But there's a first time for everyone. Imagine an army of trained ants crawling up the slick porcelain sides of your pot and then sliding down again, some of them on skittering legs, some of them tumbling abdomen over thorax. Their goal is to ascend the ravine, as far as their strength and courage and good sense will take them, and then, God willing, come down again in one piece.
Some people go just to hang out.
Some people, New Englanders mostly, have been coming to the ravine for so many springs that they probably don't even know why they do it anymore. But for a lot of people who make the annual trek, the reason is something close to romance. They're drawn by the stern, forbidding beauty, by a love of skiing itself, and by the purity and simplicity of the Tuckerman ski experience. No tickets, no lifts, no lines, no beginners. The ravine is an ongoing reminder that skiing, though in some ways very old, is also something quite new.