THE WINNOWING OF WINTER
SNOW IS ALCHEMY, the exact right mix of cold, water and air. You can feel the difference of man-made — the stiffness and the catch — and the unbroken crystals of newly fallen fresh. Snow is sound, too, the creaky stick of cold storms, the ball-bearings swish of slush corn or the crackle of rime-y ice. That thing about the thousand words for snow is right.
If we lose the ebb and flow of winter — which we soon could — we also lose storm chasing, and the barometric adrenaline of waiting for a storm. There’s a risk in pinning your heart to weather, and we skiers hang everything on snowfall. You know you’re in trouble when you’re constantly watching storm tracks and snow gauges, trying to predict the places where it’s going to be the deepest. Letting the real-life logistics of where you’re going to live, for instance, fade into the background while you focus on La Niña storm tracks and Farmers’ Almanac predictions.
The greatest existential threat to skiing is the winnowing of winter. The viability of ski towns, and of the sport, is dependent on snowpack, which is being decimated by global warming. Depending on the emissions
