The last few days have been the kinds of days that make me feel like I need a pinch. Somebody to reassure me that this is not just a dream. But deep down, I don't really care if its a dream or not, I just want it to keep going. Wednesday morning was a whirlwind re-introduction to the winter life: shocker of a memory jog as to what it means to be skinning, and more importantly, to be skiing powder. A solo mission to reacquaint myself with the frosted peaks now bordering town, with two runs of hooting, hollering knee to thigh deep snow - giggling to myself like a lunatic. Yesterday was a warm mid day jaunt - one run of blissful bouncy turns through brilliantly soft shaded north facing snow. Sam s and I, covered head to toe in snow from faceshots, were reduced to giggling with sheer joy like a pair of crazies. Today, myself and (I feel like I can safely speak for them) my companions, were on the borderline of criminal insanity.

It started last night, with a phone call (reenacted to the best of my recollection).

"hey sam, were going skiin' tomorrow, wanna come?"

"oh jeez, sounds like a blast, but I've got 8 oclock math, I should probably stick around."

"are you sure you can't learn math while we're skiing? we can teach you?"

"pretty sure, have a good time though. :("

....

Five minutes later, I was looking at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth, and I found myself thinking, "hey, hang on a sec. If skiing is your favorite thing to do, why would you bail on a perfectly good opportunity to make some turns to sit through an hour 99.99% utterly useless crap?" So all it took was a groveling message proclaiming my rearrangement of priorities, and a 0400 wake up call it was.

Skins on in the dark, breath billowing white under cold headlamps, and under clear skies we were left to place one foot in front of the other marveling at the stars and the snow covered peaks. Our ascent to the ridge line was followed by the exponential growth of a band of color over the easterly horizon - really one of the best sunrises I've witnessed in a long time - and it was timed to a t, as we arrived on the top, the pink glow turned orange, and the great ball of fire was lifted above the distant absaroka mountain range.

The descent was a thready drop through steep trees followed by a beautiful 35-40˚ slope that was empty save for one rock (which my ski mercilessly encountered). I guess you can only ski so many days in october before you get a core shot...

But for two of our group, it was the first day on skis in a year, for one, it was the first day of the season, and for two more, the third day in a row of turns. And for these reasons, along with many more, these turns were incredible.

A trip back to the top of the ridge, a well vegetated traverse, and we were standing at the mouth of a good lookin 'cooler' that choked down and out of sight around a great big fin of rock. Definitely a line I would give serious consideration to with a big spring snowpack, but here we were in october, with an incredibly dense 3 ft of creamy delish, so there wasnt much more to do than let the cameras roll and give'r.

As we rounded the choke, a 6 foot tall boulder was blocking the narrowest point in the chute, and the broad apron below. After a bit of hemming and hawing, Ned stomped the small leap of faith and the grand hero turns all the way to the bottom. After following and nearly collapsing at the bottom from sheer unadulterated joy, I regained enough composure to watch the smiles on the rest of everyones faces tearing up the snow on the way down.
 

Now thats something to smile about.

Majik

Wintery thoughts have been floating around for a little while now, with talk of snow in Colorado, Utah, Washington, Wyoming, even Loveland has opened the white carpet of death for the season. It seemed to be snowing everywhere but south west montana.

And then there was sunday night. 

And then there was monday, monday night, tuesday, and tuesday night. 

And then there was today. 

Some days skinning, you start out slow, down in the trees, the world is you, the trees, and the snow. Everything is quiet, peaceful, gentle and serene. 

And some days you just have to drift your subaru into the parking lot, bumping heavy techno beats, and toss your skins on to start the day with a bit of fire and fury. These days are those such as the first day of the season, and powder days, and days when the lot is full, and its your turn to get to the top first - but only if you want to work for it. When all three of these things happen at once, theres only one word for it - majik.

