Feet First – Deep & Delicious

words :: Feet Banks
photography: Diane LePage
skier: Rory Bushfield snowboarder: Mason Mashon

“I’ll let you be in my dream if I can be in your dream.“
– Bob Dylan

There is a certain peace of mind that comes with time spent alone in the mountains. The freedom and solitude of nature brings us to places of humility, grace, personal insight and bliss…

But the real fun – the grin splitting, fist pumping, shouting with glee FUN – comes from sharing it all with a friend. Someone to pick up our gear when we fall and dig us out when we’re stuck. Someone to high-five at the bottom, or sit silently with on the summit while the views and the accomplishment soak in. Someone to share the dream.

That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with a good solo mission, and we’ll always raise a glass to the rugged individualists who do it their own way. But amidst all the pushing further, digging deeper and climbing higher, let’s not forget the value of a simple day out having fun with our crew.

Because for most of us, time spent in the mountains is a shared experience. We meet our buddies for first chair or in the parking lot of the sled zone. We hike into secret spots together, après together, and snap photos of each other whilst shredding the gnar. We corroborate each other’s bold claims and are ready to go on the next wild adventure. In the mountains, we trust our lives to the people around us and the quality of any trip often hinges on the teammates, not the landscape.

As the editor of Mountain Life, I’ve spent a decade looking for a cover to celebrate the way we actually go out into the wild. I think we finally found it this issue – a couple of buddies, raw nature, deep powder and real fun. The wild solitude of the Coast Mountains is a beautiful and inspiring thing, but living the dream means sharing the dream, especially in this day and age. It’s a better world when we work together.

This was the editor’s intro to the February 2017 issue of Mountain Life Magazine. The editor’s note is always the last thing i write after a hectic 3-5 weeks of scrambling to put the mag together with the (5 person) team. It always feels like the most important task–set the tone for the whole book–but the truth is a lot of them don’t re-read as well as i remember. I like this one though, legitimately the first time we were able to get two buddies on the cover ripping at the same time. And the teepee…? Check out Mason Mashon’s original story about it in Mountain Life.