Hero Day

The chairlift dumped us off at the summit of Alpine Meadows, the downhill ski resort we chose for our last day of skiing in Tahoe. As the wind whipped around the four of us hooked on our poles and inched over to what a helpful sign said was the ``Easiest Way'' down the mountain. Looking over a ledge as snow and wind bit into our faces, some of us privately wondered about hopping the chair back down. It was a low moment. Instead of retreating, we buckled in, let our skis run and picked our way down through deep powder snow. Khalil, who has struggled on the bunny slope at the beginning of the day, now cut confident turns against the steep hill. Marc and Mark picked their way carefully, trying to dodge steep mounds of powder and keep ourselves from flailing out of control. Waffner, who uses mountains like this as a simple warm-up, cut wide confident turns on his telemark skis.

Later that afternoon, in the bar, we debated the merits of letting the machines whisk you up to the top of the mountain instead of slogging it out yourself. We might not all be converted downhiller, but for one day of deep powder skiing in Tahoe we all had a blast.