Portillo Travel greeted us with good news – fresh snow – and bad news – the road to Portillo was closed. For months, dreams of powder skiing in the Andes mingled with my catalogue of uncertainties over the wisdom of taking 10 days to ski in August. None included “snowed out.”

We found a hotel, a tour guide, and tried to make the news a bonus … a day to experience Santiago, Chile. Renato, our driver, delivered us the next day in time for tea, using the thousand trucks that waited along the hairpin turns to provide barriers on a road without guard rails as we climbed the 10,000 feet to the lodge.

After dinner, sipping strong black coffee before a wood fire we questioned each other: “Why are you in Portillo?”

Varied answers – a birthday gift to oneself, a trip won in a radio contest, a yearly trek – led to my turn. I pointed to two younger men. “My two stepsons invited me. They’re trying to kill me!”

Everyone laughed. Little did I know they were bringing me back to life, to my passion for the mountains and what they teach.

Awaking Monday to see the bare outlines of Inca Lake below the lodge, we found a posted warning: “Road to Santiago closed until Wednesday.” I worried about getting out.

On the hill, Bradley, our downhill racer, reminded me to keep my weight on the downhill ski and lean away from the hill. How do you see downhill in a “white out”?

Soaked in sweat by the fourth run, I started to feel more confident, then disorientation robbed me of balance. The fall jammed my shoulder, giving me a good reason to abandon my embarrassment and let my boys ski together.

Doubts that a man who makes his living selling time and words should ever take a vacation gave way to the stress of having nothing to do when three more meters of snow ground the mountain to a complete halt on Tuesday.

Stress exploded into panic – I left my laptop at home – and brought the recognition that having nothing to do is the same as having a day of intense skiing. After all, why are we here?

Avalanche control allowed Wednesday skiing and a new internal debate: How many runs before lunch? Arriving at our monkish cell, I find Mark, our hot dog skier who instigated this trip, on the bunk, ice on knees, holding his abdomen. He had met the rocks on Gargantua. He declined my suggestion to confirm his self-diagnosis at the clinic. The lessons accumulated.

Three afternoon runs on two-mile long Juncalillo in 360 degree white left me wiped out and questioning: Why would anyone ever return here year after year? An Englishman on his 15th year told me the average visitor has returned four times.

My Blackberry linked my plaint that snow imprisons to the outside world and returned the suggestion to sink into the experience and watch what comes up. “Fear makes one absent, Sweetheart.”

Thursday morning’s clear blue skies gave way to clouds by two o’clock and another white out for our last run. More falling snow and white out conditions smothered my confidence Friday but I had to take on Plateau, a steep and not yet skied trail. Each run felt like a trial.

Our last day dawned with the question will we get out? The road was closed. The helicopter that I assumed guaranteed an exit had crashed the day before on an avalanche rescue mission.
We were here until the road opened. I donned my skis and resolved to do one run. If it is fun, I will do a second. If not, I will quit. It was not fun.

As I waited, “snowed out” became a metaphor for my soul. I began to scribble words and phrases on scraps of paper: Be Aware, Be Focused, Be Centered – words I found difficult to live. It takes effort and energy to be Strong at the Core. That is what hard work means. It takes discipline not to get over your head. That is what focus means.

Out of touch with myself, I had come here to be reminded that life is solitary and you have to live it with your weight on the downhill ski.

Our driver plunged us down the mountain to the airport, past the occasional truck disabled on the side, past an avalanche that ended in the river below, through 20 miles of snow in a 100-mile trip. How like life!

I had stayed focused on the 20 miles of snow while rows of avocados, grapes and peaches covered most of the mountain. Renewed passion for mountains and challenge was my gift from being snowed out.

Edward Massey writes on issues of trust and promises in the business and financial world and wishes he had taken copies of his novel Telluride Promise to sell in Portillo. You may learn about the book at www.telluridepromise.com.

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