I’m over the nightmarish hustle to get first tracks
Published: Dec 26, 2024
Jake Stern (Photo: Jake Stern) Jake Stern is a digital editor at Outside, reporting on the latest adventure and culture news. He lives, climbs, bikes, and skis in the Eastern Sierra. New perk: Easily find new routes and hidden gems, upcoming running events, and more near you. Your weekly Local Running Newsletter has everything you need to lace up! Subscribe today .
There’s no other way to put it: My skier friends and I are hedonists. We chase the pleasures of a 100-day ski season, cold snow splashing in our faces as we make turns in deep powder. We stay up late dancing, eat fondue and sip a cold beer on a sundeck under an azure sky. We minimize discomfort by shelling out beaucoup bucks for absurdly expensive outerwear and spend hours in a ski shop tweaking our plastic foot-coffins.
Despite this dogged commitment to skiing, I’ve recently made a compromise, to preserve my sanity while chasing snow 12 months a year, to maximize pleasure and minimize pain, I will no longer wake up at the crack of dawn on powder days to chase bottomless turns alongside the early-risers.
I know. I know. That’s what it’s all about—there’s an early morning ritual that skiers hold sacred. Rise early, brew coffee or grab a cup and a breakfast burrito at the local cafe, boot up in the lot well before the bullwheel spins, and snag first chair and an […]
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