Winter Man
By PHIL GALLAGHER

The Indians spoke of the mountains as sacred places; places of spirit, life, and power. One thing I knew for sure was that the mountains made you strong.

My favorite time in the mountains was winter. I grew strong in the cold seasons hiking and skiing as much as possible. It drove those around me to wonder at my singular purpose. I worked dead-end jobs in dead-end places to make it possible. A nobody going nowhere. I knew what the Indians knew. The mountains and the snow nurtured something in my character that defined me as a human being.

I have memories of things like a time it snowed so hard and so fast that visibility was three feet or less. It was cold and light and knee-deep. I headed to a place where I could enter the forest high on the mountain, and then hopped into a small opening between the trees below a steep ridge. Once inside the confines of the pines, all was quiet. The firs were covered in heaps of white that lay on their boughs like pillows. When I looked downhill, corridors and small avenues meandered through the groves. The snow was an unending carpet of white.

Visibility was enhanced within the protected glades. It was another world there on the mountain; a benevolent place of refuge within the storm that raged. The trees have served as guardians against the harsh elements since man first walked the earth, and I could feel that. I looked up and saw the tips of the great trees moving in the wind. I don’t know why, but I instinctively stepped out of my bindings and stuck my skis tail-down in the snow. I stepped close to one of the big pines, careful of the well, and stood with my back against the trunk. The tree groaned as it moved in the wind, and I could sense it through my spine and it filled my whole body. I felt as though I were a part of an age-old entity, and marveled at the contact.

The power of the tree filled me with an energy I can only describe as "good." The snowy ranges have given me many such experiences, but right now I’m cooking in a shithole restaurant in the mornings and in a great pub in the evenings 20 miles from any sacred height, saving up for winter. A small price to pay for salvation.


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