Surveying the field
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The 2008 Engadin Ski Marathon, via The Big Picture.
According to reports, 10,000 cross-country skiers took part in the 2008 Engadin Ski Marathon, a 42.2 km race from Maloja, Switzerland to the mountain resort of St. Moritz.
I like that the skiers, as a field, mark the topography of the snow by virtue of their stance. Each skier acts has a limited set of techniques at his or her disposal, honed over the history of the sport and derived from the constraints of the human body and the sport’s equipment. These techniques: herringbone, classic-stride (whatever, I don’t ski) are in response to the conditions underneath the skier’s skis. Uphill, downhill, accelerate, decelerate.
via Google Books.
Gather together 10,000 skiers who all operate within the same simple rules, spread them equally over a terrain and they make a kind of topographic model of that terrain. Each skier measures the conditions immediately around him, taken at a whole, and a larger picture emerges. Look at the obtuse skis as the skiers climb the hill, generously spaced to allow for the sweeping stride of the climb, while into the valley, the skiers cluster together as their straight skis coast down the hill.
I remember reading that a 19th c. biologist said that the Nematode (roundworm) is such a prolific organism that if all material on earth were to be disappear, leaving the Nematodes in their place, the lattice of their bodies would outline of the mountains, continents, rivers, etc. A little tangential, but this whole post is tangential.
