MONTANA 12/27/13

The vastness of the mountains is experienced fully in a Montana winter. With 360-degree mountain views, crystal air and white, glistening snow covering the landscape, the Big Sky State is simply amazing. As a Colorado native I find comparison’s distasteful, but the state of Montana rivals the one I call home.

Montana is a wild, adventurer’s paradise where the true remoteness of the country is experienced most vividly during those long, cold winter months. I thrive in that environment, as it beholds the key to one of my life’s desires.

Few things in my life make me feel as alive as when I ride. Snowboarding provides the experience of pure creativity. It allows me to live in the moment like few activities can. With each turn, each new track, I’m creating my own uncharted movement across some massive mountainside, expressing my own little art piece. I consider it my own style of Individual expression, collaboration between the mountain and myself. And that expression isn’t lasting, it isn’t something that can be saved; it’s as fleeting as time and life itself. It will be gone in an instant, replaced by Mother Nature and her ever-changing landscape.

I love the impermanence and unproductive nature of riding. There is no tangible end goal to the activity, because there is no meaning to sliding down mountains with sticks strapped to your feet other than the attainment of joy. So often the relevance of activity is determined by the productivity or output it produces. But things in life that only focus on joy, that only produce a feeling of wonder, inspiration and excitement, those are the pure activities and moments, those are the seconds where you become truly focused on the here and now, those are the instants where you find connection between soul and nature.

The same experience can be recreated in countless ways, but it can be summed up in a word. The word has expression at its core. It expects giving of effort and time while promising nothing in return. It’s an unquestioned, sometimes illogical drive. It’s risky, daring and unabashed. It can be dangerous and sometimes unyielding, yet it’s beautiful and necessary for us all. All of us have it in us somewhere. And if you don’t, you’re lost. It’s called passion.