Musing in a Trailer

                I was a skier, who grew up in a climbing town, working in a bike shop, and now most people just call me a dirt bag. I’m your next door neighbor except I live in a unregistered and title-less 13 foot trailer that cost me $300 and is parked in my buddy’s drive way. It’s not the most glamorous joint but I enjoy it. There is plenty of room for my skis, my ropes, and my bikes and even more when I manage to put them away in there prescribed places between trips. But let’s be real the next outing is tomorrow or maybe even tonight and while drying your skins inside a Rubbermaid may produce some funny fungi for the weekend it doesn’t do much to increase glide. Plus, doesn't she look really cute lying there asleep on top of my gear closet? Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you it doubles as a bed.

                I’m a college student in a valley that creates lifelong residents, fun hoggin’ is fine in Gunnison so long as your work is done and you let your character speak louder than your wallet. It’d be pretty easy to call me a slacker but actually saying it wouldn’t be true; I am a proud conquistador of the useless, everyday; going, growing, and discovering.

                 Last week my buddy Todd and I skied out of his back door in Lake City. He lives year round, rent free, without running water at the base of two of Colorado’s famed fourteener’s Sunshine, and Redcloud. Moose and bobcat frequent his front yard more often than the wealthy Texans who own the mansion visible high on the hill above. Todd, however doesn’t have a single shade of green envy to give his millionaire neighbors. With a Bachelor’s degree in Biology, he’s is a dirt bags, dirt bag, doing the simple living thing better than anyone that I have ever met has. So well in fact he almost makes me feel self-conscious at four in the morning, bundled up in my ultralight puffy, he’s getting the same damn thing done in a second hand cotton sweat shirt. Todd chops and sells firewood by the chord to pay the bills, ski’s every day of the winter, and rides his mountain bike at 13,000 feet on the Continental Divide Trail as soon as the snow is gone. He ain’t slacking. He’s doing his own thing, living lightly, respecting you, respecting himself, and giving me something to admire.   

                At home in Bishop, Rowell, Robinson, Croft, and Jensen, were names on the sides of mail boxes not the bottoms of posters and much like them, I found salvation in the High Sierra. Blessed by patient mentors and surrounded by idols who I couldn’t even muster the balls to talk to. Come the eleventh grade I was a full on dirt worshipping, rock licker who’s best friends shot waterfowl before class, and thought pebble wrestling was about as liberal as you could get!  I’d haul ass up Highway 168 to the Buttermilk Country after class, run ridges on the weekends, and on a day with more than six inches of new snow I was more likely to be found on one of Mammoth Mountain’s first chairs than in Mr. Perry’s first period.

                Without the sage, the hills, the granite, the stellars, and the facets, my existence starts too feel a bit like the bull frogs; wallowing in the mud and belching to attract his mate.  Face shots aren’t the key to world peace, but they definitely make me a better person and I’d be willing to bet they make you feel the same way.  Because I’m not sending 5.14, racing The Tour Divide, or skiing the steeps fast enough for film, what I do out there is probably capable of mattering nothing to you. But someday we might get the chance to share a glassy January sunset from a high ridge, a bowl of coveted pink powder laying virgin, waiting for our tracks bellow.  I’ll ski with everybody at least once but if somehow that event fails to manifest itself you’ll most likely continue to think I’m just the bum who mounted your skis and tuned your derailleur.

                 However just like You, Todd, Croft, and Jensen I’m living my life, practicing my crafts, and trying to garner whatever selfish rewards the world has to offer.  Like all beautiful things, the warm simplicity of napping in the soft grass of an alpine meadow, with numb legs from a ten hour effort, and a full soul from everything I’ve learned along the way provides me with a simple sense of pride. A sense of pride that makes my 13 foot trailer look like a wealthy Texans vacation home, and helps grinding your blown out ski bases feel more like sculpting Michelangelo’s, David. 

                \

Getting Barrelled On Your Bike

Been thumbing through old writing on my computer this morning.   I wrote this short essay for the local newspaper when I was in high school it is about one of my favorites in Bishop, Dutch Johns Loop.  Bikes have been making me smile for a long time.

