Little Blue Skis: Pow pow gnar gnar (apparently)

Skiing, like anything that gathers a cult following, has a lore and vocabulary all its own. The holy grail, the perfect game, the triple-word score of that lore is the powder day.

You can tell this is a big deal because a lot of the less comprehensible vocabulary words seem to center around it, making those people fluent in ski-speak sound like Batman fighting while discussing a cocaine habit. As an example, "pow pow gnar gnar" seems to be a good thing. "Shredding the powder," definitely is, since I know what that one means.

I had my first powder day last month, and yeah, that stuff is great. It's definitely hard to explain. I never understood the enthusiasm of hardcore skiers about it and I still haven't really gotten into the deeper stuff of dudely skier sonnets, but trust me, a day of fresh powder/snow is fun.

My little blue skis covered in powdery goodness. But not cocaine.

As an example, I've gotten a lot better about the whole notion of hurtling down a frozen mountain with sticks on my feet, but there's still a part of me that can't quite be convinced the whole thing isn't a Bugs Bunny-style plot to cause me admittedly improbable injuries.

It mostly shuts up on the green (easy) runs, but every time I tackle a new blue (intermediate) run, the interior monologue is something like this:

Rational brain: "Ok, let's DO this!"

Looney Tunes brain: "No."

RB:"Oh come on. Just make wider turns to cut your speed. You'll get there."

LTB: "That little snotnose snowboarder kid is watching me. It's a sign. I'll end up falling so my knees bend the wrong way and get stuck like that. Then he'll run me over and point and laugh and they'll have to call Ski Patrol to save me and they'll point and laugh and I'll never ever get down."

RB: "Seriously? I'm going without you."

The monologue as I tried a brand new run on my first powder day was a lot more like this:

RB: "Ok, let's DO this!"

LTB: "No. That stuff looks different."

RB: "And a lot softer. Falling might not suck this way."

LTB: "Well...Hey! I didn't agree to this!"

RB: "But look! We're floating! This is awesome!"

LTB: "Hey, we are! This is awesome! *pause* But you still suck."