Skiing is Being

Willamette Pass Resort
Wednesday, February 6, 2019

"I'm one thought away from being."

-Unknown

I've been spending a fair amount of time meditating lately. I started meditating a little more than a year ago for a number of reasons.  Mostly I wanted to find out what it was about since it seemed kind of mysterious.  What a learned was that there's lots of people that have lots of different takes on meditation, but general agreement that the practice has tangible benefits.

What I also found out was that it's hard in a way that's not obvious.  I mean, you just sit and close your eyes.  How hard is that?  Well, any hack can do that, but to focus your attention on breathing for more than 15 seconds is way harder that it should be.

The idea is to get to "one-pointedness of mind;" that is to focus your entire being on one thing.  That gets to one of my personal motivations: better attention control.  It becomes clear after a few minutes that one's mind is a factory of random thoughts that proceed associatively and for the most part have little value (unless you think stress and anxiety have value). It's a like a river - it keeps flowing ceaselessly with no end, but it constantly changes. So, the idea is to clear one's mind -- or at least get to the point where you don't identify with the thoughts and can watch them drift by like leaves on a stream.  Hence the aphorism, "I'm one thought away from being."

For me, there has always been a zen of skiing.  There's something about it that I don't get from other activities.  Sure, it has something to do with speed and all that, but there's something more to it.  I've noticed that skiing (at least the way I do it) requires my complete attention.  To do otherwise is to risk hitting a tree at high speed--something that never ends well.  It's hard to explain what it's like to ski through a grove of trees in a foot of fresh snow, other than there's nothing else like it.  It turns the river of thoughts right off.  In that sense, it's a like meditation. Therefore,

Skiing is being... 

There's walking meditations, perhaps there should be a skiing meditation.  Sounds like a new age vocation just waiting for me to exploit.

Back to the present topic at hand.  It got pretty cold and snowed in town on Monday and Tuesday.  That's always a good sign for the mountains.  Willamette is closed Monday and Tuesday, so anyone that wanted to get the fresh had to work for it.  I set the alarm for 6am Wednesday morning to see what it was all about.  The resort said they had 12" which seemed a little excessive given the road report, but plausible.  It was enough to get me out of bed.

I made coffee and went online and bought a five-day pass.  I was feeling optimistic at 6am that we might continue to have some more powder days.

I arrived at 8:25 and was the fifth car in the lot.  That should provide plenty of time to get my pass and gear up. As always I wandered into the lodge to secure my pass first.  I handed my receipt to the lady at the desk.  She asked me if I had my waiver that I should have got an email about.  I said, "what email." "Your pass and the waiver.  Plus, you're supposed to allow three days."  I tried to keep my head, but it felt like another Willamette moment.  Alas, all was good - she told me to bring the waiver in next time.

They were still plowing the lot as I geared up.

I.

II.

POW!
























They operate with a skeleton crew - still putting up the fence while the masses (all five of us) waited for rope drop.
























Not only was there 8"+ of new snow, but it was cold (20 degrees) and sunny.  Very un-Oregon like conditions.  No complaints here.

Where's Waldo?

Diamond Peak

I.

 II.

 Maiden Peak

I got 10 runs in by 10:45 when I had to go back to the car to participate in a conference call interview for a project in Snohomish County Washington. The connection was not so good as I expected, but the interview seemed to go ok.  I don't regret not going to the office to work and do the interview--I've got more work than I want right now and it's getting a little challenging to balance it all.

Parking lot pup.  

The forecast is for continued cold weather and snow. It's great we're having winter again in the mountains.  Regardless of what happens, I'll be back at least four more times this season.