ALPINE CIRCUS

Jaunty, artless dispatches from some very unusual skiing locales—Iran, northwestern China, Bolivia, etc.—by outdoor writer Finkel. The most outrageous skiing venues are Finkel’s chosen terrain, and as skiing is often an unknown activity thereabouts, he fancies himself part powderhound ambassador without portfolio, part merry prankster, forever trying to ignite a gag about the circumstances. It feels almost accidental that he also conveys a sense of the remote, or at least wild, landscapes he engages with, but he does, after a fashion: a roof-of-the-world herder’s encampment where he gives ski lessons to Kazakh horsemen; a flash down the snowcap of Kilimanjaro; the northern lights zapping his circuitry as he skis the night above Yellowknife; hairy tree-dodging on the diamond slopes of Mad River Glen in the Green Mountain State; testing the properties of friction on the PVC bristles in the Pentland Hills of Scotland, where people ski despite the absence of snow, and where his tumble “was relatively minor, though remarkably painful,” and “a vicious fall can not only leave permanent scars but also destroy a ski outfit.” Finkel doesn—t display a subtle intellect in his writing; he reports things as he sees them, which can be refreshingly without pretense and maddeningly ignorant, the result being ahistorical, decontextualized snapshots that suffer from frivolity when overexposed. His visit to the ski resorts north of Tehran is a rich opportunity to investigate the diverse culture of the slopes, but he squanders it with a litany of old jokes about Islamic restrictions. Then he will redeem himself with some straight reportage on snowboarding the verticalities—rock-strewn deeply crevassed 60-degree slopes—of Alaska’s Chugach range, or a disarming tale of off-piste powder runs in the north of Iceland. Finally, Finkel’s adventures, no doubt fertile ground for soul-stirring, life-changing episodes, come off as unadorned tomfoolery.