A World of Quiet
The creative mind in the winter landscape
THERE ARE THREE REASONS I check my weather apps obsessively: Open water swimming, cross-country skiing, and making photographs. There are nuances as to what constitutes perfect conditions for each, but in general, they all depend on tracking storm systems, wind, lightning (its own app), time of sunset, and precipitation.
Skiing conditions are by far the most elusive. An unseasonal thaw, or worse, rain, are the villains in the situation. Snow is essential, but even so, the quality of the snow matters, too. You want it to easily pack and support one’s weight under the skis, but not be too sticky, nor too icy, slushy, or hard. Wherever you may ski, on south-facing trails, the sun tends to burn the snow away first and the grass beneath begins to poke through. That’s not ideal — if your skis catch on a dry patch, you could fall. Ground water seeps up in spots sometimes, making snow dark gray, and that can either mean it’s going to grab onto your skis and slow you down, or, if it’s very cold, turns to ice and becomes a precarious patch. These are just a few of a million other deciding factors that either makes snow good or bad. The other thing you learn quickly with cross-country skiing is that conditions are rarely perfect. Accepting this only adds to the pleasure of perfect conditions when they do present. On those days, skiing is easy, smooth, invigorating, and calming.
“Skiing is easy, until it’s not.” That’s my mantra.
Skiing is easy, until it’s not.
I left New York City around 2012 to live in the Berkshires full time, and seriously reconnected with skiing in the winter of 2012-2013. I had skied growing up, mostly with my brother Mike in Becket near our family cabin. We didn’t have proper trails, and didn’t know about “perfect conditions” or the art of a skillfully groomed trail. But we would throw our skis on, and bushwhack through forest, eventually ending up on the great snowy expanse of nearby Upper Goose Pond.
In the winter of 2012-2013, I was mostly skiing with Juliane, or occasionally, our kids. I was just coming out of a rough patch, and was getting back on my feet in many different ways, slowly over time. But then on one particular day in January of 2013, which, thanks to Juliane, was memorialized in a picture made on her Blackberry phone below — I had a profound internal moment that brought my creative mind back online. We had been skiing through narrow forested trails when suddenly my skis hit the frozen ice of a small pond, and something about the sound of the ski against the ice, the forest surrounding me, brought me back, reminded me of sking with my brother as kids and the way the forest would open up to the icy surface of Upper Goose — a core sense memory. I paused, and had a out-of-body moment. I said out loud to Juliane that I knew I was ready to make pictures again. That’s the exact moment you see here.
As we skied back, we noticed the name of the trail was “Cathedral Pines.” Juliane remembered it later that day in a text as “Cathedral of the Pines,” and I liked that even better. I knew that would be the title of my next body of work. The picture at the top of this piece is from that series, and was made on the titular trail.
Skiing has become the winter version of what swimming is to me in the summer. It’s not a hobby, and it’s not an “exercise routine.” It’s life, and art. It’s essence. It’s the center of everything else.
If there is no snow, sure, I settle for doing laps in a pool. But I’m not happy.
When I ski, I have an established route, and except for rare exceptions, I don’t stray from it. The trails retain certain trains of thought, the ideas are embedded in the landscape, placed there by me or together with Juliane — future pictures, or story concepts. They wait there for us to push them a little further along the trail each day.
Embracing the cold and the snow offers a world of quiet. The cold air in your lungs is bracing, and humbling, and pure. Skiing also has a relationship to dreaming, the feeling of floating, gliding, or flying.
There is nothing that compares with the stillness, the silence, the hush. The trees do become something of a Cathedral all around you, a place of reflection, and of clarity. The din of technology and obligation is somewhere far away, and you’re alone with your thoughts, your ideas and stories, your imagination.
Posts on the Crewdson Trail Log are written and assembled by Juliane Hiam in concert with Gregory.
I love this. I never anticipated skiing might become a legit activity for us around here, but I can see it becoming very likely and this post only confirms that. We are not far from Bousquet Mountain, but I suspect cross-country skiing across forests and frozen ponds is where the magic happens. Thanks for the encouragement.
I feel the same way about skiing in the woods. Your loving words describe the physical, sensual, emotional and creative feeling one gets when they cross country skiing. I especially love the details of the snow (colors, stickiness). Thank you for being patrons who enjoy the sport as much as we do!