Without revealing any details about where, or when, the image stopped me in wonder. Breathing aside, how do you unweight in snow over your head?  And just as important, how can you see?

Billed as a family resort with a ski in––ski out village at the base of its Summit Express Chair, Silver's Star Mountain Resort's one hundred and thirty two named trails are spread across 2500 vertical feet. 

I knew to keep my hands in front, my shoulders square to the fall line and my knees pumping but with the powder parting like a breaking wave around my thighs, I blanked out on technique and simply commended myself to the steep and deep. 

Reddick was in the White Room, poles reaching through a crystal curtain, ankles, knees and hips flexing in time to last week’s buried moguls when the bottom fell out.

Betting a storm will wane, that morning will dawn clear and cold, that broad alleys of corduroy powder will replace soft, rolling bumps, is a bad bet between the Pacific Coast and Canadian Rockies, where nature consistently eliminates the need to groom. 

No matter that a Gulf of Alaska Low had dumped two feet of twenty degree powder on British Columbia's Silver Star Mountain Resort, I didn't know what to make of the two skiers with snorkels stuffed into their elastic goggle bands. I suspected the snorkels were a practical joke played on the Vance Creek Hotel guests lining up for oatmeal and eggs. Over the years I’ve heard myths of snorkel deep powder but, having never personally skied it, I was convinced that snorkels were simply sight gags––props photographers employ to make a foot of powder imitate five.

No doubt the snorkels were a visual psyche––a trick to snag another untracked run while the rest of us stood transfixed in a torrential snowfall and, pausing next to their table, I studied the caged Ping-Pong balls and asked, "Do you think you'll need those?" 

One moved his mouthpiece to one side and warned, "Damned right I do! You won't be able to breathe without one!" Draining his coffee cup, his partner added a final parting shot. "In places it'll be over your head!" he promised.

Over my head? 

Without revealing any details about where, or when, the image stopped me in wonder. Breathing aside, how do you unweight in snow over your head?  And just as important, how can you see? In snorkel deep snow, do you bend your knees, or flap your arms?  And, powder cords or not, what if you lose a ski? Considering the alternatives and swinging between elation and depression, I spooned more oatmeal than I could eat into a bowl, added some toast and turned to study the shimmering flakes. 

Skirting the west slope of the Monashees, the Okanagan Valley is famous for its mild climate, clear lakes and local wines and yet by intent or accident, this eighty-mile glacial scratch is virtually unknown in the United States.  During January the hills between Lake Okanagan and Silver Star Mountain Resort reveal snow covered vineyards and orchards.  Missing in that silent image is why Okanagan powder refuses to be compacted into anything as common as snowballs or snowmen.

Drifting down upon Silver Star's Putnam Creek drainage, Okanagan powder must be ranked among the driest in the world––billions times billions of desert dry flakes piled high on steep faces, this snow was made for fat waisted, soft flexing skis. Created by Pacific low pressure working in concert with frigid Arctic air, Okanagan powder feels like Okanagan white wine tastes and staring down "Holy Smokes," I couldn't decide whether the snow compared to a fine Chenin Blanc––light dry and with a silky after taste––or a Johannesburg Riesling, slightly sweeter with a more robust nose. 

When tasting fine wine, good form requires that you first sniff the cork then inhale the bouquet. After that, you're supposed to wash a little around your mouth, nod knowingly and spit. Slamming down glass after glass only leads to trouble. Your judgment slips, your inhibitions fail and sooner or later you lose track of any fine finish, or the number and names of runs.

By ten AM, I was beyond that point.  With snow falling at an inch an hour onto Putnam Creek, I was drunk on the snow, the terrain and the skiing.  Though I didn't have a snorkel, if there was a lampshade I'd be wearing it. If there were a country western band, I'd be counting out the two-step––one, two, feet together, one two inside turn. Pushing off into "Holy Smokes," I knew to keep my hands in front, my shoulders square to the fall line and my knees pumping but with the powder parting like a breaking wave around my thighs, I blanked out on technique and simply commended myself to the steep and deep. 

If I didn't know what I would find in south central British Columbia, I didn't expect this.  Billed as a family resort with a ski in––ski out village at the base of its Summit Express Chair, Silver's Star Mountain Resort's one hundred and thirty two named trails are spread across 2500 vertical feet.  The mountain is roughly divided between Vance Creek's intermediate  "Milkyway," "Constellation" and "Big Dipper," and Putnam Creek's moguled "Black Pine,""White Elephant" and "Normania."  With twelve lifts to service 3,269 acres, Silver Star draws the majority of its skiers from Western B.C. and the Northwest U.S.  

Designed around a Victorian theme, Silver Star's village core offers a variety of accommodations, restaurants and shops as well as an aquatic center and Canada's High Altitude Training Center. The big draw, however, is Silver Star's snow.  At 200 inches, the mountain may not match depths on coastal Whistler Blackcomb, but once the storms override the interior's frigid air, the snow dries out.  Once on the ground, it changes slowly, offering bonus crud skiing, days after a storm. 

It was mid-morning when I met David Reddick on Silver Star's Vance Creek Express Lift. A photographer from Southern California, Reddick resembled Errol Flynn in a dark haired, head scarf, devil may care way.  While riding the chair, he told me he had learned to ski at Big Bear, Lake Arrowhead and less often Mammoth Mountain. Because he admittedly had not lived in a ski resort, I suspected he was a good skier but not a great one. Limited by experience, he might have a solid, but not startling style. And yet during that first run, Reddick surprised me. Watching his skis slash through the powdery bumps, I had a fleeting image of Errol Flynn swinging a sword, all color, movement, with fluid knees and perfect balance.  

