The Nervous Wait
It is early May and we have just received the latest forecast from the weather guru's. The upcoming weather for the next 3 months states that temperatures are most likely to be above average with above average precipitation - what does this mean?
It is normally at this point we start to freak out and think about saving some money and buying a ticket for Christmas to North America or Europe. But we have a good feeling! I don't know what gives us this optimism, everything is pointing in the opposite direction.
There is however, a thing that has happened every year - It has always snowed! The big difference was always the quantity, quality and the timing. Is it earlier; Is it late; has it started off with an epic dump and fizzed out or vice versa.
If we think about the quantity - There was a time we just wanted more and more - their was never enough snow, however, we are now sit here thinking its not the quantity, it's all about timing!
The perfect time when the mountain had been closed for four days due to weather and you were the first one to witness and experience the pure nirvana of virgin pow. Or that mid morning, when ski patrol have been beavering away to complete avalanche control and you have stood shivering in the chairlift queue that has yet to open. You take huge pride in being on the first chair but better yet, what is waiting for you could be the moments you bank in your memory to one day tell the proverbial grand kids. Or you decide to crack on skiing even when you can feel the burn because you know that it may well soften up, to experience that first face that goes. These moments are all about timing and everything does fall in to place.
We know it is going to snow, we know we will be skiing, all we can do is cross our fingers and hope that we have that one moment of pure unadulterated bliss - That moment where you float and dance upon the powder, that blinding face-shot, that drop into that shoot or the massive s-turn that provides the white wave that showers the side of the piste.
It will happen!