A dreary Saturday in middle-eastern Canada, cool and damp enough to make you dread the coming months. November is a month of reflection, tucking away the last fall activities and preparing for a long winter of bundling and shuffling against the cold. In the city, winter is more of a pain than anything else. Certainly no one wants to play in the brown cruddy slush that slops around our city streets. Up north, snow is an entirely different phenomenon.
Snow is a way of life.
When it snows for the first time up north, those living near the mountains enjoy a position envied by all other outdoor enthusiasts - they will make the first trip of the season. If he were around, I bet Mike would already be skiing. I've imagined all year what an incredible weekend that would have been. Nothing is quite as sweet as carrying yourself by your own steam into the mountains, hauling yourself up the slope, and then dancing down the hillside, aghast at your own beautiful good fortune to be there. Skiing at a hill with chair lifts is nothing like the backcountry.