Contributors:
Wren Andelai
Derek Taylor
Denis Berthoud
Alastair Instone
Phil Gallagher
Blake Maxwell
Sean Felz
Steven Threndyle
Jack Morris
Conor Madigan
Jill Sherensky
Ron Shevock
Bruce McQuistan

What constitutes a season? When does it start and when does it end? Who decides?

What makes a season good or bad? Weather? Injury? Location? The backcountry? Number of ski days? What if you don't use up all the days on your pass? What if you don't buy a pass at all? Do you flunk?

Seasons are difficult to define; they're as different as each one of us. Rather than philosophize or over-analyze, we decided to glue together a sort of written collage. "The Season" is a collection of 13 stories by 13 authors spanning seven months in the Northern Hemisphere. Each story has elements of the personal and universal. Perhaps a season equals the average of every skier's experience.

We can draw one interesting conclusion from this experiment: skiing is still about human interaction. It's about people—both those we ski with and those we leave at home. Our relationships with the mountains are strong, but the connections to family and friends are stronger. It's not so lonely out there after all.

This feature ends with an invitation—an invitation to YOU to write something about YOUR season in our forum. In doing so, you'll help us immortalize the season of 2003-04. As always, thanks for being a part of Aspect Journal.

- Aspect Journal Editors

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