Powder

Skiing Is Politics

f0038-01

“There exists in man a mass of sense lying in a dormant state, and which, unless something excites it to action, will descend with him, in that condition, to the grave.” —Thomas Paine, Rights of Man, 1791

Skiing is politics. That’s true unless you’re actively in a powder turn with stellar dendrites contrailing behind you as you go subatomic, weightless, effortless, and your entire existence becomes dark matter in the twitch of time between future and past, between a face shot and a track.

Other than that fleeting bliss of escapism, skiing is politics. You can’t separate the two.

The gas you buy to get to the hill…politics. The roads

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from Powder

Powder3 min read
Get In, We’re Going Skiing
MY NAME IS HANS LUDWIG, sometimes known as the Jaded Local, and I’m an addict. For 25 years, I have been part of an operation that distributes a habit-forming substance to the public. I regret nothing. I was born in 1972, the same year as POWDER Maga
Powder1 min read
LIGHT & DRY
Special thanks to Sam Cox and Hans Ludwig. ■
Powder13 min read
When Skiing Saves Us
ON APRIL 7, nearly 400,000 Americans had already been stricken with COVID-19 since the disease was first detected on U.S. soil in February 2020. Of those, 12,757 had died from it—and yet that was just the beginning. Entire swaths of the economy were

Related