Inhaling deeply the burn in my stomach subsides, cool air fills my lungs and I shift into the higher range of my fully rigid nine speed mountain bike, exhale with pleasure. Now settling into the smooth cadence of a long mountain climb massive views of the Owens Valley below greet me and the sky wispy with stratus clouds seems to expand beyond infinity. On this fall afternoon I will ride to over 8,000 feet above sea level and still be dwarfed by my western surroundings of multiple 13,000 foot peaks. Living in the Eastern Sierra this is more often the case than not. No matter how immense the tasks we take on in these surroundings, our efforts and accomplishments never exceed the amounts of beauty we experience while out.

For nearly an hour I continue upward, my legs burn with every downward stroke of the peddle as my bicycle crawls over a mix of granite cobbles and wheel swallowing sand. The four wheel drive road bully’s me from one tire track to the other.  I find solace in sighting a group of Mule Deer. Two does that are moving with there fawn bound across the road no more than twenty five yards ahead.  The climb and pain along with it simply disappear for a moment. Inspired by the deer’s skillful navigation through the dense sage and scattered rock, I am forced to refocus my attention ahead. Carefully picking the most efficient line and riding with more grace and precision than ever before.  The climb is made much easier, and dare I say enjoyable.

Eventually rubber meets the packed and tacky soils left behind by the previous night’s rain fall. Here the double tracks grade lessens, beginning to contour flawlessly with the undulating terrain.  My largest chain-ring comes to use as I brake out in a heavy winded sprint. Bunny hopping boulders and railing turns with aggression I descend into a creek drainage. It is exploding with the hues of fall. Aspen forest engulfing me, the tunnel of yellow, red and orange becomes a constant blur. I enter a trance like state resulting in effortless flow.  Body position and tire pressure are the only things I rely on to absorb the terrain ahead.  The feeling is that of Ecstasy; a surfers perfect barrel, a skiers coldest powder snow face shot, something that has to be felt to be believed.

A similar wave exists in Colorado. Gavin took this photo of me getting barrelled on Lowline Trail last fall.

At the end of my ride there will be no podium, no beautiful woman waiting to hand over a champagne bottle, and that is just fine by me. In the Sierra’s the magnitude of your efforts can never surmount the beauty you are surrounded by, but there is no defeat in that. On this ride my only competition is myself.  The only beautiful woman I am seeking is with me the entire time, Mother Nature and her fresh water streams are the greatest reward I could ever receive and one of the many reasons I ride my bike.

Andrew's new route, Straight To Hell 5.11a/10d R

         A typical Gunnison scene epic tunes from Ween filling the air, 4 drunk dudes, 1 spoken for girl and a kitchen table littered with climbing magazines and PBR cans. My friend Andrew fresh back from his first trip to Chamonix in the wrong season, (should have gone skiing, not climbing) and full of enthusiasm brings up a line he'd been eyeing at Hartmans the last couple of days. He described it as a sort of British gritstone type of line, steep face climbing, three pieces of iffy thin gear in all of fifty feet. He and Elias made plans to go check it out last night and I tagged along with a couple prusiks and my camera.

     
         Most of us think of Hartman Rocks as a sort of nancy bolted sport crag. It would be hard to give the place a standard ethic. The grading is all messed up and many bolts are bad, most likely a product of college student first ascensionists.  There are a few classic run out slabs in the 5.10 range, but most routes are short, slabby, and probably rap bolted. Only a few traditional lines exist, and yesterday Andrew added a gem.

   
         Having top roped the route a couple times before he knew what he needed to "protect it" and hoped on the sharp end, nailing it! Elias and I both TR'd it, neither of us climbing it clean on our first goes. It is stellar face climbing, thin and balancy, on high quality rock. I cant imagine placing the fiddly ass gear on lead, good job Andrew!

A Long Awaited and Brief Recap

Matt and I at the EMGT finish line

                Skiing is my passion and it is what brought me to Western, the vast expanse of the Elk Mountains promised me endless opportunities for my favorite type of adventuring, backcountry skiing . With the passing of two winters now in the range I have to admit the mountains have shown me more joy than I ever believed possible, and have cultivated multiple friendships that will stand the test of time. People find bliss in many different places; and for me, my place is the mountains, on the East Face of Gothic Mountain and at the finish line of The Elk Mountain Grand Traverse. This year our range was blessed with epic amounts of snow and it kept my friends and I on ski’s, earning turns all the way into June.  I finished my season on the 5th with a very special descent of the Refrigerator Coliour on Ice Mountain a remote peak that is home to sustained 50 degree slopes and near vertical rock.

