Freeheeler 2nd International_Edition Saison_19_20

kick turns trekking up the skin path. I was proud of him. He was doing it just how I explained, and doing it well. As I
began to ascend again to catch up with him I thought about my young son. I thought about how I’d feel if he learns the
same thing my father was currently figuring out. Naturally, this brought me back around full circle to “Turtle Hill” and
the pride my father must’ve felt when I finally linked together my first ski turns. Since I had a son of my own I could
imagine how he must’ve felt watching me. I gathered that it must have felt similar to the way I was feeling as I watched
my Dad motor up the skin path ahead of me in the woods of Niseko. It was the circle of life. The generational gifts of
fathers and sons imparting and absorbing wisdom from each other in all walks of life well beyond the intricacies of a
kick turn. Dave and I wanted to share the gifts of Niseko with our fathers. I wanted to give my father a powder paradise
experience because it was him that gave me the gift of skiing. The same gift of skiing that led me to discover this place
on a ski film shoot for a movie called, “Signatures” with Sweetgrass Productions. The same gift of skiing that his father
had given to him when he was a kid. The same gift of skiing that I will give my son the chance to know. I will teach him
the same way my dad taught me. Soon my young son would be old enough to learn, and I suspect the time will come
when he’d be vying for my attention shouting at me, “Dad! Dad! Hey Dad! Watch this!” I know that when he does I
will think about my Dad. I will think about all the times I must’ve said that to him as a little boy at Wilmot Mountain
in Wisconsin. Including the day I said it to show him how to make a kick turn on a skin path half-a-world and decades
away in Japan. I thought about my own impending old age and what my then grown adult son might show me when
I am in my sixties. Throughout all this contemplation while skinning uphill I suddenly found myself at the top of our
slope with Dave and our fathers. We tore off our skins and geared up for the downhill slope of fresh and deep powder
skiing magic laid out before us. We had indeed just earned our turns.
Looking back and forth at each other and the untracked slope below the four of us, and we all began to smile. Ahead
of each of us was a clean slate of snow filled powder bliss in perfectly spaced Japanese oaks with the promise of a little
taste of our own personal paradise. Maybe that is really what this trip was really about anyway. Each of us on a path
all our own and sharing the fleeting moments with each other. I brought him to Niseko to share it with him. We’d
each be dropping into our own ski lines of momentary powder grace. Although we each had our own lines to ski,
and lives to live, at that moment we could share it. I told my Dad to take his line in before me. I wanted to watch him
paint the undisturbed canvas of a slope. I wanted to follow him into the powdery abyss as I have followed him through
the foreboding abyss of life. As I mentioned, my father is a great skier after a long life on skis. Much like he is a great
father after a long life leading my big brother and I through the undulations of our lives. I wanted to hold on to the
moment of watching him bound off into the woods on a powder cloud because I knew that one day I would have to
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