Pure, fresh, pristine.
Having arrived just a few hours before,
it was waiting for us as we stood at the trailhead.
A clean white carpet draped on the forest floor,
inviting us in.
And we walked.
Hard as rock. And unforgivingly slippery.
Treacherous under a thin blanket of powder.
One misstep and we’d be on our backs.
We kept walking.
Brittle as glass.
Cracking easily under the weight of our steps like fine china.
A crisp ripping sound in the muffled forest air,
and then quiet.
We pressed on.
Soft, as the finest Egyptian cotton.
Cushioning our feet as if walking on puffs of cloud,
high above the forest floor.
We continued walking.
White turned gray and then black
as the day surrendered to dusk and then night.
Darkness descended upon us,
erasing the difference between the ground and the sky.
Like walking in nothingness,
the only sound we heard was the one of our own breathing,
and our footsteps on the black snow.
And we kept walking.