A valley in the Columbias, February 2005, 7 PM. Supper is over and the dishes are done. A knock on the door. I grab my pack and splitboard. Time.
The early dark of mid-winter is long since complete, and the stars above town shine bright and clear through gaps in the trees. We have headlamps on, moving upward through the thick subalpine forest. Conversation is furtive, brief, and quickly stilled by the weight of night, the unsurety of leaving light and woodstove warmth behind. The huff of breathing seems loud over the shuffle of skins, the intermittent clicks of bindings, the rasp of poles penetrating the snow.
We crest a rise and come into a scrubby clearing, formed where a large slidepath abruptly halts in the narrow hanging valley. The group stops at its edge. Rooting in my pack for some hot tea, I am too absorbed in obtaining that reliable comfort to notice much. I find my thermos and look up.
“Turn off your light,” I hear, “you don’t need it anymore.”
I glance at my companions, now sporting only toques on their heads. With a click, my beam is extinguished. Yet my eyes do not adjust. They do not have to.
To the east, I see that the moon has finally gained the ridgetops. The valley is flooded by the full white roundess of its light. Turning back to my friends, I see an orange jacket, a red pack, green skis. Smiling, I am dazzled by returning grins of white teeth. We all burst into laughter. The night is clear and dark and bright, as only a full moon can be. A beer is popped open and passed around. Chatter erupts from the once-subdued crew, all eyes drawn to the broad peak far above. We start up.
The slidepath is filled in and smooth from the avalanches accompanying the January rains. Now refrozen and stable, the snowpack has been fluffed up, with recent dribs and drabs building into light boottop pow. The travelling is sweet and easy, knowing looks and smiles abundant.
Gaining a bench just above treeline, there is a fine view of a steep, wide-open, rolling bowl. The massive alpine terrain fans out upwards from the bench, away to a long, concave ridgeline, almost eight hundred meters above. Broad gullies and wide ribs define the terrain, so that the huge natural amphitheatre takes on the appearance of the inside of a great white mollusc shell. A flat spot on top of a nearby roll is chosen as the eventual regroup point, and we move on, closer to the pearl.
More easy skinning takes us across the bottom of the bowl, onto the ridgeline, and up. To our right, there is a dizzying drop to the valley bottom, as if an untoward switchback would drop an unfortunate soul into the lights of town below. The entire valley is lit now, and our continual climb reveals row after row of spires, marching off to the horizon, chasing the moon into the sky.
At the summit, we pull off our skins, lingering to share another beer. The night is not very cold, the wind is calm. Down, down, down below is our meeting place. One of our party whoops and drops in, as we watch him glide down a rib, the spray from his skis hanging in the moonlight. Turn after big turn, he arcs on, shrinking into the night. Minutes pass, and he is only a hooting dot on the bench in the distance.
My time is soon at hand. The soft carve of my first turn tears away any doubt, slashing it into a trailing wake. The line is steep and yielding, the speed comfortable. Away, away, the raucous shouts of my friends lost to the whoosh beneath my board and the rushing wind in my ears. I feel swallowed by the moment, frozen under the moon. Sometime later, I slide to a stop with the group, laughing beyond control.
Looking back, I see another person roll off the ridge. My eyes barely focus on a fuzzy grey speck winding down the slope, resolving into a tiny shadow, then tracks emerge from the night. Cackles of glee reach our ears.
We are still skiing when dawn erupts in the sky to the east. Colors boil off the last light of the moon. We race the sun home to our beds, there to dream of a pearl in the coming night.

Sweet dreams of snow,
TC