The magic of skiing: Bob Berwyn reflects back on an epic powder year

After a winter of seemingly endless powder days, the snow flurries early Sunday morning — the last day of the 2007-2008 ski season — feel just about right. It may be June, but Ullr still rules the Colorado High Country, I realize, slipping into some polypro and settling down for some stretches on the living room floor.

I don’t know if it’s the snow outside or the Yoga, but my mind drifts into flashback mode, to opening day and all the seasons past: 47 of them so far, but who’s counting?

For some reason, I recall my first ski bum season, when I took a year off from school to work and ski at a U.S. Army recreation center in Garmisch, Germany. That was the year I left my heart in the mountains, knowing for sure that I would end up living in a ski town.

I have less hair than I did back then, a lot less, but the thought of sliding down a snow-covered hill triggers the same tingle of excitement it always has. I have more money these days, but only a little more. I’m smarter, but only a bit. I have a better job — at least my mom thinks so. And while I don’t ski every single day, I still manage to get my ya-yas out.

I’m a ski bum at heart. Always have been and I have the stack of season passes, along with the memories, to prove it. I’ve gathered them up, from Garmisch, Lermoos, Taos, Mammoth, Purgatory, Wolf Creek and, most recently right here in Summit County, Colorado, where I’m making my stand. Where I’ve settled down to a “respectable” profession. Where I’m raising a son. Where I lost love and found it again, gleaming brighter than ever. Where I’ve made and lost good friends. Where I’ve broken bones, triggered avalanches and downed a few pints and then some.

Where I’ve suffered through droughts, and skied powder up to my eyeballs.

Times and technologies have changed, but the essence of what we do on snow-covered mountains has not. For a short time, we’re free. Free to dance, glide and swoop, to carve, dip and soar. It’s pure play, harmony of man and nature. I gave in to it a quarter century ago, when I decided to move to the mountains permanently and build a life that includes daily devotion to the majestic peaks and glacier-carved valleys, the forests and streams, with never a regret. In fact, I find strengthening affirmation in my decision each time I stand atop a snow-covered peak.

“Get a grip. It’s only skiing,” I try to tell myself, shaking my head and grinning inside, piling gear into the Subaru for one last trek up to A-Basin. But my soul knows better. Laughing, it constantly calls me on for one more run, just one more.

I think back to one of the many powder days this season: The solstice in December, when I sat on a stump in the forest at Keystone to reflect on the past year. Regardless of what the calendar says, the solstice has always been the start of a new year in my mind, when the sun and Earth begin another phase of their delicate dance, both a beginning and an end. For me, it’s always been a time to account for the good, the bad and the ugly. And as always, I prefer to do it through the prism of skiing.

With all its ups and downs, this sport has to be a near-perfect metaphor for life. Sometimes it’s smooth sailing through a clean slate of unbroken powder, and you’re free to write your own script. Sometimes it’s a chunky mess, when your tracks get lost among so many others and it’s tough to know where you’re coming from and where you’re going. And sometimes you have to break through the crust to get to the good stuff. Sometimes it’s a tough uphill slog, breaking trail through unknown territory. The only reason you keep going is because you know there’s a summit up ahead where your heart will stop racing and you can catch your breath.

You’d think after a half-century on this blue-green marble, I’d have it figured out. Not quite — sometimes I still wonder if I’m still climbing or if I’ve reached the crest and started that long slide toward oblivion.

I’ve been down a long road this year, with many twists and turns. Got lost along the way and hurt some of the people closest to me, as bitter seeds of grief and pain rooted and grew into loneliness, resentment and selfishness. Found a lover and a friend who helped me prune those choking weeds and replant my garden with hope, kindness, generosity and faith. Snows will fall and melt. Rivers will freeze, thaw and swell, then tumble through the valleys to the sea. New life will take hold out of the icy ground. Love will grow, sweet and tender.

The best thing about this season is that my son became an all-mountain skier, confidently tackling the toughest pitches Summit County has to offer. Dylan will always have roots in the mountains, I realized back in January on Super Bowl Sunday, after an epic day at Vail.

“I can feel my heart beating in my lips, dad,” he said with a big grin, lying prone at the base of the Vista Bahn, rosy-cheeked with frosted blond hair peaking out from under his helmet and over his goggles.

Watching him thrive this winter in the powder snow and the cold, stormy weather was like drinking a magical elixir, that elusive potion of eternal youth. It’s not that I don’t still get a kick out of skiing powder myself. Heck, I’ve been doing it almost all my life, nearly every chance I get. But after weighing myself down with some serious baggage it’s been a little tougher the last couple of years to find that carefree spirit.

But skiing always helps and it busts loose in spades that phenomenal day in Vail.

The yodels come easily as we blast through soft powder bumps in the Back Bowls.

Dylan shushes me, feigning embarrassment, but later on the chairlift, I catch him humming the same tune.

We end the day in Hairbag Alley. In the fading light and intensifying snowfall, we make the run our own, playing follow the leader and frolicking in the little pipeline, shouting our yahoos and yee-haws to the wind whipping among the tips of the moss-draped spruce and firs.

I let Dylan lead the way most of the last run. He’s solid and relaxed on his boards and as I chase him through the fluff, the joy and exhilaration shows in every turn. It’s infectious, and as we ski the same line again, I suddenly see the world as I did when I was his age: A simple, beautiful place, full of magic, laughter, love and joy.

That’s the magic of skiing. It’s strong medicine, and I intend to make every turn count.