Half way down the East Face of Gothic on our last day of spring break.

                So with the thinning of the snow pack and the blossoming of the Cottonwoods I began to feel a bit out of places. Lost in a world without white, ecstatic about having just experienced the best and most progressive season of my life; I was stoked but I was not content. I longed for pow. And soon I would find it in a place that I had almost forgotten.

Last few steep turns on Ice Mtn with Dylan and Matt.

                Pedaling along, the sage fly’s by my side in a blur, the colors of a lush high desert pallet; green’s, gold’s and grey’s are all vivid in there spring infancy. The clouds are breaking above my head and the sun is dropping into an orange sky that lies between the horizon line and cumulus above. Hartman Rocks and its miles of trails north of the power line are now open. I turn onto Rattlesnake stand up out of the saddle and begin to power through beautiful burning legs. Down the first rock moves and onward to a glorious re-acquaintance with my second favorite thing BROWN POW!

                Riding your bike is fun, it is fun in the hills, it is fun in town, it is fun with friends and it is fun all by yourself. Last year in the dog days of summer it may have even saved my life. At home in the California heat ,hanging drywall for cash, depressed, questioning, and in content, I forced myself out on a forty mile high country ride and somewhere between Coyote Flats and Baker Creek I found a new happy, healthy energy.  I came home that day, quit my job the next, traded in my burnt out steel hard tail for a new aluminum one, split for single track ridge riding in Lake Tahoe for a few days, came back to Bishop for a couple and headed out to Moab and the La Sals just a week later.  Single track salvation! Soon I was at home in Gunnison, riding above tree line in the Elks, and through the sage again at Hartman’s.

                This summer I chose to make Gunnison my home, avoiding the 100 degree temps in California and enjoying the splendors of life in the Elk Mountains with gratitude.   My mountain bike season began in unison with the close of my ski season, and the decreased objective hazard in the snowless hills has lent itself to daily exploration and long weekend epics, one of the most beautiful things about dirt is that it doesn’t develop depth hoar. 

                In late June I raced The Original Growler a 64 mile cross country race at Hartman Rocks on a single nights notice. My co-worker and Mountain Sports Teammate Alex passed his registration on to me because of a hurt knee and plans of an upcoming trans-America mountain bike tour, GO ALEX! The Growler was short enough for me to think I might be able to kind of race it but long enough to be seriously humbling. I flatted twice, had to hike about ten minutes to get another tube on my second, and cramped pretty darn bad at the Top of the World on lap 2. For off the couch racing it was long, muddy, technical, and awesome! I was stoked to finish in six hours and forty something minutes, and can’t wait to try to go sub-six next year, better conditioned, and hopefully flat free.

                As June drew on I knocked off a few new and obscure rides feeling liberated by the adventure of exploration and hard effort.  One ride took me on a long climb in the West Elks, up mining roads and down barely scratched in elk trail, another started right out of campus headed east to the Fossil Ridge, where Mule Deer were my only witnesses and the climbers at Taylor Canyons First Buttress must have thought I had just finished Doctors Park.

The top of 401 at seven in the morning.

                As my Legs started to get tired my head seemed to be hungry for a bit of fear, because I began a three week climbing bender with my buddy Elias in late June.  We were psyched on rock, making our way through the grades at Taylor, and even putting up a few of our very own on first ascents in the 5.10 range at splitter crag I had found out on a long ride west of town.  Rock climbing is a funny sport for me, when I am motivated the fire burns hot and I cannot get enough, but somehow it dies out overnight. I grow tired of pushing myself through the fear and movement. Maybe it is too sedentary; to slow to reach the final destination, I prefer the movement of a bike, the feeling of covering tons of country, seeing many things, not having to stop at a belay. Unless of course it is in the mountains, mountain climbing is different.

