Closing In

It is hard to keep thoughts from straying towards the end of the season and beyond. Rumours abound about which chalets will be closing down early and whether the summary firing of employees for cost cutting purposes actually takes place. Your host, for one, believes that perhaps this is not the case but others swear its veracity. And so the questions and conversations turn more towards the possibility of future seasons and impending joblessness.

Some just jump off the cliff

There are those who are almost financially obliged to return to the mountains next winter, and there are those who can think of no other life than the migratory transience of the perpetual seasonaire. It truly is a strange lifestyle, the relentless weeks pass with such regularity, a strange kind of monotony builds, for the work is never quite the same and yet never changes. The catering and hospitality arena is a tough gig to play day in and day out. Day and night fade into the background as each shift is separated not by time but by opportunities, for sleep, for skiing, for eating. Down time is a cursed commodity, our time out here is necessarily limited by the survival of the snow. Any time used doing nothing is time lost to fully experience the alpine adventure. Guilt plays against tiredness, sometimes one overcomes the other but not for long.

It is almost criminal to miss a powder day

The cooking and hosting has become another automatic and with the exception of certain days, the skiing has merged into one vague mountainesque experience. It is hard to describe to non skiers just what the feeling of a good day on the mountain or a good run is like. The closest this host can get is to a gamer on a hot streak or in a state of flow. Where every move is necessary and perfectly placed, the skis become an extension of the body in effortless physical poetry and the skier is to the slope as the bird is to the sky, born to glide with ease over the snow. It is in essence a form of escapism, to be wholly absorbed by the concentration in the moment is to leave behind all other considerations, worrying only about whether the punter in front is about to turn or not.

Sometimes the skier is the bird