Last winter, while in Shasta one morning before an avalanche course I was instructing had started for the day. I found myself standing alone in the Castle Lake parking lot waiting for the sun to come up. It wasn’t a particularly remarkable day. It wasn’t the beginning of some epic climb, or the start of a particularly difficult course. In fact, if I tried to find the exact date today, I’d have to look at my calendar to figure it out. What I remember isn’t the location, the date, or the ski conditions. What I remember is the quiet.
The most recent storms around Christmas had passed. The wind had settled down, the clouds had broken apart, and the area was finally covered in some fresh snow. It was perfect conditions for the course I was going to teach. Everything felt still that morning, it wasn’t silent, but it was quiet enough that I was aware of things I’d normally look past. The occasional creak of a tree bending under the weight of snow. The distant sound of Castle Lake Creek hidden beneath the ice near the parking lot. The faint hiss of snow drifting across the frozen lake surface.
As I stood there drinking coffee from my thermos that was losing the battle against the cold, a few snowflakes landed on the leg of my pants. It was one of those moments when they remained intact long enough to actually look at them. One of my favorite things to do is look at them when they fall. I like to develop a hypothesis of what the upper atmospheric conditions are like. They’re tiny crystals, but each carries a level of detail that seems impossible for something so small. When growing up, I’m sure it’s not just me that heard that line about how no two snowflakes are alike, but I don’t think most of us stopped to consider what that actually means. Every one of those crystals I saw that morning had followed a different path through the atmosphere. Every single one was shaped by different temperatures, different winds, and different amounts of moisture. They have fallen around the same time, and in the same area, but they didn’t all arrive from the same journey.
While I was getting my things ready, I didn’t think much about it. I tend to obsess over snowpack structure, storm cycles, avalanche forecasts, freeze-thaw conditions, and weather models. It’s what I do for half of the year! The other half, I’m just grumpy at how hot it is, and I wait for the snow to return. Snow became one of my largest and most consuming professional interests long before it became a philosophical one. I’ve never been one for hot temperatures, but I remember wearing shorts year-round as a child. I’ve loved snow since the first time I saw it. Over the past several years, I’ve found myself thinking back to all those snowflakes more and more.
Maybe that’s because the longer I work in and around the mountains, the more I realize how much of life happens in ways that aren’t obvious. When people meet another person, they see the finished product (although, we’re not really ever finished – right??). When looking at a guide, forecaster, ski patroller, etc. they see someone who can move in the terrain easily, generally teach technical skills, make decisions in difficult conditions, and lead others through places that can be extremely intimidating. What they don’t see are all the years that came before. They don’t see the mistakes, the uncertainty, the learning curve, or the countless experiences that slowly molded that person into who they became, or what they’ll be.
The truth is that most guides and outdoor professionals don’t begin their journey with the intention of becoming that. At least not most of the ones I know. Most started because they were curious. They climbed a mountain because it looked interesting. They went backpacking because they wanted to take a gap year. They learned to ski because sliding downhill seemed like a lot more fun than walking. Somewhere along the way, that curiosity grew roots and started to grow.
I think of my own path that I’m still on now, there wasn’t some defining moment when I decided that mountains would become such a large part of my life. There was a defining moment about what I didn’t want to do, but becoming a guide, SAR team member, and avalanche educator happened gradually. One step turned into another. A desire for a change in my life evolved into a change in lifestyle. Then, before I fully realized it, the mountains had become the framework around which much of my life is now built. There have been challenging times, and there will certainly be more to come.
I bring this up, because that process reminds me of the beginning of a snowflake’s path as well.
Those snowflakes that landed on me that morning all started with something almost impossibly small. Before any of them had become the crystals that landed on me, they started as microscopic particles suspended high in the atmosphere. A speck of dust, or a grain of pollen, or maybe even airborne bacteria! Something so insignificant that nobody would ever notice it if it were right in front of our face. Water vapor then started to gather around that tiny nucleus and began to freeze until a crystal slowly emerged.
Something so special, and unique, can start out as something so ordinary. If someone were to point at that microscopic particle and tell you it would eventually become part of a storm that blankets an entire mountain range, you would probably laugh. Yet that’s exactly what happens.
Thinking of our lives, I feel like they often unfold the same way.
The experiences that end up shaping us rarely seem to be that important at the time. Often, they seem small. For me, a simple decision to go to lunch somewhere resulted in a relationship that is now 21 years strong and a teenage daughter. For you, maybe it was a first camping trip, or a mentor who took the time to teach a skill that you still use today. Perhaps it was a climb that didn’t go according to plan. Or a car breaking down, keeping you from getting somewhere on time. Regardless, years later, those moments could be the foundation of everything that followed.
In my years in this profession, I’ve found the outdoors have a way of teaching this lesson to us repeatedly. I’ve found in life, that nothing meaningful happens all at once – it takes time, and not always the amount of it we want. Remember, snowpacks are built one storm at a time, and rivers carve canyons over years, these things don’t tend to happen suddenly. Don’t try to rush it.
That’s something many climbers don’t want to hear. When we’re new to something, we want progress to happen quickly. We want competence immediately. We want confidence before we’re sure of our skills. I urge you to be patient and take the time to gain experience, judgment, and understanding.
The coffee I was drinking that morning eventually went cold, as it always does. No amount of wishing was going to change that. The snowflakes didn’t all fall at once either. They spent time gathering moisture, changing shape, and becoming what they were only because the conditions allowed it. Had they been rushed along, they would have become something entirely different.
So be patient with yourself. Learn the fundamentals. Practice the skills. Accept the setbacks. Let the process do its work. The mountain will still be there tomorrow, and next season, and years from now.
So, if you find yourself standing in a snowy parking lot somewhere, holding a cup of coffee while waiting for the sun to rise, remember to drink it before it gets cold. It’s one of the few things in life that I think are best when it’s hot.
Written By Caleb Burns