But then you get to the top of the mountain, dripping, pouring with sweat, lungs burning, damp hair frozen in the breeze, and the sun lifts above the horizon - lighting up the ground below your feet, turning the world from shades of blue and grey to rich hues of orange, yellow, and gold, and mother nature slaps you in the face and tells you to calm down. Because there is plenty of powder to share, and there is enough time to skin up and take another lap, and everyone out there is after a little bit of the same thing you are. And then the skins are stripped, and the skis begin to slide, and everything that could have been wrong in the world is at once right again amid a cloud of frozen water and smiles.

And I wouldn't have it any other way.

Snow Dance

 After too many biscuits and gravy for breakfast, and too little time out of doors, it was damn good time to get out for a bit. Cruised up the local ski hill with the hiking boots for a poke around the slopes. It was a fun change of perspective that ended up jogging a lot of memories from the multitude of smiles that were had last season. Interesting how one can consider themselves completely familiar with an area, but if you take away one element - snow, for example - and you might as well be halfway across the world. The mellow bunny slopes suddenly become wind sucking hills, and the steeps with which winter gives the most smiles are not slopes at all, but sheer rock faces. Standing on the ridge, it was impossible not to smile with recollections of last winter playing on repeat in my head, but unfortunately the trip down this time was much slower, rockier, and less powder filled than before. It was agreed on by all parties that the next time we hiked up, it would be skis. But the snow dance has been completed, and hopefully the weather gods will grace us with all that is good, white, wet, and cold.

There are not many things in this world I am sure of, but this is one of them:

I would much rather cook and eat chicken momos and go ride my bike, than spend my life learning about interneuronal signaling pathways in the hippocampus. It may seem trivial, but for me, this victory is significant, It is checking one off the list.

Now thats more like it

GALLATIN-
 INCLUDING THE CITIES OF...BOZEMAN...WEST YELLOWSTONE
 350 AM MDT THU OCT 21 2010

.SATURDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS.
 HIGHS 45 TO 55. CHANCE OF PRECIPITATION 40 PERCENT. 
 .SATURDAY NIGHT...PARTLY CLOUDY WITH A 20 PERCENT CHANCE OF RAIN
 AND SNOW SHOWERS. LOWS 25 TO 35. 
 .SUNDAY AND SUNDAY NIGHT...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A 50 PERCENT CHANCE
 OF RAIN AND SNOW SHOWERS. HIGHS 45 TO 55. LOWS 25 TO 35. 
 .MONDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A 50 PERCENT CHANCE OF RAIN AND SNOW
 SHOWERS. HIGHS 35 TO 45. 
 .MONDAY NIGHT AND TUESDAY...MOSTLY CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF RAIN
 AND SNOW SHOWERS. LOWS 20 TO 30. HIGHS 35 TO 45. CHANCE OF
 PRECIPITATION 40 PERCENT.

Wrapped

And almost as soon as it had begun, a small crowd dressed in black sat beside the grave bearing good grace to a world better than this. It was short, hectic, wild, and messy, bringing giggles of joy, and breath taking awe, but it died in a cloud or two of dust out west, leaving little more than a pit of slight humiliation and a will for revenge. That can wait now. Time for the pain to start, the lunges, intervals, hill climbs, vomit-inducing double pole rollerski workouts. Time to be fit and strong so when the snow does fly, I can too.

Post Script: Adventure partner in crime LT toted along a GoPro, took some sweet footy, and edited a rad little motion picture that I think captures a lot of what this ride is about. I highly recommend you go check it out.

There's something inherently different when your adventure starts in the dark. Something a little more serious, and a little more intimidating about kitting up in the pre-dawn light of your headlamp. Its been longer than I can remember since the last time I woke up that early to go do something, but early morning grogginess broken swiftly by hard physical effort is not a feeling anyone forgets, and quickly things were underway.

The forecast was for highs 55-60˚ and partly cloudy. As we trundled up the first 5 miles of heavily forested, technical, rooty trail, we  reassured ourselves that the low-lying clouds would burn off as soon as the sun rose. And despite the fact it was October 10th in Montana, everyone was expecting the same beautiful weather we've had for the last three weeks. Luckily, everyone also packed clothes for an emergency situation. 

