In the dark – it could have been morning or evening but it was hard to tell which by the winter light – I pulled my skis out of the back of my friend’s pickup truck.

We were doing something new. Well, half new. We were going to ascend this hill on our own power rather than the diesel-generated one of the lift. Then, we would ski back down. The last part was familiar (especially since the run was called “First Time”); the first is decidedly not.

I admitted to her and she admitted to me earlier in the week how nervous we were. It was closely followed by how excited we were to try this new thing – and isn’t that the progression? From thrilled to oh sh*t to well, here we are. That nervousness kicked into overdrive at noon before we were to meet at 6pm.

Some of it was due to the new gear involved which had some fiddly bits. But some of it was how much more obvious winter’s narrow margin of error is. These are mountains, and even though they have buildings and heavy machinery and other people on them, there’s a knife edge that I don’t want to dull through my own failings or lack of foresight. The darkness sharpens the danger. Although, in ski touring, this is one of the least dangerous ways to proceeds since we’re going up a groomed run at the resort.

We pulled out our gear and asked each other questions about how the bindings worked and how the skins fastened to the bottom of the skis (to provide grip) and we fiddled and buckled and clipped. Her friend, who knew how to do this, showed up with a beanie and a loose smile. He had done this before, so there were no first time nerves.

The parking lot was dotted with headlamps and car headlights and the kind of chatter that comes from groups gathering before an athletic event. As this was one of the only mountains nearby that allowed uphill travel outside their operating hours, we were not even close to the only ones engaged in this activity. The friend helped us with the last few equipment-related questions and walked up to the snow to where we put everything on. It took a hundred steps or so to get into the motion and the rhythm which requires sliding your skis across the snow in order to conserve energy. It’s not dissimilar to nordic (cross country) skiing in which I have some experience with but the incline make it slower.  Since we were there in the evening, the slope had been used all day. Many hundreds of skis had compacted the surface, with ruts and cuts and the chunder that comes from the grooming machines. They passed through this bottom area of the mountain on their way to the upper slopes where they have already started their night’s work.

We chatted, breathed heavily, learned more about each other. Talked about the holidays and business and the adventures available in our town. I told a story about how, the first time I saw people doing this, my partner and I both looked out the window and thought – what in the heavenly days is happening here? Who are these people and why are they going up the slope in the dark? And now, three years later, here I am.

When we stop to shed a layer in order to regulate the heat our bodies are cooking up in this activity (too late) our guide points at the mountain in front of us where a line of headlamps snakes up. I love it. I love that they are here and that I get to be one of them. I’ve skied this slope in the daylight with the service of a lift maybe forty times but everything is fresh in the dark and new with the pockmarking of others lights.  

I turned around and looked behind us at my city. Well, not mine, but the place I live. One of those lights out there was probably coming from my living room window and maybe from the gas station where I stopped earlier today and also the store where I got the skis and had such a good conversation with the man who fit my boots.

All the town lights twinkled and sparked. I turned to start up again, towards the line of headlamps. Up the steepest part. Up the throat of the mountain that I get to call home.

When we arrived at the top, we took off the skins, changed the bindings to ski mode, and slapped our skis on the snow to make sure they would stay. We adjusted our poles to downhill skiing height. We looked out on the city, took a picture, shouldered our backpacks, and took off into the night. We were guided only by our headlamps and moved slowly so as not to out-ski its circle of illumination. We weren’t cold and it took six minutes to cover what it took us an hour to ascend.

That was fun, we said as we packed all our things in the pickup again. That was so fun. Next Wednesday?  

Then we drove home in the dark with wet hair and cheeks red from the cold and from the smiling.