Reddick was in the White Room, poles reaching through a crystal curtain, ankles, knees and hips flexing in time to last week’s buried moguls when the bottom fell out. Blinded by a bow wave of blue smoke powder, Reddick nearly cleared the cat track, then compressed on the down hill flat and ejected from both skis. Arms pumping, he sailed out and down, then porpoised to a stop through the deep snow.

Past dislocated shoulders, twisted knees and broken ribs, have taught me to hate high-speed crashes off cat tracks and now could not help but grimace at the scattered equipment or his snow covered silhouette. Retrieving his skis, I traversed down. "Where are you hurt?" I asked. 

Staggering to his feet, he confessed, "I'm not sure . . ." 

Rattled but still basically unbroken, David clicked into his bindings and picked up where he left off, dicing the chancy good line next to the trees.  Watching him change into a crystal vortex, I started downhill, unweighted and settled. The Okanagan powder flowed up my jacket and over my goggles. Blinded by a shroud of glowing crystals, I resisted the impulse to throw my skis sideways, to bail out and silence the rhythm.  Instead, I ignored the fire in my thighs and reached for the next pole plant.

Vernon locals claim that Silver Star is equivalent to heli skiing without the heli-tariff.  Blessed by the same beneficent weather patterns that have made the Monashees a Mecca for devout powder skiers the snow is cold, light and, between the trees, deep, dark and dangerous. Next to the mature spruce the shadows and drifts, encouraged me to ski too hard, to link too many turns. Chasing Reddick down "Where's Bob," and "Black Pine” I wondered if it was possible to get toxemic poisoning from Okanagan powder, to overdose on the vertical, soft snow turns and gray images of skiers floating silently downhill. My breath was coming in short hard gasps, when I finally bailed on "Headwall." 

In the ten second it took for my goggles to clear, a nightmare materialized out of the falling flakes.  Standing waist deep in the middle of the steep run, a heavyset man was digging for his ski. 

I would later learn that he made one turn at 9:00 AM, crossed his tips and ejected. He had started to search by following his track uphill. When that failed, he began to circle, drawing widening gyres from a central point. After half an hour he charitably insisted his wife continue on without him. He was still searching at noon when she returned with a sandwich, a coke and two friends.  

"I didn't much like her skiing with those young studs," he later admitted. "Especially when I'd just spent three hours what felt like paddlin' a canoe through concrete."  

Like some enormous snow mole, by noon he had excavated a huge hole in the midst of "Headwall." By three that afternoon, only two lines, closest to the forest remained and he was seventy feet from where he fell when his persistence finally paid off.  The ski patrol was starting its final sweep when he finally found his ski, wearily dropped it on the crumbled snow and made his slow way to the chair.

When I met him later in the Aquatic Center's hot tub he admitted, "What kept me goin' was between skis and bindings . . .was better than a week's pay! Hell, I could'a traded a season's pass for that one turn!"

An unconfirmed story claimed that, upon seeing "Headwall's," ruined face, a lift supervisor is said to have ordered, "If you see what did this, shoot it!"

I'm not sure who was more exhausted, the snow mole or myself.  The number of pole plants, knee bends and edge changes it takes to ski from bell to bell, must rank in the tens of thousands. Skiing until long after everything hurts may offer its own lasting rewards, but it is also the equivalent of robbing Peter to pay Paul.  Betting a storm will wane, that morning will dawn clear and cold, that broad alleys of corduroy powder will replace soft, rolling bumps, is a bad bet between the Pacific Coast and Canadian Rockies, where nature consistently eliminates the need to groom. 

Late that day, above the Summit Chair, the cloud cover showed no sign of abating. Instead it continued to loose flurries of flakes onto the soft moguls.  A deep gray dusk had settled on the silent Vance Creek face when I started down the "Chute" got lazy, got forward and got launched––over the tips and into the bumps, the snow embracing me with a cold powdery silence.

I should know when to quit to ski another day.  After six hours of powder, my thighs were charred rare, my back ached and my shins were bruised from shocking into the front of my boots. Limping back to my hotel room, I shed the layers of sour polypropylene, pulled on a swimsuit, grabbed a towel and stumbled back into the storm. If I felt silly plowing half naked in a pair of shower slaps through the flakes toward the aquatic center the effort was worth it for slipping into the temperate water each breath triggered an image of falling flakes, each arm stroke imitated a pole plant––each kick bending knees and I plodded along in an exhausted crawl, thinking about the day until a trim beauty in an emerald green speedo blew by in the right lane. Then, expending what little energy I had left, I hung with her for a couple of laps then headed for the shower.

Following dinner I should have retreated to my room and fallen into bed but the storm showed no sign of waning. The amplified thump of live music drew me into the Vance Creek Saloon, where couples spun in intricate circles to a country western trio. A dozen years younger and unfazed by the morning's crash, Reddick was dancing up a storm.  Having once followed the Grateful Dead around California he now moved smoothly around the dance floor.  It occurred to me that his dancing could serve as a petition to those forces that create storms––Pacific Currents, Alaskan Lows and Arctic Highs.  And I watched the fit little darlings cut in on each other to dance with Dave until the last riff faded, the lights came on and the crowd drifted outside into the incessant flakes.