Time for a reality check.
Here is a 35-year-old woman emitting occasional joyous yelps as she cuts new tracks through an endless expanse of untracked powder snow.
She is going about twice the speed of the wind. And if she chooses, she can jump 30 feet high in what may be the only sport where you go up faster than you come down. There are no lifts, no lift lines, no lift tickets, and no out-of-control skiers and snowboarders threatening from above. In fact, there is no above; there's no hill -- or hardly any gravity, so it seems.
Dreamlike and real, the sport is snowkiting, one of winter's newest and fastest-growing adrenaline highs. Enthusiasts are preparing to gather on Lake Champlain next weekend for Kitestorm, New England's third annual snowkiting festival.
Organized by Miller and her husband, James Lyne, the event drew more than 1,000 kiters and spectators last year. This year's program is slated to include free introductory lessons and demonstrations by snowkiters from around the country.
''Not long ago, practically no one knew what this sport was. That seems to be changing," said Miller, one of the first certified instructors in the East and co-owner with her husband of Stormboarding, a snowkiting school based in Burlington.
Snowkiting uses wind to power highly maneuverable rectangular airfoils that somewhat resemble modern parachutes. In certain configurations and with certain motions of the control bar, the kites can actually generate their own breeze to go faster, and in many more directions, than by relying solely on the ambient wind.
In cross section, a kite resembles an airplane wing. Lift -- or a vacuum -- is generated over the top surface. The rider basically has but one axis of control on the bar; a pull on the left causes the kite to drop (or rise, depending on the starting point) on the left. A pull on the right sends the kite up or down to the right. Now the airfoil is not only feeling Mother Nature's wind, but that of the apparent wind it is generating. Do this up-down maneuver to one side or the other of the wind direction and the rider not only can cross the wind but also can go 20 degrees or more upwind. It may not be nice to fool Mother Nature, but it sure can get you places faster.
