Dashing through the snow and 'letting it all go'

Tourists ski at Changbai Mountain. Yang Yang / China Daily

At the equipment center, we put on heavy boots, suits and helmets, and dragged the skis walking slowly into the snow, or more specifically "snirt", since thousands of skiers had tramped on and soiled the snow.

At this time of the year, there was no snowfall on Changbai Mountain, the temperature at night was rising above 0 C. Some of the trails had been shut down. But the bright side was that there were fewer skiers so that sometimes, it seemed like you were in the "kingdom of isolation", you were "the Queen", as the song Let It Go from the motion picture Frozen goes.

This was my third time skiing, and I had mastered the basic skills: how to speed up or slow down; shift the weight of my body; not to squat backward, use more of the ankles to work on the skis; and most importantly, relax and trust oneself.

My friend started from scratch. I taught her the basic skills and she kept practicing on the primary runs. Soon we were ready to try a more difficult trail.

The middle-level trail was steeper than the primary's and you could pick up speed very quickly. It also provided more chances for skiers to practice how to make small turns.

It took only several minutes to finish the skiing on the trail, but taking the slow cable car up to the top of the mountain took up much more time. Once or twice, I found I had no company besides the staff running the cable cars.

I put on my goggles, took a deep breath and positioned myself to rush down the mountain. There was nobody in sight, there were only trees in the perfect white world, wind blowing in my face, and the whoozing sounds made by the skis rubbing against the surface of the snow.