There is a precious quiet to winter. Everywhere movement slows as snowflakes fall, dancing downward covering our beautiful imperfect earth. Naked landscapes, finally able to bask in brilliant silence, appear stark and vast as the shortened day and dropping temperature hint for humans to stay inside and animals remain tucked away.
But for some of us, winter means a time to get out, a time to ski. Backcountry objectives, hot laps at the resort, and long distance tours, winter, for a good majority of us here in the northwest, means skiing. On weekends, Christmas breaks, after work, and between class, for some of us, skiing is all we can think about. The bug starts with early season dumps in November and doesn't dwindle until the final thaw in April–some of us stretch the stoke all the way into July, bagging silly far out peaks, while others move on to summer thrills like climbing and biking.
For skiers, when it snows, responsibilities erase and opportunities become limitless. No peak is too far, no cliff too big, no line too scary. For skiers, the gripping appeal of falling snow shimmers nostalgia in all of us when even thinking about the lifestyle. Whether it's waking up early for face shots or sleeping in and stopping in the trees for "medicine." Whether it's trekking to obscure places or shredding the local hill, skiing, frees us from the normative and ejects into us the imaginative.
These photos are from trips I've taken in December '16 and January '17 in Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. Skiers are Trenton Brown, Marc Hendrickson, Gloria Roe, Laurie Hockett, and Matt McGady.
