Flash Flash Flash. The sunlight playing morse code on my closed eyelids has me dreaming of early summer. Dot dash, dot dot dot, dash, dash, dot. I'm drifting off as the signals confuse my brain. Mayfly, a gentle breeze, a quiet river bank in full vegetation still wearing it's neon green early growth colours. I can smell the freshness of the undergrowth, almost taste the excitement in the air as swallows skim the surface jostling with over enthusiastic trout for the flies as they drift downstream. There's a sense of enormous relaxation, like a slow exhale, a calm which slowly works it's way through my body. Yoga without the uncomfortable sitting positions or unintentional flatulence, tai chi without the study and practice.

From somewhere I hear a mechanical kerthunk, kerthunk, kerthunk. It's out of place in this spring based nirvana. I can't see a train or combine harvester near the river, however It's coming closer and closer, an unwelcome interruption bringing me back to the present moment.

I wrest open my closed eyes, free up my hands that are tucked into balls inside my gloves and wedged into my armpits and slowly peek my nose and chin from the cover of the fleece liner of my jacket. The seat rumbles and I realise I'm only two pylons away from the end of the chairlift line. The fact that it's minus 20 or so also come back into my consciousness and I get ready for the off, checking gloves are fastened, goggles are snug and backpack is free. I lift the bar and scoot, not so gracefully away, the snow squeaking like breaking polystyrene under my board.

I unclip from my board, turn away from the crowd and start hiking away, up the ridge towards the aguille reaching for the sky.

Seconds, minutes or hours later; lungs biting and legs burning I reach the top and gingerly look over the top into the 10' wide couloir dropping insanely steeply away from me towards the lower part of the resort. The snow is over knee deep on my little platform and I cling to it like a security blanket as I strap the board back to my feet, breath coming slower now, my mind focussing on overcoming the urge to go back, back the way I just came and back to the safety of the blue run.

I edge off, gingerly slipping the top 6' or so on my heel edge. A herculean effort and I'm round to my toe edge, heart racing as the rocks seem to close in, heel, toe, heel then I'm free of the rocks, pointing straight into the open untracked powder field below me speed gathering and elation kicks in. There is a moment, a brief moment where screaming Yeeehaww seems appropriate, then I'm settled comfortably into the powder turns and before I know it I'm back onto the run below me with a collection of skiers and boarders looking at me like I'm nuts. I stop, gather my breath and look back up. It looks much steeper and further away from back here but my oh my do I feel alive. I grin, turn and chase down the hill, leaving my lone track as the only evidence of the descent.

I really should have stayed living in the mountains...

Well, we had a bit of snow in the UK the last week. A bit more than usual, but nothing to the winters I remember from my childhood. Somewhere in the chaos of house moves a photo of those old winters is lost but it showed the family standing on a drift in West Dorset with the arm of a signpost poking out of the snow some feet below. Yes, we've had some traffic disruption, a few people lost power, a few people crashed their cars but seriously, it's been snowy for 5 days and we're acting like the world has come to an end.

Like a pig in $h1t however, or a kid with the day off school, I've been making the most of the snow. I've been snowboarding, yup, in Wiltshire and I've played in the snow with the young'un.

I've walked along the rivers a bit in the last few days as well and, well, they look funny in the snow.

I'm not sure if it's the snow making the white balance all wrong but walking the banks this week there is something very mysterious about their blackened depths. I almost didn't need to take pictures in black and white of the rivers this time. Against their snow whitened fringes the waters of the Nadder has taken on a coal like hue, not the usual murky colour of a river in spate, a true jet black. The black of outer space, the black of your trousers if you happen to make the mistake of brushing against my car at the moment, the black of melted asphalt. A Hammerite like hue, solid and unforgiving in it's appearance. Like someone turned up the contrast on a black and white TV, the environments of earth and water polarised against each other. Yin and Yang, evil and good.

Knowing the river as well as I do it's the first time I've seen it in snow and it was slightly off-putting, like seeing a really good friend return from a makeover programme bedecked as a goth.

Anyway, off for some more snowboarding. Catch you later Bill and Ted.









~ malcolm