After some timid murmuring about snowfall in January and a gradual crescendo through February, March came in with a flurry. Which turned into a blizzard. Which turned into another blizzard. Which turned into us having lots of fun in the mountains. Stability has been good, visibility has been intermittent and the snow has been soft and plentiful. Leia’s still not sure what the big deal is, but she knows that her humans love pow almost as much as they love her.

Between touring and snowmobiles (plus some experimental mixing of the two,) we’ve incurred some great days out in the mountains. It’s hard to tell in the pictures because it’s sometimes hard to see her at all, but the Mountain Princess really loves being out in her natural habitat. While the humans all fiddle with layers and skins and engines, she just runs uphill until she gets to the top, then curls up and has a nap. Once the humans are ready again, she plows downhill with reckless abandon. It’s a good life for Mountain Princess Leia Dog.

Between the highway-access touring and the endless sled-access powder fields, it’s pretty easy to forget how lucky we are to live where we do. There’s no shortages of challenges or excuses that can be made as to why we didn’t go skiing, but the fact that we have to make excuses at all shows just how lucky we are. Somehow it feels like we have to justify why we don’t get out every day to ski, when it’s right out the door (of the car). As if doing normal “life” things isn’t enough… As if taking a day off is somehow letting Ullr (or the Griz) down and will somehow incur his wrath. But really, how much skiing is too much? Is that even a thing? Probably not.

Wait a second… What about balance? Life versus skiing? Skiing versus biking? Anything versus surfing? Just more evidence that we’re spoiled rotten. All I can post in defense is that we do our best to actively appreciate every single day in the mountains and every single night that we return home safe and sound with exhausted muscles and another good story. Danger is omnipresent (especially when sleds are involved,) so maybe that’s the balance. It’s fun because it’s scary. Dangerous, but with safety precautions. Fast, then slow. Ecstatic, but exhausted.

Fortunately for us, the brain tends to block out the suffering and pain in favour of remembering that one perfect turn, the weightless of dropping off a cliff, or the sublime serenity of looking out across an expanse of snow-drenched mountains. And that’s what makes us thankful and keeps us going back, time after time after time after time after time after………………….