Hemingway on Skiing

When recently reading Ernest Hemingway's A Moveable Feast, Hemingway talks about his time skiing in Schruns, Austria with his first wife Hadley. From all accounts it was an ideal time. And Hemingway captures it in his perfect way:

I remember all kinds of snow that the wind could make and their different treacheries when you were on skis. Then there were blizzards when you were in the high Alpine hut and the strange world that they would make where we had to make our route as carefully as though we had never seen the country. We had not, either, as it all was new. Finally towards spring there was the great glacier run, smooth and straight, forever straight if our legs could hold it, our ankles locked, we running so low, leaning into speed, dropping forever and forever in the silent hiss of the crisp powder. It was better than any flying or anything else, and we built the ability to do it and to have it with the long climbs carrying the heavy rucksacks. We could not buy the trip up nor take the ticket to the top. It was the end we worked for all winter, and all the winter built to make it possible.

With the start of most of our ski seasons upon us, the long skins and training, the anticipation of what lies ahead and what we work for is invigorating.