                June has become July and the high country riding is in full effect, wild flowers are chest deep on the 401, and the alpine brown pow is being rejuvenated nearly daily with afternoon thunder storms.  Two weeks ago I went big and failed on an all dirt Crested Butte to Gunnison ride, it was to include, Trail 401, to Deer Creek, to Block and Tackle, to Reno, Flag, Bear, Doctors, to Forest Road 586, and finally descend Signal Ridge. I came up short at Harmels after ten hours, the climb up Forest Road 586 sounded heinous, I was out of food and decided it best to throw in the towel and ride the pavement home to Gunnison.

Coming down Flag Creek in the CB Classic

                The Crested Butte Classic a 100 mile race came up a little less than a week later, and with the absence of an entry fee or really much organization at all it seemed like just my type of ride. A mellow scene and awesome course that included; Strand Hill to Teocali Ridge on lap one, Reno, Flag, Bear, Deadmans from town on lap two, and finished with Kebler Pass, the Dyke Trail, and Wagon Wheel back to Crested Butte.  A little nervous at the start because of my recent big effort, I was stoked to fly through lap one feeling great on the new Teocali re-routes. That trail is awesome and if you haven’t already ridden it you need to get out there! Lap two was really hard, the climb up Reno Divide seemed endless and I was alone for most of it not knowing if I was going fast and suffering or going slow and suffering.  My friend JP caught up to me at the bottom of the Flag Creek descent and we pushed each other through the rest of the lap, enjoying the best Bear Creek descent ever, filled with hollers of stoke and all. I dropped JP on the road back to Crested Butte, and set out for lap three all alone again. The Kebler climb went well, and I cleaned the entire Dyke Descent but had no hope of clearing the steep single track climbs by that time of day. I battled hard to keep up the cadence from Horse Park Ranch to the top of Kebler knowing the end was near. Finally I was descending Wagon Trail completely exhausted. I pulled into town in sixth place over all with a time of 10hrs 17mins. Cool!

Camping out at Emerald Lake.

Ellie Coming down Agate Creek.

 Life in Gunni has continued on in its unique awesomeness the past week, I rode 401 with a great gang last Monday night and camped out at Emerald Lake afterwards. Hit Hartmans a few times throughout the week, once with my stellar co-worker Jefe who is pretty damn rad and showed me all sorts of new rocky lines! And yesterday we had a six person Western State Mountain Sports crew on Agate Creek  off of Monarch Pass which is just another Gunnison gem. While the thought of the rapidly approaching fall semester makes me shutter, I am getting more and more excited to race the Rocky Mountain Collegiate Cycling Series with my Western Teammates and hopefully enjoy another seamless transition into my favorite season come November! I’ll be itching for a change in pow.

Angela and Ellie Cruising along The Continental Divide Trail.

AIARE Level Two and The Knox Frank Memorial Scholarship

                It’s sunny out, winds are light, and we’re all bundled up like two year olds learning to ski at the resort. I am staring at a little blue book that I have been familiar with for a number of years, but could never get a true grasp off. It’s filled with technical jargon, specialized symbols, and a table for standard to metric conversions. My instructors are talking about things like temperature gradients in the snow pack, elaborating on the sizes and shapes of snow grains, and teaching us how to record our data in a standardized and usable way. I had always known that my beloved winter playground was far more intricate than it appears upon first glance and finally light bulbs are going of left and right inside my head.  My time spent reading, and learning through personal experiences gains clarity with the help of professional instruction. Until now I had been intimidated by the thought of implementing science on a ski tour. I was unsure of my ability to proficiently take part in the process. Was I recognizing the right problems? Was I using the right tests to examine those problems? Were my interpretations of those test results correct?

                Last weekend I was blessed with one of the coolest and possibly most valuable learning experiences of my life.  I graciously received the Knox Frank Memorial Scholarship to take my AIARE Level 2 Avalanche course with Crested Butte Mountain Guides.  Knox past in the spring of 2012, a tragic avalanche had taken him in the San Juan Range of Colorado. Though I was never able to meet Knox, conversations with his friends have revealed a few of his undeniable characteristics; Knox it seems had an insatiable appetite for life and his hunger was fueled by great friends and beautiful mountains. 
 

