COMP - culture of a mountain town

I live in a small town.  It's just like any other small town in a lot of ways:  everyone knows your name; it's impossible to walk the main street without getting entangled in conversation and good luck finding a store open on Sunday.  

But there is something different about this place.  You could call it culture.  Yeah, there's great food and live music, but that's not it.  There's the medley of different languages at the bar or the funky people downtown but that's not it either.  

Allow me to explain it as a time and place: late November at Whitewater Resort.  The hill's not open for another few weeks but the parking lot is full.  We're talking more full than a wednesday mid season.  The bottom few hundred metres of the lift line is littered with kids and dogs laughing and barking, all playing in the snow.  The spinny flippy kids are flipping and spinning, crashing and laughing, only to hike up and do it all over again.  Parents are mingling, enjoying the social scene, and taking it in turns watching the kids while someone else is skiing.  

The sking.  Maybe that's it.  That first sweet taste of powder for the year.  People are still golfing on the coast and here we're knee deep in sweet kootenay pow.  The parking lot is full of people putting skins on, checking transceivers and figuring out the jumble of gear that was hastily put away last spring.  

Old friends reunite here after a summer of working away or living that other life that is not skiing.  That other life is a distant memory in this place.  This place, this culture is about now.  And now is about fresh air, laughter, walking in the mountains and skiing early season pow.