Today I was a cave man.

Not like a cave-man spelunker or a cave-man or caver exploring Red’s many tunnels, shafts, caverns and winzes (and there are a lot of the old mine-holes pock-marking the back-runs), but a cave man in the sense of a throwback, jaw set determinedly forward, back-country Cromagnon behaviours an evolutionary dead-end; frustrated by my slow progress and low rung on the evolutionary ladder, I was rapidly reduced to little more than, “Oooga-booga-grarrrr,” temper-tantrum colouring the approach to Roberts blue.

Permit me to explain.

While easily accessible from the ski area, Red Mountain’s legendary back-country has most recently been denoted as “slack-country,” back-country terrain so darn easy to run laps on that even a cave man could do it.

Yes, the story or theory goes that even a paleolithic hominid equipped with enough elbow grease and tenacity could easily loop the local slack-country hot-spots all the live long day.

Not entirely so, says I.

I appreciate suffering as much as the next person, but watching my group slowly, then more quickly, then rapidly outpace me up the skin-track was not only painful, but staggering; I’m a relatively fit guy, but the methods of ascending the peak before us were so much more advanced than my cave man brain could handle, the experience simply blew my mind, left me with the stark impression I was indeed in possession of a significantly less developed frontal lobe.

Maybe you have seen the old diagrams in school textbooks, those that haven’t disavowed the evolutionary theory, where human-kind is displayed in their progression more or less from monkey into man, the various stages showing changes from all fours to upright posture, stride, and so on.

Well, that’s how it was on the skin-track today.

At the front of our pack was the currently uncontested King of the Mountain, the Golden Telemark skier effortlessly gliding forth towards the riches Mount Roberts holds.

From the snooze-inducing access point off of Silver Sheep onwards, flocks of groomer-bound mutton unaware of what the surrounding hills offer, the telemarker held the pole position.

Behind him, the Touring Skier, heels temporarily freed of their downhill restraints, followed in the skin-steps of the supreme Telemark being.

Similar in posture, near indistinguishable in appearance, the pair led our tribe onwards, upwards to Roberts. Behind the highly evolved ski-set shuffled another humanoid, this with limpier, less elegant skis on each foot.

Yes, slightly crooked at the shoulders, near sloth-like in comparison to the skiers, this was the fabled Splitboarder, snowboard split into touring mode so as to allay the ails and pains of the ascent. While slower, heavier, and less developed in form and technique, several similarities remained; a smile still graced the splitboarder’s clean-shaven face.

Following the splitboarder, hunched, determined, Hobbit-like Snowshoers flapped their toilet-seat sized appendages up the slope, pummeled their pumiced feet and crampons into the ski-track, the last of the viable species to adapt and thrive amidst snow-covered peaks. Grimacing, stoic, they beat their way up the hill. And then came the cave man.

Without a splitboard (he’d left it at home), without poles, with nothing more than a standard snowboard lashed to his back and raw determination, the cave man boot-packed up the skin-track, massive post-holes and alligator traps left in his wake, unfriendly under-boot terrain left exposed for the next herd to ascend.

But the cave man did not care. Instead, he railed against the indignity of it all.

He imagined himself lost to the mountain, uncovered centuries later to be gawked at by arrogant, self-satisfied Telemarkers, Touring Skiers, Splitboarders, even (gasp) lowly Snowshoers and their snowmobiling brethren.

“Gee, why didn’t he just get a sled?”

The cave man, frozen, would be unable to register his displeasure, forever frozen in time, lost to the ages, a thing to be mocked.

Back on the skin-track, reality, like his boots, sank in.

No, he resolved he would not go down like that.

Employing the near superhuman strength so often equated with cave men, today’s cave man cursed, muscled and punched through to the top of Mount Roberts, and stole the others’ fire when he snaked first-tracks down Hourglass, the one modern-phrase he had perfected to date shouted out while he made his awesome descent;

“In your faaaaaaaace!”

Fortunately, I have the means and the determination to not be a cave man every day, and so do you!

Today was just an anomaly. I devolved, briefly, stole glory from the jaws of more advanced humans and taunted them all the way. But I still had my transceiver, my probe and my shovel.

I might be a cave man from time to time, but I’m not stupid.

I readily encourage anyone interested in exploring Red’s back-slack-rat-pack-country to avail themselves of proper avalanche awareness training, available, modern equipment (trinkets and good luck charms don’t count), and to slowly graduate from the merely curious to the expertly informed; ask questions, expand your knowledge, equip yourself, and explore.

The mind-blowing part comes shortly thereafter.

“Snow is Mother Nature’s spit.”

So observes the gap-toothed six year old in the grocery store line, snow not spitting but dumping down on the sidewalk and streets outside. Her parents roll their eyes, her pops prodding her with a follow-up question.

“What’s rain then?”

Without missing a beat, his daughter answers, “Mother Nature crying.”

No one argues. The pre-season deluge of stormy weather, cold November rain and early December showers, caused many a seasoned local to shed a tear or two.

But now it’s on.

Pow time.

We stare out the window, past the gossip magazines and towards the real news framed in front of us. The snow, whether best characterized as spit, salt, confetti or Jack Frost’s flaking dry-scalp, is sticking.

The kid in the shopping cart has summarily shut her dad up. Head and shoulders can do nothing but shrug and nod in anticipation for the coming powder day.

“Okay, kiddo. Snow is Mother Nature’s spit.”

We look out the biggest big-screen in town at the greatest show on Earth, snow in our hometown, inches of accumulating white stuff in our backyards. Like Pavlov’s dog, we could use a napkin.

Mother Nature may be in a spit-fight with our stoic local mountain, positively salivating over the terrain Papa Red,Uncles Granite, Robbie, Grey have to offer, but for our part, our faces are fresh and ruddy, eyes dry if not a little weary. It’s been a few big days in a row here.

Shrouded in thick grey clouds and approaching darkness, Red is wrapped in a loosely fitted Snuggie of snow and mystery, Muumuu-like snow-coat extended over the neighboring peaks. We can recall our turns from the first few weeks of the season…

The recent rolling over of the calendar is of significantly less concern than the previous weeks’ introduction of therealnew year, the new season, the annual return of Mother Nature’s frigid gob; a prequel to the end of a year, a sure sign of wintry things to come.

On the way home, snow crunches or blows away from footfalls and tire traffic, a good time to reflect on the twists and turns of the day.

Snow. With enough patience, you could pluck the dendrites off a snow-flake like you might a flower of its petals, gain some insight into Mother Nature’s frosty gift.

“She loves me, she loves me not…”

To be honest, “Spit” is not an apt descriptor for powder snow, “spit” entirely too liquid, liquefied, but unaccustomed to picking fights with little kids, I’ll let it slide this time…

Funny the things you can overlook when snow is falling.

What we get here is significantly lighter, drier, and pillowy-er than the coast, none of the Pacific sludge that passes for snow oozing its way to the Kootenays.

That snowflake might as well be a four-leaf clover, cuz man, are we ever lucky.

Hatch-marks for days already skied are multiplying now, storm systems honing in on the beacon that is Red. Inside the snow-globe, we’re eager to lay fresh tracks, scuff up our skis and New Year’s resolutions in favor of terrain-laden Red-solutions (ha ha!), new challenges, new lines and a fresh perspective on slaying some pow.

Happy New Year, friends… But more importantly, enjoy the season- Tread lightly, shred loosely, and come up with something better than “spit.”

Snow + Red = Mother Nature’s Bread and Butter.

Eat up.