It’s only been a few weeks, but I can already tell I’m going to like living in Coeur d’Alene. It’s so beautiful here, unlike the endless fields of dust in which I grew up.
Now don’t get me wrong, I was born and lived for quite a while on the West Coast and will forever be a child of the Puget Sound. But I’ve spent the last eight years in a tiny farm town surrounded by wheat fields. Wheat fields may be pretty or inspiring to some, but I tend to be more partial to trees, water and greenness. To me, it’s very refreshing here.
I can’t wait to see what it’s like here in the winter, but at the same time I’m sad that summer is coming to an end. It seemed like such a short summer this year; we barely got to enjoy it. Alas, some things can’t be changed. So let the snow come down, and let the snowboarding begin!
Honestly, I just started snowboarding two years ago. I’ve been to the mountain seven or eight times, but even after the first time I went, I knew I had found something I loved. There is nothing quite like the feeling of surfing the snow, the utter detachment from the rest of the world. It’s almost Zen in the way it forces you to forget about everything else and be totally in the moment. The speed the powder billowing up in your face, gives you a pure rush. For lack of a better term, flying is what I’m doing. My fellow boarders and skiers know what I’m talking about.
The real issue is whether or not I’ll be able to keep my car running through the winter. It’s a tank and likes the snow. However the transmission is on its last shaky leg. Plus the exhaust pipe is broken so it sounds like a truck when you start it. As long as it runs well enough to get me to the mountain on the weekends, I will be happy.
I have heard that in the winter there is a bus that will take students to one of the nearby mountains once a week. This may just be rumor, or a weird fairy tale. If said fairy tale turns out to be too good to be true, you could probably take a regular city bus to Lookout Pass. I think that’s the closest mountain to Coeur d’Alene.
I looked at Outdoor Pursuits trip lists and I only found one or two trips to nearby ski/snowboarding locations. One of which was to Schweitzer. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have the money for that. I can spend three whole days at Lookout Pass for the same price as one day at Schweitzer. It might be a cool idea to talk to Outdoor Pursuits and see about renting vehicles to take groups of students up on the weekends. Or possibly the dorm advisers could look into taking regular trips skiing or snowboarding as dorm events.
The small town I came from had many hills, so in the winter a favorite of mine was to simply grab my snowboard and jump in my friend’s truck. He would then drive me to the top of one of the steeper streets and from there I would just snowboard down and around through town. Unfortunately with the traffic around here, and the abundance of law enforcement, I would say that pass-time will have to be retired.
