Turns for the Better
Putting snowy ghosts to sleep
By JOHN NYEN

I keep reliving it in my head. The official announcement that it wasn’t our fault does nothing to placate my feelings of responsibility. Did I do everything I could have? What if together we had made different decisions?

Here I am alone, above that same open field of snow. The sunlight glints off the crystals gathered beneath me. Sometimes I think that if I stand on this peak and stare off into the sun, the cares and troubles will melt away. All it does is bring back that day. Here I am about to ride the slope that robbed me of my friend, and I am trembling like a leaf.


The air cracks with anticipation as we load the truck and drive to the trailhead. The sky is finally clear in town following recent snowfall and conditions are ripe for an amazing day in the backcountry. Our comfortable calmness is broken only by the synchronous nodding of our heads to the pounding beats from the speakers.

Freshly fallen snow lovingly caresses the base of the Aspens surrounding the nearby copse as light glints over the tree tops. Beautiful streaks of pink, yellow, and gold shoot into the sky, dotting the flecks of cloud-blue. How can it be that in less than three hours he will be gone? Snow is an equal opportunity mistress, she blesses and curses with the same even-handed discipline. She is deceptive.

I begin my usual sublime routine of donning gear. Tight boots squeak upon snow. "Pull on your beacon, pull on your coat, grab your skis, and follow me." These are his rules. This is his ritual. "Pull on your gloves. Tap your poles 3 times on the fender for luck. Take a deep breath. Look around. Notice something." The tragic dance of cold boot liners turns him into a comic dog chasing his tail. Everything is so wonderfully familiar. It is a spark that fires us both.

We attach skins at the beginning of the trail and start our assault. There are no tracks in front of us and a single line of marks behind. We take turns breaking trail. We quietly chuckle at our good fortune—small-voiced conversations that happen when the situation is right.


Of all things, I now picture that stupid bobbed hat he got from his ex-girlfriend. I wonder what possessed him to keep it. Threads poke out as if waiting to be teased. The hat is now buried beneath a ridge of snow. I guess like many of us, he couldn't let go. Of her, of it, of everything. Much like these old, duct-taped gloves or the twice re-bent poles I carry.

I place him in front of me now, sitting on the edge at the top of the peak, staring into the rising luminescent orb. I can almost see his cares evaporate, the weight of bad times disappear.

I know he would want me to ski this run again, to take back my life from this mountain that caused me harm. Yet it is hard. The very forces that drove me to revisit this place also hold me back.

And yet I slide off the edge to slay the past. I descend backward in time as the slope becomes one constant push to the bottom. I play chase with the fleeting shadows. I see his smiling face beneath the powder-speckled hat, his body somehow making faster, cleaner, better turns. One last ride with my friend.

At the bottom and I gaze up with no sense of relief, just finality. Perhaps his ghost has finally gone to sleep.


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