams to life, it always comes as a surprise.
I’m reminded of the advent calendars that make their annual appearance in December, every day a window to a new treat eagerly awaited yet unannounced. The day’s surprise may arrive in the form of fresh snow or simply a blast of crisp arctic air. You might wake to find a new slope opened at your favorite resort as ropes are dropped and dormant lifts revived. Some days the window is opened to reveal a spectacular view you never noticed previously, or one you may have missed since the snow melted last spring.
The treats are many and various this time of year, coming in the form of sunshine and storm clouds, artistic light and long winter shadows. Icicles form above frosted lodge windowpanes while moguls shape and shift under new skis and snowboards on the slopes. The smell of cold mingles with hot coffee and a warm fire, perhaps even a dash of schnapps to dull aches and pains in newly awakened muscles.
We listen for news on who won the ski races and who has the deepest bases. The halfpipe opens at Copper, the terrain park at Keystone, the Back Bowls at Vail and the gondola at Aspen. Every day offers another gift, as if it’s almost Christmas.
But just as every religion recognizes its own set of holy days, the observance of snow-country traditions doesn’t necessarily resonate with those outside our environment. Just like some Coloradans might not understand the East Coast infatuation with the dawning of a new college basketball season or the appeal of a stock car race in the South, the notion of strapping on sticks to schuss down tall peaks in winter can seem a little far-fetched to folks who have never known the scintillating sensation of snow sliding underfoot.
And for many, it always will.
Yet it’s the mystery of the mountains and – more specifically – mountain winter that holds the greatest allure to those of us who worship at the ski season altar. Now is when the season holds the most promise. And the opportunity to give it purpose. You never know what the day may bring until it comes.
Staff writer Scott Willoughbycan be reached at 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
