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Vail Valley Voices: The start of a special day

Mason Haer
Vail, CO, Colorado

5:37 a.m.: Your eyes open, and you are awake. No alarm has gone off, no noise ripped you from your slumber, and no movement rustled your sleep.

Something feels different. Something louder than noise and more disturbing than movement has lured you away from your secret world of dreams.

Your senses stretch their drowsy muscles. You become more aware of your surroundings.



Is it slightly lighter out? Does the minute amount of light seeping through the cracks play a different tune as it whispers you from your bed?

Curiosity wins and lures you from your sheets, tearing you away from your night’s lover. Whoever slept beside you — warmth, friend, stranger, spouse — can’t even keep you entwined in their web of dreams.

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You step out of bed and cold stings you with a thousand needles. His bitter fingers and icy breath push you back to warmth, but you fight back. Hope and curiosity are urging behind you.

You slowly make your way to the window, pull up the blinds, and you are greeted with utter white chaos.

Thousands upon thousands of large white snowflakes are whirling and twirling from the sky. They dance with each other and flirt with the wind as they make the long treacherous journey to the ground.

Fluffy fresh powder coats the ground like a giant blanket.

The falling flakes obstruct your view of the monstrous mountains that you know lurk behind the curtain of snowfall.

But you do not have to see them. You know today will be a powder day.

Now a visitor from Atlanta, Mason Haer lived in Vail for two years after graduating from James Madison University in 2007.


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