>By Keith LiggettThe first day of skiing brings a familiarity, a comfort. Warren Miller said when you slide off a ski lift, you feel pure freedom. There’s an elemental truth in that statement. Everything falls away. You think about skiing, about turning left, turning right and stopping. The snow. The trees. This run. The next run. Nothing else matters. Nothing else.
Today’s snow. A variable base of Elephant Snot with a 15cm layer of fluff on top. Not bad for the first day of December in BC.
The first day on the hill is always the first day of my year. The New Year starts with skiing not some ball dropping to screaming drunken masses in Times Square on December 31st.
This is the real New Year. Sliding off the lift. Feeling free of the past year. Feeling clean and refreshed.
This is a New Year.
And it will be a great one.
We have friends to ski with. We have snow. We have a freedom–go left, go right and/or stop– that we didn’t have yesterday.
It is a New Year.
Happy New Year to all.
