Horizontal stinging snow pelts my left cheek. Some melts and wets my turtleneck.

I protect my face with a warm, gloved hand and hunker down against the wind.

I joke with my partner in muffled words and he listens with wooly ears.

My ski-heavy feet dangle 15 feet above the snow as we rise over hushed wheels and dip again into the white.

We fall silent as our steady ascent continues leaving me alone in the silence of winter wind.

Then mystically the summit emerges like a phantom through the fog and we glide from our cold perch.

Ken Kaiyala
Circa 1995