There really isn’t anything better than the first snowfall of the season. Nothing beats watching the first flakes fall with the thought of knowing the local hill is going to be up and running sooner than later. In the meantime, the following keeps us busy while we wait for the winter storms: Like that day you dig out your iron and put that fresh layer of wax on your skis. Or when you pull out your ski garb, put it all on, and run around your house in excitement because you’ve been missing your ski socks so badly - but then pass out from heat exhaustion because it’s still August. Or the day you pick up your season pass. Or that night you and your buddies devote to watching ski movies to get amped up for the new season. Or the afternoon you strap your ski racks on the roof of your car – pissed because you misplaced that one bolt but happy at the same time be cause ski racks just look cool on cars. Or that night when you can’t handle waiting anymore, so you strap on your boots, step into your bindings and just stand there on your skis making the motions of freeheel turns in your living room. Or that first drive up the canyon with your buddies to go skiing, listening to all the new music you found during the summer, and talking about which lifties you missed the most.

Perhaps the only thing, though, that beats that first snowfall is when you finally step into your boots, walk up to the hill, put your feet in those bindings that you love just so, and flip up your heel bails. All that’s left now is laying down those first few turns, reminding yourself what keeps you coming back every season: the turn.

The freeheel turn is something that runs in every freeheelers blood. Lifting our heels isn’t something we do because we feel we have to. We do it because we want to, and wouldn’t have it any other way. We like schralping inches off the corduroy, taking face shots on every turn in fresh pow, and dialing our tele stance going switch. The community that we’re creating is one that will hopefully stick around for seasons’ infinitum, watching tele-groms and younger generations doing things on freeheel skis that older generations never even dreamed of. I ask the question again: What could be better?