Harmony

For years I have tried to find a way to make peace with winter. My husband is a skier. I am not. I had always dreaded the coming of snow, then I tried snowshoeing. While I do not watch the snow forecast as eagerly and he and his downhill flying friends, I can say that I do now enjoy the occasional foray into the great white hills beyond our house.

This past weekend we rented a condo in the small town of Eden, Utah. We have gone to this particular place often because it is near the ski resort, Snowbasin. This is my husband’s favorite place to ski as well as the site of the 2002 Olympics downhill ski events. As we recently had a dump of fresh snow, the most we have received in a single week all winter, there was no shortage of friends who wanted to stay there with us and take advantage of the easy access to not only Snowbasin but Powder Mountain ski area as well.

The times we had been there before I had stayed around to condo, cooked, read, wrote and maybe explored the local area on foot, staying mostly on the roads around the village. This time I wanted more. When we arrived and checked into our unit I asked the concierge for some tips on places in the area to snowshoe. This was no small feat for an introvert like me. Asking advice from strangers seems to be one of the areas I have had the most difficulty overcoming in my life, and as a consequence I have missed out on great opportunities. She gave me excellent advice.

The next morning I watched as the others, in a flurry of activity, got ready for their ski day. As I nursed my second or maybe my third cup of coffee, one friend said to me “You look so relaxed.” I just smiled and waved goodbye as they clunked down the stairs in their stiff-ankled ski boots, and climbed into the car. Half an hour later I was driving off alone to find the first area I wanted to check out.

This was a place called North Fork Park. She had directed me to the north gate and I found the parking area easily, however finding the trailhead from there took a bit more sleuthing. I had to wait until someone else arrived, parked their car and watched where they went, luckily this person arrived only a few short minutes after me. The area was mostly groomed for cross country skiing, so I walked along the edge of the path until I came to snowshoe tracks leading off into the trees. Being alone in an unfamiliar spot, I find it is always best to follow someone else’s tracks. After walking through the trees for only a short quarter of a mile, I came out onto the groomed trails once again. When snowshoeing I would much rather walk through unpacked snow than on a groomed trail, even when following others you can always walk to the side of their tracks, and I saw no other opportunity to do that. But, what I did find was a trail map. After studying it for a few minutes, I realized there were much better snowshoeing areas from the south gate, where the Nordic Center hut was located. I returned to my car.

After finding the south gate and the Nordic Center I paid three dollars for day use. There were a few cross country skiers on the groomed trails and I could hear them as I made my way through the trees below the trail, but as I climbed higher on the mountain their voices slowly faded into the background. Half way up I ran into a group of young people who were coming down. By this time I was back on a cross country trail, although it had not been groomed since the last storm. One of the young men called out to me, “Hey, we blazed a trail up to that peak. It takes off through the trees ahead on the left and makes several switchbacks to the top.” I thanked him and found it easily.

The day was quite overcast and the lighting was flat, especially in the open, but the trees provided some contrast to the whiteness of the snow. I slowly climbed, as I always move rather slowly when heading uphill on snowshoes, and could hear nothing but my own breath and the snow quietly crunching underneath me with each step. Occasionally I would stop and listen. There were birds chirping if I listened really hard. I could hear the far off sound of canons being shot for avalanche control at the resorts that occupied the other side of the wide valley below. Sometimes I could hear water moving underneath the ice.

When I had climbed as far as I wanted to go, I turned around, heading away from my world of solitude and back to the condo to rejoin the rest and hear their tales of the day. I kept mine to myself, not wanting to tarnish the experience by speaking of it for at least a little while.

Sunday morning I found myself at another recommended trailhead. This one on the Skyline trail from the North Ogden divide. The day was incredibly beautiful, the sun shining brightly. The sky was a deep blue against the white snow as I made my way up the south facing exposure toward Chilly Peak. There were others on the mountain, I could see them above or below me, but I passed very few on the same trail as I. As I climbed, crossing back and forth along the face, the mountain became steeper and steeper and I soon began to realized that I was in danger of being in avalanche territory. I turned back about a mile and a half up, where I came to a ledge that I could see no safe way of traversing. Even though the day was shortened, it was wonderful. The air was warm and there was no wind. My sunburned face tells the story well.

My husband and I both had the best weekend for each of us. He had his skiing, his time with friends, I had my snowshoeing and solitude, and yet we both feel we spent the time together. We shared an experience and had our own all at the same time. That is a marriage in perfect harmony, at least for two days.

• Posted in: Snowshoe ♦ Travel ♦ Wanderings
• Tagged: snowshoeing, solitude, Travel, winter