100" in 7 days........ BOOM!!! Face Shot.

Dear Reader, I feel like I’m floating, riding a cloud built for me exclusively. What? “Your ticket gets you a free beer at The Firehouse.” Cory and I share a moment, “Yes, it actually does get better. Holy shit…” but of course this is exchanged with glances only. Cory’s on the wagon, because he essentially lost a bet. Cory continues to out-hike me and out-ride me, but I am keeping up decently for a white-man. Face shot, after face shot, after face shot, the snow keeps dropping. Getting deeper and deeper — yet this is an illusion. In reality more and more people are losing their strength to ride such consistently dick-deep pow. Yes it’s still snowing, but it’s not getting tracked out due to the powder claiming victim after cardio-less victim. The crowd was a conglomeration of powder hounds from New Mexico, Calgary, Colorado, East Coast and West Coast. Some slept in their cars. Some slept with strangers. Some smelled as though they’d slept with animals —but I will leave that for the reader to discern. In two days at Wolf Creek, we got 30-40 inches of snow - a storm that trickled off to pound Monarch (day 3) among other resorts. Old Men everywhere who have been advising young men, are correct today: “Be patient, the snow will come…” Day one: Six inches of fresh that turns into 12-18 at Wolf Creek. We are hungry for pow, in a pow-less season. We are ready to shred, or so we think. I (as always) am the noob following the more experienced snowboarder, Cory. We hike Alberta ridge a few times and get knee-waist deep turns. We shoot the trees and it’s just as good. Cory proposes “a short hike, about 45 minutes” and I veto the plan, seeing that it will take considerably longer for my feet to make it to aforementioned destination point (45 minutes). We shred another line, and another, and another. It’s springy fly-off-of snow, with superman snow bluffs below to catch your inevitable crash. Hunter S. Thompson once described Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas as “Falling down an elevator shaft and landing in a sea of mermaids.” He didn’t know he was describing the most pristine powder day nature can afford, but we do.

Words - Thomas Rain

Boom!!! Face Shot. from Cory Arola on Vimeo.