To the top we go, my sons and I, to the Vista Haus, for coffee, juice and muffins. At near 12,000 feet, we look over the high valley to peaks marking the Continental Divide. “Hey, Dad, this is great. It’s beautiful up here, I can see everywhere,” my son declares as he quaffs breakfast. The sun is brighter than ever, set amidst perfect blue. The air is thin, making me feel like an old man, struggling to keep up with my energy-filled boys.
We push off through the crunchy snow. “Whee!” and “Whoosh!” we go, slanting down a well-named run – Psychopath, High Anxiety, or Crescendo. My boys are shredders, bashing about on snow boards, while I carve and cut powder on 15 year-old skis, still serviceable, shrieking phosphorescent orange from days long gone by.
It’s a rush! I bend and fall forward, leaning onto the tips of my skis, tossing my back and pelvis up high, shoving my knees out over the toes of my boots. A subtle nudge right, coupled with a stronger push in the knees. I rise and press down and left, and repeat. Seven or eight times, and I stop and look up the hill. Behind me lies a gentle serpent cut in the snow. My boys follow, crisscrossing my tracks. One falls, and leaves a scattered, bright angel in the snow. He pops up and quickly rides down the rest. We three gather and look up at our art. “Awesome,” says my oldest. “Yahoo! That was great,” cries the younger, huffing to recapture his breath. I am inwardly jubilant, wondering at the temporary helix of family DNA carved in the snow.
-- From a lost journal, composed in June 2003, when my boys were in middle- and high-school. Breckenridge, Colorado.
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