Touching zero

More thoughts from the mountain…

[Posted from Tim's blog at www.touchingzero.com]

There are days when you realise that the mountain can be a fickle mistress… days when the wind strips the snow from the hill, revealing the ice below – hard, unyielding, dangerous… where the board cannot get a grip and skitters across the ice, hard to control, as I fight to gain an edge, a purchase on the slick, unyielding surface. Where under the deceptive layer of snow can lurk a hidden danger, where control is lost and all bets are off. At any moment a smooth, gentle curve can turn into a fight to regain control, where the only option is to turn the board down the slope, ride with the hill, and respond to whatever the slope brings – where fear and exhilaration mix, and I slide across the tightrope of control, wrestling to retrieve the mastery of the edge.

And yet those same slopes, warmed gently in the sun’s heat, produce a kind, soft surface that’s easy to navigate, where the board slides gently across the surface, and I carve languorous, rhythmic, slow turns across the mountain face, where the speed increases and the board holds its line over the bumps and through the treeline. And those moments, where the board responds to the movement of hips and legs, where it responds almost to a thought, an intention, where the slightest movement will bring a new direction, where the cold air zips past my face as the board snakes its way down the mountain face, as the speed increases…yet the uncertainty of the surface still hides hidden dangers – unexpected rocks, ice, treestumps that demand total concentration and readiness to respond at a moments notice to a change in balance, a shift in weight.

At these moments, when board and rider fuse into a unit, where riding becomes instinctive and the board yields to the riders every thought, every touch – at these moments I know that to board is more than just controlling the surface, directing the momentum… at these moments rider, board and the mountain itself combine to create the experience.. and I understand a little more about this world, and my place in it, my connection to everything, the way that energy flows around me and through me… and I feel, in awe and humility, the power of what it is to be truly human, truly alive..