Are You Living It?

               Last week after checking the NOAA weather page, I saw that it was snowing hard up in Mt. Shasta. A couple quick phone calls later and I was set to film for two days with Focal Productions.  Within the hour I was traveling north on hwy 395 inbound for Shasta by night fall.  The following morning I met up with the Focal Production guys in the early twilight and an hour later we had arrived at our filming zone for the day.

               Three long, sweat filled hours after leaving my car, I was standing on top of the first big line of the day, “Camera ready”?  “Rolling”?  “Dropping in”!!  Just like that I was standing at the bottom of the long face I had just skied.  I Slogged my way back to Will and his camera gear and after a quick chat and we were both back at the truck, we chose to film some of the lines above the road.  By this time it was late in the afternoon and the powder from the morning was now thick and cream cheese like, baked from the sun.

               Getting to the top I spotted my line. Will and I talked over the radio about where I was dropping in and where I was going to ski, after we talked for a few minutes, I started hiking back up to get some speed into the line.  I dropped in, launching the first pillow and landing on the back side of the second pillow, thus breaking the whole face to spider free and avalanche down behind me.  I aired the fourth pillow, landing in the soft sticky snow causing me to get bucked over the handle bars, barrel rolling and splitting two trees, then back onto my skis. A few more turns and I was at the road.

               Will started yelling for me to move out of the way and as I looked over my shoulder the whole face slid over the road, blocking one lane of the road.  It nearly missed taking out my truck and stuffing the front cab with six feet of snow.  Back at the truck, we talked about the day, as we watched the sun setting on the snow covered peaks. The cold miller high life sure hit the spot.