spring skiing

I'm leaving for Spain, France and possibly Portugal or Italy in 3 days, yay! But in the meanwhile...

We got a foot of snow last night & this morning! Crazy, becuase spring had finally sprung.
So I had to ski into work today, to take advantage.

It's the most awesome feeling, to immerse yourself in such a white world for an hour, and the come down into the city, refreshed and alive, carrying your skis under your arm. The looks you get that say "wow, you're crazy", and you smile back to say "yes, and it's awesome".

The snowfall was the heaviest kind of wet snow, most ideal for snowballs. The snow under my skis was thick, creamy, and delicious. The flakes coming down yesterday were the largest I'd ever seen, as big as plums. So many branches had come down in Mount Royal park overnight, under the weight of the snow. (Sadly, the limbs with the most buds came down first.) Huge limbs, spanning the whole road, as if to say "go back home with your machinery".

The entire mountain is frosted white, every branch bearing snow. No plows have made it through, so the only colour is the sky, the treetrunks, and the underside of the branches. Absolute white, absolute peace, where yesterday there had been mud and the renewed decay of a winter's worth of organic matter.