Featured Article
(written February 3rd, 2019 in Couer d’Alene, Idaho)
Sanity?
When there’s powder around?
No thank you.
Apparently, I prefer running around like a lunatic.
Running, chasing, rolling in powder like a blind hog.Â
When it all goes to plan, I bath in bliss.
When it goes wrong, I can have blood on my hands.
Yesterday, I was standing at a helipad on Rogers Pass, BC after 7 days of powder, faceshots, high alpine terrain, and some of the most gorgeous pillow lines I’ve ever skied.
I should have been satisfied.
I should have been at ease.
But no.
I was amping.
I wanted more.
I wanted blood.
I checked my phone for the first time in 8 days and saw that a monster storm was coming to Tahoe, the likes of which I hadn’t seen since 2011.
I dug my car out from under 2-feet of snow, canceled my plans for a week in Revelstoke, and hit the road at full speed to Lake Tahoe, California.
I was tearing up the road.
I wanted blood.
Just across the US/Canadian border, I got blood.
10 miles into Idaho a big, beautiful, bristling coyote roared across the road at full speed – at full health.
I know not to swerve but I did anyway.
It didn’t matter.
I hit the puffed-up ‘yote at 65mph with the curled teeth of my grill.
The back wheels jumped.
The double impact echoed in my head, in my soul.
My heart sank to the floorboards.
I turned my radio off, looked around, felt the night sink into me.
I felt the road.
I felt the guilt squeezing my chest cavity.
He was gorgeous – in his prime of life – able to run at incredible speed.
I took all that away from him.
I didn’t want to.
The road swayed.
My emotions swerved.
My feet grew cold.
The car’s temperature climbed.
I drifted back into reality and pulled over.
My broken radiator spattered coolant in puddles on the pavement.
I drove on.
Cell service, phone call, tow truck.
Couer d’Alene, Idaho for 36 hours…
Super Bowl Sunday alone.
Stagnation.
Devastated that I’ll miss Monday’s storm in Tahoe.
Melancholy that I killed such a beautiful animal.
Realistic that my plight is of little importance nor impact.
Perspective is everything.
Powder.
Sanity?
No thank you.
Please slow down everyone! The speed limit is just that . Please drive with more compassion for others. Speeding will lead to an accident and then all the time you ever have saved will be void and it will cost you, and maybe someone’s life.