Running blissfully along an old logging road as it becomes a trail.  Dodging rocks and roots there. Jumping a small sunning snake here. I don’t have my headphones in for once in the last few weeks. There are no revving engines, honking horns, or chatting families to block out. There is no need to time the thwacking sound of my feet striking t​he pavement to the beat of the drums in my ears. Not here. Not on this trail I have found up a lonely neighborhood street, across from a tiny gravel pull out, my sweetheart and I have all to ourselves.
Not many know about this spot. Not even when everything else is closed because the whole world is sick and in mourning.  We have lived here ten years and didn’t know about this entrance that didn’t cross any public lands. We aren’t one of those that will dodge ropes or ignore signs. We are those people who are willing to pay for the permits and spend hours looking at map overlays to make sure what we enter is legally open. Judging by the lack of companions out here, not many are willing to do that. Not many people live on the edge of the nothingness like we have chosen to do, gaining us access to these gated roads and trails in our little community. 

It is worth it, the research, the money, and the long work commute to be here. Running in and out of swirling shade patterns as branches brush my face, I can’t help grinning. Exhausted but happy. Taking a deep gasping breath at mile 4, the smell of the wood rot, the loamy earth, and the beginning of life blooming out of the mossy depths, fills my heart, as well as my lungs. My partner is laughing about my non-stop grinning face when we enter the clearing at mile 6. He stops in his tracks. I stop in my tracks. Our dogs stop. The frogs are singing. A chorus that is impervious to our entrance. The song crescendos as the breeze picks up, rustling the tall grass in symphonic harmony.  We can’t stop smiling. Laughing quietly to ourselves as our dogs prance around in joy at the damp mud and grass beneath their feet. They have missed this freedom too.
For the first time in weeks, I am not daunted by the long run back. Counting the miles in my head, this will be the longest run I have ever done. It doesn’t feel like a slog, though. I don’t need mental tricks to get me home today, because my mind keeps saying “I get another 6 miles in the wilderness.” I get a private moment with nature for a little while I longer. I get to submit my body’s sweat and stamina as an offering to the Earth. It is a meager offer, but the Earth is a mother and like any mother, she is proud of everything her children give her.

As the run comes to end and we pass back through the gate on to cracked pavement. I am oddly not sad. I am still uplifted, pushing my body to run out the last stretch to the car. I know that these few hours with nature will help me endure the next few days of rain, work, and depressing news stories. Every moment with Her strengthens me and for that I am forever grateful. 

I am standing on top of a corniced ridge, the wind is picking up and with it the dark storm clouds are coming my way faster and faster, the light reflecting of the stark white snow has gone so flat that I can’t tell up from down, and I have only one viable option: drop my skis over a blind edge into an unknown bowl, in horrible lighting, before that storm hits. I have never regretted a helicopter trip so much.

I am not going to lie, it was the chance to get a helicopter ride into a back country hut in Canada that hooked me; the skiing was secondary. I can never turn down a chance to be alone with mountains and man do I love to fly. That is why I signed up for a week long back country ski trip when I hadn’t even bought touring skis, yet. I thought the trip would make for a great goal; drive me to learn faster. I was right about that. I spent every moment I could touring. Out of fear and pride I kept pushing myself. I drove all over Washington seeking new terrain and even did a few solo days when the inbounds lift areas were closed. Hiking up and skiing down what I normally would have taken a lift for. I discovered I loved it not because I got to ski new terrain but because I could access more terrain in winter. It was furthering my love for hiking that kept me going, the scary down part was what kept getting in the way of my perfectly good time.

Now just shy of four months after I had first fiddled my feet into my Dynafit bindings, I was in tears on a ridge feeling completely over my head. I was terrified not because I couldn’t do it but because I felt out of control. If I can’t see I don’t know where I am going. If I haven’t been down into this bowl before I have to assume it is as steep as the route we came up (over 40 degrees). I am standing on a cornice that I hope isn’t going to go under me or over me, and there is a storm coming, leaving me with little time to process all of this. I have never wanted to take my skis off and throw them off a mountain more, and for the record I have felt that way more than I care to admit. This moment is my experience with skiing wrapped up in a bow. Getting just good enough to be pushed too quickly past my limit.

 My partner isn’t scared. He could ski anywhere I can ski with his eyes closed riding switch. He is patient and trying to reason with me, but he doesn’t understand the fear clawing at my heart. He doesn’t get that I don’t run on trust, I run on control. I don’t find it fun to fling myself blindly down a mountain. I want to know where I am going and how I am getting there before I commit to hurtling down a mountain with two sticks strapped to my feet. He doesn’t remember a time when he didn’t know how to ski. He will never understand my fear. Luckily for both of us, I have discovered that there are two things more powerful than my fear-survival and pride. I know I can’t stay up here with a storm coming in and I know damn well that I am not going to let anyone else help me down. I swallow my tears, tell my partner to lead the way and I drop down after him, following every turn. He is my Seeing Eye dog. If I focus on him, I have a light in the storm to bring me home.

As I am watching him, turn by turn, I can’t think on anything else and there is the tiniest amount of joy in this terrifying run. A hopeful light that is trying to chase away the clawing fear.  Once we stop, though, I feel like I am going to throw up.”I just did that and I lived,” I thought as I bent over my knees and gulped deep breaths, realizing that I had been holding my breath the whole scary run.

We were out of the storm path now, protected by the ridge we just came off of, the light here is good enough that I can find my own way again. Now I am exhausted and worse I am embarrassed. Now that I am out of it my brain is already forgetting the fear, changing the story to be one of fun and not paralyzing terror. My brain is very good at this little trick, drinking a beer in the sunshine safe from the storm also helps. Shaking a little, I start training my eye on other faces and bowls I want to ski. Bigger faces start calling my name. If that storm comes in hard the tree skiing should get good too, maybe we should explore that. That little ray of joy and hope is outshining the fear, changing my perspective and altering my memory.

The next day I find myself hunkered down next to a big rock on a steep wide open apron of snow, transitioning out of skins and radioing out to anyone above or below us that we’re dropping. My partner takes off first. I give him space this time, after all we got new snow and that could lead to avalanches. As I come out from behind the rock, I can see straight down to my partner, tiny and waiting for me at the bottom. Today the joy wins. I push off following his line and making my own turns down the mountain. A smile is creeping across my face as I go.
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This is the way with Nature though, one day she will try to kill you and the next she will breathe new life into you.