AdventuresNW
Ah, weekends: all hopes for outdoor activities focused on two rather brief days, followed by a seemingly endless five-day commitment to work, errands, responsibilities, and sensible bedtimes.
The day’s forecast looked unpromising, but I had to work the following day. My options were stark: sit around at home and continue to monitor my increasing girth….or ski. I chose to ski. I could always resume girth-monitoring duties some other day.
The clatter of graupel hitting my hood at 60+ MPH made it hard to concentrate
I arrived at the Mt. Baker Ski Area just in time for my customary crack-of-noon start. For some reason, people were leaving in droves as I arrived. I found a good parking space, stepped outside, and got knocked to my knees by the wind. Hmmm. I managed to get geared up while cowering behind my van. The snowflakes felt sharp, as if capable of leaving little puncture wounds where they struck.
Suitably attired, I stepped from my shelter and headed into the maw of the tempest: steady snowfall, shrieking winds, poor visibility, and thoroughly scoured snow surfaces. I wondered where all the snow ended up if not on any of the aspects I skied? The clatter of graupel hitting my hood at 60+ MPH made it hard to concentrate, but there wasn’t much to concentrate on––just one foot in front of the other, with a wide stance and a low center of gravity helping to keep me upright.
I headed for Swift Creek Trees, a famous refuge in times of bad visibility, high avalanche danger, and wind. Those winds, which elsewhere seemed approximately from the west and north, were here, blasting straight up the drainage from the east. I dropped in anyway, thinking they’d surely dissipate below the crest.
Uh, no. I headed straight down the fall line on the steepest slope I could find, but found it difficult to maintain forward momentum against the wind pressure on my chest. I fought my way through the trees into the open avalanche runouts beyond to switch back to uphill mode, more afraid of falling trees than of avalanches. I carefully felt my way uphill, the wind now at my back, making this easier than expected, then down through the deserted ski area to my car, and called it a day.
Downhill traffic on the Mt. Baker Highway was ridiculously slow, almost congealed; perhaps other drivers took the hint from two vehicles which had slid out on curves, ending precariously perched at the tops of steep drop-offs. There were many, many police wearing various styles of hats, tending to, one can only assume, patrons of the beer garden and other ski area festivities.
I stopped shivering somewhere in the neighborhood of Deming. Once home, I checked the Northwest Avalanche Center’s telemetry reports, which indicated winds blowing locally from almost all points of the compass at a steady 50-60 MPH with higher gusts. There was also, apparently, a foot of fresh snow, although I couldn’t find it. Where did all that snow end up?
By dinnertime, the sense memories of howling winds, stinging graupel, obscured vision, and uncertain balance began to fade, and I began to regret not taking another lap, or maybe caging a ride on the ski area lifts. I thought to myself about the people who write books about this sort of thing–the cognitive distortions, the twisting of facts into self-serving narrative arcs, the heroic journeys into places of transformation, at which point I fell fast asleep, my dreams propelling me through the workday morass ahead into distant weekends beyond.
Mark Harfenist finally left New England in his forties and has lived in Bellingham ever since. Among other key pursuits postponed until age forty or beyond: kayaking, skiing, climbing, world travel, mountain biking, college, joint replacement surgeries, and, to an extent, stability. Mark always enjoys a good frolic with the written word.
