Doing what comes naturally

I don't know what it is a about skiing at Vail, but I always get a high from skiing there. Several factors could come into play. One is I usually rest a day before I go there. Second, we choose a day we know will be bright and sunny. And maybe, just maybe the lower altitude makes a difference. But there is some thing else ... and I think it has to do with Vail's size. When I am at Vail I feel as though I am skiing TO somewhere. "Let's ski over to mid Vail for lunch" ... "Let's ski over to China bowl and enjoy the sunshine." On other mountains I feel as though I am just skiing runs. Moreover, Vail is well designed enough that the moving across the mountain does not always involve the boring catwalks that other mountains employ.

So we arrived early this morning ... me with fresh legs, and the sun was shining ... It was just spectacular ... AGAIN. We were in China Bowl in bright sun ... and on our second run went into the trees and did some glade skiing. It was all pretty wonderful ... until ...

... the clouds came in and the wind blew up ... but the first part was really pretty wonderful. And I noticed something new out there today. This is going to be a little hard to describe, so bear with me. But I had this feeling on my skis today that I wasn't so much skiing as I was engaging in a natural form of locomotion. I am no longer working at skiing ... I am simply moving around on skis. Does that make sense? It is maybe like the way a bird feels when it naturally turns its body to take advantage of the wind circling at high levels ... only instead of the wind I am turning my body to take advantage of gravity in a natural way without really thinking about it.

So maybe this feeling is what I came here for?