Pleistocene Dreams

I have recurring dreams about skiing. It’s strange because I wasn’t born into a skiing family. My mother never skied and my sister never in my memory. My dad used skis like other Vermonters of his generation, for free thrills on winter days. However, given the realities of the 1930s I don’t think he had much leisure time for even free thrills. Despite this, I feel a strong inherent connection to the sport that has helped define our state. When I was very small I remember taking rides that ended in the parking lots of ski areas, places we called ski tows. The mountains were large, the activity perplexing. They remain some of my earliest memories, and in the twisted way of dreams, have been retooled in my subconscious.

The time is always early evening. Alpenglow reflects off the deep pillows of stark white snow, but also the powder blues, bright yellows and lime greens of painted infrastructure. Long, sharply creased shadows stretch away from the graceful lift towers and an assortment of ski conveyance. I see familiar pomas, t-bars and ancient wooden chairs, but also funiculars not to be found this side of Dr. Seuss, all evoking a sense of time past. The snow cats, too, in all their art-decoed glory, as though designed to surpass the sound barrier, recall a scene from the 1950’s that never was. Every building, whether lodge, lift shack or maintenance shed is decorated in faux-Tyrol. Wooden gingerbread frosted with snow and hung with icicles.

The peak, perhaps a bit reminiscent of Bromley Mt. as it may have appeared in prehistoric times, sits at the highest point of a mountain pass. Terrain falls away on every side. The air is absolutely still and crystal clear. I sense a cold that promises to grow much deeper. There’s never another soul in sight, and I feel vulnerable and exposed. I rarely ever actually ski in these dreams, but my tools are always with me: long wooden, hand carved skis with no metal edges, beaten winter boots held in place by ancient bear trap bindings, coiled metal clamped around my heel, a leather strap for a toe piece. In actuality, this equipment from an earlier generation is what I used when first learning how to ski.

My love for skiing began when I slapped ash (and often the similarly spelled body part) to snow. As a native Vermonter, it is my birthright. My family didn’t ski, but the rides to exotic ski tows and using my Dad’s old skis did more than introduce me to the sport. Skiing remains a passion that has taken me from the back hills of my hometown to ski areas and backcountry all over North America. And sometimes, when I’m lucky, to a ski area that exists only in my dreams.