by P. Clifford

Created on: March 26, 2009

Asking why a skier prefers powder to packed snow is a bit like asking a stuntman why he prefers landing on a giant pile of cardboard boxes to a slab of concrete. It really is not one of the great mysteries of the universe.

I have known snowboarders who say they would take a waist deep day in Vail's back bowls over an opportunity to indulge their most lecherous desires with the partner of their choice. I am sure if a neurologist recorded the patterns in a skier's brain as she hucked herself off a 20 foot cliff the little patterns on the screen would not be too different from those recorded during a sexual experience.

Having offended you with that thought, let me recount a short tale of glory, powder and a man I will call Travis. Sure Travis isn't the type of guy who you would be expecting to author a graduate study on tunneling electron microscopy, but I'll be damned if he isn't one hell of a skier. We were sitting above a cat walk' looking into a sea of waist deep powder and trees. Below the cat walk' was a dense little grove of evergreens. Travis estimated he could clear some of the smaller trees just below the road and land in an inviting patch of powder after a good forty or fifty feet of air travel. This seemed unlikely to me, but I wasn't going to question his judgment.

Travis couldn't quite get up the head of steam he wanted because of the suffocating depth of the powder, but he got going pretty good before he hit the groomed road. On the far side of the cat walk', the ground dropped away and Travis took flight. In midflight, he caught his skis on the tip of one of the evergreens and turned in the air. He managed to travel the forty or fifty feet, but ended up landing on his head.

When it has been sunny for four weeks and hasn't snowed much, the skiers, sun and wind sculpt the entire hill into what is known as a Beverly Hill's Wife' or an unforgiving slab of ice. Can you imagine Travis landing on that beast? Even with his substance-altered reasoning abilities, Travis would know better than to attempt his trick in those conditions. On one hand, he might be able to attain the necessary speeds to clear the trees. On the other, he might make the grove of trees just beyond his landing area. Despite landing on his head in the powder, Travis walked away from his landing without any immediately apparent alterations to his physical or mental capabilities.

Sure, half pipes and big air jumps don't lend themselves to powder because they require speed, but when it comes to creating a feeling of carefree freedom and an easy floating, nothing can compare to the feeling generated by skiing powder on intensely steep terrain.

Oh, and by the way, bring fat skis. You need the increased surface area to generate lift. You should also stay in bounds because avalanches love powder too. One other thing, if you fall don't do it into a tree well those things are like roach motels.

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