According to Dolores, Heidegger’s celebrated idea of “releasement” (Gelassenheit) was crucial to the practice of powder snow skiing. For great skiing to occur, according to Dolores, the skier could neither be active (imposing her will on the snowy slope), nor merely passive. Instead, the skier had to “let the mountain be.” That Heidegger himself had been a devoted skier convinced Dolores that his notion of “letting things be” was grounded in experience akin to her own.

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