The wind is from the northwest at 20 to 30 miles per hour, with gusts to 40. The temperature is well below zero Fahrenheit. It may be snowing or not, but if it’s not there’s a strong ground blizzard. In other words, harsh conditions by almost anyone’s standards.
And those conditions excite me in a way that nothing else does. It’s so harsh that I don’t even feel as if I’m on Earth any more. I feel as if it’s a harsh day on the surface of some planet that’s entirely indifferent to my existence, that is not nurturing, that may not even be habitable by humans. And yet there I am, out in it, challenging it to kill me.
And it could kill me. Skipping over all the science-fiction fantasies going on in my head, a fairly simple mistake could result in severe injury or even death. But that’s part of why it’s exciting.
Another part is that usually when I’m outside in those conditions, I’m moving — snowshoeing, skiing, walking, running, biking — and both my mind and body are fully engaged in staying upright, moving forward, and calculating direction and location. It’s an intensity of mental and physical effort that completely involves all that I am, and crowds everything else out of my mind. On the best days, I approach a meditative state, focused entirely on the now.
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Ending and Beginning 