KARMA REVERSAL: When powder karma goes bad

Somebody once told me that speaking about karma was not a very wise thing to do. Specifically, that good karma would turn for the worse. More specifically, that my proclamation of owning “the world’s great powder karma” would one day turn against me—like my best friend taking off with my best skis, or my favorite ski resort charging five bucks for crappy parking.

With the 2007 season already here, it looks like this may have become reality. Everywhere I go it seems that our beloved precip slinks the other way, split by the hell of high pressure.

But it’s not all my fault. I felt blessed by snow karma because I followed the following simple steps: a) never steal powder nor ridicule anyone else’s lack of powder fortune unless they happen to come from the East, Texas, or Los Angeles; b) ski even when it’s shitty because in order to deserve the good you must appreciate the bad; c) never ever say “pow pow”; d) live in a ski town; e) and be nice to my mom.

The fact of the matter is I enjoyed “the world’s greatest powder karma” as a child, adolescent and college student in Salt Lake City. Then as a ski bum/newspaper reporter in Jackson Hole. Then as a member of a family who moved to southern Montana where holidays would be spent during traditionally the best snow weeks of the year—Christmas to New Year’s. The karma continued into my days as a magazine editor in Steamboat Springs a few years ago.

You might say that my karma was due to my choice, and fortuitous, places of residence and that of my family, which is certainly at least partly true. Living in a ski town automatically gives someone a huge advantage on the path to powder righteousness. But only divine intervention can explain the following:

1. One of Snowbird’s deepest days on record occurred in the 1992-93 season, when I was a punk-ass senior in high school and more than 180 inches fell over five days. Little Cottonwood Canyon had been closed for three days in a row. When it opened on a Saturday morning, the line of traffic down Little Cottonwood stretched as far as the 7/11 at the base of Big Cottonwood. My brother and I waited in traffic for three hours, but when we pulled into the first parking lot at the ‘Bird, we were the very first car. I’d had dozens of deep days there in my youth but none so deep that it was over my head, and first chair to boot.

2. College years. University of Utah. Mid 90s. Going to school on Mondays thinking my friends had also enjoyed stellar conditions. Except for some reason they didn’t enjoy the strange knack my brother and I had for somehow finding patrollers just as they were dropping a gate. Time and time again.