The air is super crisp, cold, and clean as I drop my skis down at the trailhead. A fluffy poof of snow jumps into the air where the skis land. I take a deep breath and look around.

The boughs of the balsam trees hang heavy with big clumps of snow. A super-fine dusting of snow falls, very slowly filling in the tracks from an earlier skier. I close my eyes and listen - it's unbelievably peaceful.

The piles of snow on the ground and the trees act as a super-sound insulator and most sounds of civilization are drowned out. I can actually hear the sounds of fine specks of snow as they tap the brittle leaves of the beech trees around me.

I sign in at the trail register and crouch down to clip my 3-pin bindings into my skis...

The more early mornings I spend skinning up Whiteface or earning turns in the backcountry, the more I believe that the best descents don’t include a lift.

It’s the sound of your breath as you stop to turn back and see the sun begin to rise over the mountains, the feeling of floating on the untouched snow beneath your skis, and the fulfillment that your morning adventure was completely self powered.

But before I go on, let’s go back.

Read any of my past blogs and it's not very hard to pick up that I'm a skier and I love doing it. There's just something about the feeling of sliding down the mountain with the wind against my face, the sound of the snow crunching beneath my skis, and the smell of fresh air and Adirondack wilderness around me.

Despite having only learned to ski 6 years ago, it is something that has become such a part of my life, and such a source of joy for me, that it sometimes strikes me odd when someone says that they haven't ever tried it or don't see themselves making that dive into the sport.

Enter: World Snowboard Day...