                I applied for his scholarship two Decembers ago, slaving over my laptop for hours to put together a slide show and spoken essay that would accurately depict my passion for the mountains and the wonderful things they have brought to my life. In January of 2013 I attended the awards ceremony at the Brick Oven where Knox’s parents presented his scholarship to that year’s winner. I didn’t win, but I was approached afterwards by multiple people on the judging committee and encouraged to apply again next year, they said it was a tough decision between myself and the recipient.  I had never been more honored to come in second place in my life. I remember leaving the Brick and calling my parents to inform them of my not so good, but somehow great news; people liked what I had to say about the mountains.   

                One year later I inquired about the scholarship again, in late January Jayson Simons-Jones informed me that this time I had received the scholarship.   Having been in love with snow for as long as I can remember and studying it in my own un-formalized ways since my early teenage years I was beyond excited to be given the opportunity to learn from real professionals, especially in my new backyard of Crested Butte where the snow seems to be ever changing and plagued with instabilities.

                Now having completed my avalanche two course I am even more grateful for the generosity of Knox’s Friends and Family.  In my course I learned invaluable skills that will guide me along a safer path as both a wild snow recreator and hopefully future professional. I have not waited to put my newly acquired knowledge to practice and have already experienced an increased level of confidence in my own decision making methods since taking the course. Alan Bard once wrote, “Passion and vitality for living are some of the gifts we receive from skiing, particularly skiing in the great beyond.” A statement I could not agree with more and one that defines my life’s most basic goal; to live passionately in pursuit of powder skiing, while sharing the quest with others who may not have the same fortune of such regular doses. So THANK YOU KNOX, and everyone else who was involved in facilitating my continued avalanche education.

Decision Making in the Avalanche Terrain of a Developing Mind

                27 of the 53 days I have spent on skis so far this season have been outside of resort boundaries and off groomed nordic track.  On a good day, which there have been quite a few of lately I love skiing the resort about as much as Flava Flav loves New York and big clock necklaces.  But the backcountry offers me an escape that the lifts sometimes cannot. When I’m out there it’s just my partner, the mountains, and I, no social distractions, skittle thugs, or dean of students to talk too. Just us, on our own unguided and untracked experience.  But the potential cost of our solitude is something that often comes into my mind.  I am an aggressive and young skier and so are the majority of my partners.  While I enjoy skinning through the woods and surfing low angle powder snow nothing is more rewarding than alpine views and big white canvases with s-shaped signatures. And so I seek to find myself in these in these wild places every time the opportunity is present.

                The prefrontal cortex of our brains is responsible for, memory, emotion, and rational decision making. This area of our brain reaches morphological maturity around the same time as puberty but its size is not relative to function until later years of life.  It has been confirmed that the prefrontal lobes continue to both quantitatively and qualitatively develop into our early twenties.  The fact that the part of my brain responsible for both decision and emotion is still developing weighs heavy on my mind quite often.  A bad decision in the backcountry could produce an un-erasable result and have effects that cascade far beyond my own selfish quest for fulfillment; to my parents, my friends, and even the arm chair quarterbacks that seem to comprise much of the online backcountry community.

                Because danger is inherent in wild snow skiing I make it a point to follow the snow and weather with intent and passion.  I have fun on tours where my only goal is to look at the snow and a get a picture of what might be in shape.  I try to treat every outing like a re-con mission and it has led to more and more amazing summits and safely opened doors. But skiing powder snow is probably one of the most emotional things I have ever done. I mean what experience is more instantly gratifying than momentary weightlessness in a cloud of shimmering crystals? It’s impossible for me to say with absolute assurance that the undeveloped part of my brain responsible for both emotion and decision will always make the correct call. Can I trust myself to overpower emotions with rational every time? So far I think I have done a pretty good job, I've pulled the plug more than I have flipped the switch and I've only regretted turning on the lights once.

                Skiing is probably the coolest thing I have ever done, but as for the coolest thing I have ever had? My family takes the cake without a doubt and my frontal lobe better be able to remember that on top of every line for the rest of my life.

Zach proving it never hurts to go home early, this photo is from my first big ski tour (Sheelite Canyon , Jan 2011).We didn't climb or ski the entire couloir because my gut wasn't right. Two day's later a solo skier triggered a 2 foot deep slab that ran over 1,000 feet in the upper part of the canyon.

Ski uphill.

