True gratification...that's the good stuff.

Photo by Brianne Janae Photography

Tension and anticipation, trailhead emotions that float around as the silent race to be the first ready to start skinning begins. It's the first day of my favorite season. Ski season. One more butterfly in my stomach and I might just fly over the two mile skin track right to the top of our mountain-top destination. Snow is plowed up on the side of the road crunching beneath our skis like nature's bowl of white frosted flakes. Within minutes the softer sounds of unpacked powder in the trees takes the place of cars and excited voices back at the trailhead. By city standards we're silently gliding through the woods, picturing ourselves as a model of swiftness and efficiency. By wildlife standards we're bulldozers plowing up their white winter carpet with the grace of something akin to Niagara Falls. 

It's a funny feeling being away from it all…one would presume a lot of thinking and/or pondering would happen in the silence of the winter woods but in fact it's quite the opposite. Your mind begins to match the blank white color of the ground that tends to be in style this time of year. Soon something starts to fill that space in your mind, something you can't recognize in the busyness of everyday life. It's joy, freedom, authenticity…

It's out here we relearn what these things mean, at the same time realizing how unfree our 40 hr. work week is. Ever seen a stop light at the intersection of two trails on your commute to happiness? I shudder to think.

Contrary to what the media has you believing, true gratification isn't of the instant variety. Although adjectives like quick, fast and easy precede just about everything these days leading people to believe that if something isn't one or all of these it's just not worth it. 

Photo by Brianne Janae Photography

True gratification is preceded by words like time, work, dedication and sacrifice. Not quite as attractive but it's the nature of these words that makes the attached activity so much more fulfilling in the end, embedding it's pain into the recesses of your memory for those times when you think you can't. Accomplishment isn't a verb associated with sitting on the couch watching tv, "Dude, I watched 7 hours of tv yesterday, a new PR!"), no. Accomplishment is associated with being completely shelled and still skinning up for one last lap, one more pitch, finishing in the top 10 when your goal was top 15 because you pushed harder that race...losing a leg and completely destroying your body in a climbing accident only to come back years later to set records on a big wall you might have heard of, Yosemite's El Capitan. 

Photo by Brianne Janae Photography

It's this accomplishment and authenticity that has you planning your next adventure only a couple hours after all you wanted  was to be back at the trailhead with a beer and large amounts of chocolate in hand. You realize it on the way home, whether through the perma-grin on your windburned face, the stories of stoke, the fatigued muscles...true gratification just sunk in and there's just no way you can ever go back to that instant crap again. Even if it does come in strawberry cream flavor.