Chris Benchetler travels the world and skis. Occasionally he puts pen to pad, figuratively, and helps me get the text to reach the bottom of a large vertical photo. Here goes, from Chris, about Europe:
The [Nimbus] crew headed to St. Anton (another 3-hour drive), but this time the snow was good [suspense relieved]. Of course, we were too excited and our eyes were wandering up and down the Alps in search of all the possibilities. Somehow we managed to waste yet our second sunny day. Go figure. The next day was yet again another snow storm. This one was so big they had to close the pass due to level 4 avalanche danger.
I read another article about the crew's latest journey on Newschoolers.com. It was full of compelling photos of deep snow, wide skis, heavy beers, and knee-high socks. Not my favorite type of knee-high socks though — that honor would belong to knee-high socks with roller skates, on a more feminine subject than the average Nimbus crew dude, perhaps.
That article was conspicuously devoid of the above photo. Whatever happened on that trip, it was a complete success because of this photo. Sure, we're all young and rebellious, and we party and drink all the time, and listen to hip-hop other genres of music influenced by urban culture, and wear extremely loose (or extremely tight) clothing, and religiously practice, develop, and perform non-gang-affiliated hand gestures, and laugh, and cry, and delight in the fresh, wild, confusing, emotional, regenerative excitement of youth. But when that has all been washed away by the advent of wisdom, scoured away by the bristles of responsibility, and evaporated away along with the ebb of hormones, we'll still be able to wear tight white one-pieces and bask in the sun's warming rays. Skiing might be humankind's greatest gift to itself.
Nimbus's second installment of En Route will drop on the 15th.
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Contributors
John Symms
My friend is a pro. In fact, many of my friends are pros. How else do you think I got this job?
Tim Mutrie
Journalist and blog-a-neer, big mtn. correspondent Tim has a desk-sized condo in a little place called Aspen.
Seth Morrison
If you don't know who Seth is, just click out of this blog and walk away. (Seth is a big mtn. legend, you see.)
Sage Cattabriga-Alosa
Sage went from washing dishes professionally to freeskiing professionally — aka "professional growth."
Ingrid Backstrom
World traveler, prolific ripper, reader and smiler, Ingrid lives in a cabin at the base of Squaw Valley.
Nate Abbott
Driven by coffee, powder, music, laughing, books & possibilities, photographer Nate is a lurker with Leica.
Liam Downey
Vermonster, Level 1 vet and large animal veterinarian, Liam's 6'5" frame makes him a large animal himself.