Ski uphill,

and aspire to move quickly,

but allow time to muse in the whistle of the wind,

gain a new perspective on where you have already been,

when you get to the top, 

take it all in,

point 'em downhill,

and let the pow shred begin.

I know skiers from rad places

Before I came to Colorado I thought the only place a true skier could be born was in the mountainous west.  In my ignorant Californian eyes the mid-west was nothing but a bunch of back of the boot side slippers, and the south, well, I’ll spare the time questioning their “mountains” but does it even snow there? So here I find myself in Colorado and woe to my surprise I know skiers from rad places, most of them without mountains. 

The Virginian Gavin, getting it done early season.

In my eyes it doesn’t take too much to be a skier, just a love for carving, slashing, pizzaing or french frying. If you have a stoke for downhill bliss or an affinity for the uphill pain cave it’s no matter; you are a skier. In the past year I have met more improbable skiers than a spoiled western kid could have ever imagined existed.  While a lot of my friends do hail from the American west a special few don’t and together we’ve shared some epic turns. 

Jonathan skinning in Eldeberry Canyon.

Jonathan, my eighth grade earth science teacher hails from Pittsburgh Pennsylvania and is a Tele-whacker at its finest.  He was the first person with the patients and willingness to take this over eager 15 year old into the backcountry.  While Jonathan isn’t the next Bode Miller, he knows how to move safely in the mountains and is a superb teacher. The first time this east coaster let me break trail he didn’t know he had just handed me the reigns to the last four years of my life, for that I can’t thank him enough.

Zach booting his way up the Harrington Couliour on the Thomson Ridge.

My second ski partner came in the package of another teacher, this one with a little different style. Zach was a pro snowboarder in his teenage years, shredding the icy jumps of Wisconsin and traveling for competitions, he found lust in the terrain park at a young age and a deeper love for the mountains of the west after graduating college in Madison, Wisconsin.  Being my high school woodshop teacher we would talk mountains all week long, and often have a scheme to get out in them come Saturday morning.  As time went on and trips began to accumulate Zach and I’s relationship evolved beyond a mentorship and into my first partnership. Our goals aligned and we communicated freely with each other on both rock and snow. Zach’s talked my head down on my scariest leads, shreds pow like a pro (oh wait) and we have accomplished many of my biggest day together. 

Elias sent a huge front 180 of this cliff in the Monarch BC last season

I met Elias because he was talking about snow, when most of the people around the campfire were too far gone to talk about the clothes they were wearing.  It caught my ear and on that fall evening I not only met the first Greek Native of my life but found a true soul shredder hidden underneath that signature Hawaiian shirt, and helicopter hat.  Elias and I haven’t shared any turns together this season but I enjoy his company and intellect in the mountains as much as anyone.  He was part of my first epic in Colorado last November where he kept his cool soloing chossy fourth class and thin ice on Mount Sneffels. Elias arcs the cleanest turns I have ever seen on a board. This guy is more than olive oil and hummus and he will prove it to you with out trying if you give him the chance!

Dylan skiing some great snow on our S.L.U.T yesterday. (Super, long, uphill, tour)

Though I owe many more flatlanders props for changing my mind about what exactly it takes to breed a true skier I’ll finish this one up with a little about Dylan.  Dylan, was born and raised in Texas, yup, Texas. He came to school here in Gunnison because he’s a fishing fool and the Valley holds some of the best trout fishing in the nation.  He quickly found skiing after arriving and hasn’t quite putting effort into it for the four years he’s been here.  Dylan is currently one of my most prized partners in the mountains. Coming from the Sierra’s I grew used to long approaches for shorter ski’s, here in Colorado you can start earning your turns straight out of the car. But that’s not Dylan’s style and nor is it mine. He’s a wilderness skier at its finest, keen on long days, big vert, and bigger views.   We share many of the same goals and never have a shortage of things to talk about. He’s always ready to go peak around the corner, or gain the extra thirty feet even though it never really matters.  We check each other when our route choice is crap and never take it too personally, bounce ideas off each other, and have proven our ability to back down from a beautiful run that just doesn’t add up.  But the best thing about Dylan? Well, it might be his love for Teocalli Tamale Burritos, after a long day off-piste.  

So here's to skiers, of all disciplines, shapes, sizes, and backgrounds!