Beyond Fear Gear

By By B. Frank

This is not a guidebook. You will find no maps, difficulty ratings, required gear‚ lists, or other confusions masquerading as advice by reading further.

This is not rated one to ten on a favorite adventure list. If you have a GPS/satellite-uplinked/rescue beacon phone w/4-on-the-floor direction detection, leave it at home so you don’t get lost. Use your head, not fear gear tonight. The important stuff will fit in a small pack, like an apple or banana and some crunchy quick nutrition like nuts or jerky. Toss in a scientifically balanced energy bar if you must.

Some concentrated heat (say rum or JB), if you like. A little weed, if you dare. Neither of the last two are required, and should be used judiciously, if at all, so you don’t get lost in the drifts you will ski through. Dress warmly, in layers. You are your own responsibility on this trip. If you take an avalanche shovel, make it a steel one, because the plastic ones may break, leaving your companion buried while you curse the makers. Make sure your tools work and are necessary, or leave them in the toy box. You’ll want some water (wrapped to keep it from freezing) or a thermos of hot tea (despite the extra weight) to keep yourself hydrated.

You will strap on a pair of skinny skis, free at the heel, when you leave the lights of the sleeping town behind. You will steer with your feet, kicking and gliding (the skating technique is useless in the untracked snow you will enter), while your eyes adjust to the white and black shadows. The moon will hide, and then seek you from above scattered clouds. After awhile, the comedy of ego-stroking thrill chasers you’ve babysat all week will fall away, leaving only the limitless winter night you’ve dreamed of through another mountain summer. Descend to the flats below, avoiding that too-steep-for-snow-conditions slope the tourists always want so badly to test. That’s why they need to wear the avalanche beacons and travel in packs, remind yourself. A moonlit meadow will startle you with its field of diamond (no, make that shattered star) points glinting bright enough to hurt your dilated eyes. Don’t look away; this is why you came here.

Crossing the meadow, look for fresh tracks on the snow, of other night creatures. Follow them. Look back every now and then, to see your own mark. Remember, you must find your own way out, since you left technological crutches behind. Re-orient yourself often enough to know where you are. Remember that (in the immortal words of the country song), “No matter where you go, there you are.” If that is Zen, so be it, and let it go. Concentrate on the kick and glide.

Be glad the snow has a crust, and listen to the faint “whump” from inside the snow, which indicates you were right in avoiding that slope. Feel yourself lift off the surface with each transition of weight from one leg to the other, barely touching down with each push.

Your poles touch the snow like fingertips brushing your beloved’s body. Breathe deeply; you will never be more alive.

Finally, stop and be still as long as you dare. Ingest a substance if you wish, or not. Remember, this is your life and the puritanical rules you submit to Back There do not apply Out Here. Hum a few bars of a corny or profound song that won’t go away (like Rocky Mountain High, or anything by Marley), so long as it makes you feel good. Sing it out loud, if you like.

There is no one here to be offended. Drop your pants, or whip out your member, and make your sign in the snow. Some of the other forest animals will want to know more about you when they pass. It’s likely you are cold by now, so start moving.

Eventually turn around (you must at some point turn around), backtracking yourself while reliving (already) the memory of tonight. It’s always this way when you do these things. You must immediately share the memories, even if only with yourself. Don’t try to stop the flood of thoughts now, because this is good practice for the future. Don’t expect others to share your enthusiasm when you talk about this night. If they listen, fine. If they tell their own stories, try to listen with at least feigned interest, for they are in practice for their own futures of sorting and re-sorting memories too.

Congratulate them on stepping away from fear and protection devices for at least a short time, and encourage them to do it again, even if it kills them.

Pat yourself on the back too, because you are a member of the tiny group of people who have been wild for even a few moments.

Now the thoughts will be getting cold, with the moon arcing lower, and a breeze springing up into your face. You will feel lost even while following your own back trail. Your breath will be freezing on your lashes, eyebrows and beard (if you’re lucky enough to have one to keep the sub-zero air from your face). You will question any selection process that eliminated body hair at this point. You’ll envy bears, and wish for a layer of blubber for insulation. Fantasies of hot coffee or chocolate will invade, to mess up your stroke and turn your muscles to molasses. You will envision shirtless spring runs down sun-drenched slopes, and the naked skiing contests the ski area outlawed in the interest of propriety just a few seasons ago. You may dream (real enough to confound the brain) of lying back in summer’s heat now, so down some of that water or the still-warm tea (if you brought it) and energy food, and start moving again.

Watch for signs of hypothermia. Work your body back to warmth. Do not sit down and dream, do NOT finish off that JB, just yet. You are responsible for yourself, since you left no instructions for a search and rescue team to follow. Don’t fail yourself now.

While re-crossing the meadow you marked in passing (dark now in the falling moon’s shadows), you will see a shape. The shape will glide down the slope and across the meadow, graceful in a way you might envy.

You’ll stop, undecided whether to turn aside, or say hello in passing. Then, recognizing the shape, you will stride forward, eagerness lending grace to your own movements. The two of you will meet in the middle of the meadow, pat each other on jacketed shoulders, and embrace. The sharp crackle of frozen wonder fabrics will be all that separates the warmth of your bodies and thoughts. It is a friend, the one who finds you when most needed, who counts on you to do the same. He (or she) will have skied your trail on a hunch, after dropping by your place to find it empty.

You will stand together admiring shattered star-points on the moonlit slope, and then ski back to town together, wordless in the waning night. You and this friend will not have shared a bit of common history before each of you retreated to this ski town hideout, and you will drift apart in future years, though neither suspects it now. Seasons will pass without a communication, and the details of each other’s faces will fade from memory. If you meet decades from now, the friendship may (or may not) rekindle itself.

What will remain is this common moment, one that keeps dreamers and wanderers warm in their old age. The promise of one of these moments will fill the next generation’s Aspen‚ Sun Valley, Telluride, etc. (fill in the name of your favorite lost and lamented ski town here) with bums and drop-outs enough to serve all the money-dropping tourons the ski corporations can lure in. Twenty, thirty, forty years from now, you may be too used up by life to leave fear at the town’s edge, but you will be able to turn aside from the latest technology for a while, and quietly re-live this one night. Tell your story to anyone who can hear you then, to make sure that the young will know what is still out there in the moon’s shadow, beyond guidebooks and fear gear, for each of them to take in his or her own stride.



Frequent contributor B. Frank has not recently been recruited to work as a PR person for the ski industry, though it’s our guess he would take the gig if offered. He lives in Southwest Colorado.