written by: Matthew D. LaPlante
I don’t spend a lot of time contemplating what might have happened. But I know what can happen when skiers hit trees. And I hit that aspen hard.
Over the next year, as I was healing, I started thinking about the things I might have wished to have done if I had indeed met my snowmaker on that day. For years, you see, I had been saying that I wanted to complete my collection of Utah day passes. And it wasn’t long before that idea became an obsession.
As soon as I could, I was going to ski all of Utah. And, maybe because I had something to prove, I was going to do it in a week.
Bucket list adventures are pointless without friends, though, So I called my buddy JJ, who didn’t teach me to snowboard but who did teach me that, if I was going to snowboard, there was only one appropriate way to do it. Locked in. Nose down. Fast as the mountain will carry us.
“Fourteen resorts in seven days,” I said.
“I’m in,” he replied. No questions. Our friend Swede was on board even quicker than that.
We met up in a Salt Lake City church parking lot at zero-dark-thirty on a Sunday to begin our road trip. We loaded JJ’s truck with our gear. Swede got behind the wheel, and we pulled onto Interstate 80. The sky was softening into its morning variegation as we turned south onto Highway 189.
We would cross the paths of some legendary Utah skiers during our marathon and learn humility.
Read about each day here: Day One | Day Two | Day Three | Day Four | Day Five | Day Six | Day Seven
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