As trail got steeper, the clouds chose not to burn off, and quite to the contrary, they began to thicken and precipitate. Mostly just a drizzle, but as we reached the top of the pass the water turned to ice and the snow on the ground made sure our feet did not become too warm, while the freezing mist made sure our hands stayed cool as well. And there, from the top of the pass, this intrepid group of explorers set out to conquer the rest of the 20 miles of alpine singletrack ahead of them.

A steady pattern developed amid the swirling white, of bouncing along the tundra and scree fields, punctuated occasionally by a drop in elevation below the cloud ceiling, which was followed by the inevitable hike-a-bike back to the top of the ridge where we were once again greeted by a steady mix of wind and rain. Here the emergency gear was applied in full force and we soldiered on towards the gates of mordor.

Around 4 hours into the ride, while stopped to consume some well earned calories, I made the discovery that the lunch I had packed - a turkey and cheese bagel, two pb&js and a bag of gold fish - was sitting in the suby at the trail head, and the total ingestible contents of my backpack consisted of 3 chewy bars and a gatorade. It was a rookie mistake - and a stupid one at that - but luckily I was riding with good friends who were happy to share their calories. It did stop me though, and it forced me to think. We were 4 hours of difficult riding at the very least from any car. It was october, and this was montana. And while I have been in worse situations, there was a lot of potential for things to go wrong.

 

Luckily, nothing went (that) wrong, so we kept riding, and hiking, and riding, and hiking, and, well, you get the picture.

We thought we got to the top of the last climb, but it wasn't. We climbed some more, but that wasn't the last one either. As it turns out, spending several hours moving through remote wilderness with zero visual cues is not a good way to maintain a good grasp on your exact location. Somewhere between point a and this point, I entered the suffer stage. I was still having fun, but I hit the wall where even in the littlest of little rings, I had to walk any thing that reached a gradient steeper than a wheel chair ramp.

We pushed, pulled, and carried our mud covered steeds through the fog, at times walking right along the edge of cliff bands that dropped sheer for an untold distance below us (editor's note: topo shows these cliffs as 500+ ft), below which a band of orcs could easily could have made camp. The thing about 20ft visibility is that a thirty foot cliff looks the same as a three hundred foot cliff - so erring on the side of caution, much of this portion of the ride/hike was a no fall zone. After cresting the rise, we saddled up and dropped across the rocky tundra once more. This time the clouds had lifted enough to provide a view of the final shoulder we had to traverse before we reached the exit drainage, and my legs found their last wind. As we rounded the corner the clouds began to part, and for the first time that day we had sunshine. Views and sunshine, and it was fantastic.

And on that grand open piece of tundra, the vision quest reached its pinnacle.  If there was any point of the ride that took a smile off someone's face, it was rectified then and there in the afternoon sun. With a whoop and a holler we were off, flying through the grass.

A handful of thousands of feet and countless grins later, and we hit subaru dos, followed shortly by a massive intake of gas station junk food and some car time. Rarely have I ever been more ready for a shower and a nap, but it was glorious I tell you, glorious.

A year and a month ago today, I walked into a bike shop in bozeman for the first time. After the requisite introductions between staff and patron, I started looking at a map and asking about rides. There was one ride that jumped out right away. Somewhere in the 30-40 mile range, easy over 7k of climbing. But when I pointed the route out, straight up, the immediate answer was a rejection on all grounds. No way, no how, even our strongest riders here would never do that, blah, blah, blah. As it turns out its a point to point affair, and last year I didn't have the motivation to put it together anyways, so it just never happened. But one thing stuck with me. I immensely disliked being told immediately that I should not even consider something like that, with no consideration of my experience or abilities. Now I'm not someone who holds lots of grudges, and I am not usually motivated by revenge, but something inside me has, since that day, wanted to do that ride. So tonight, shuttles are being lined up, pasta is being cooked, and bikes are being prepped for what is heralded to be a truly epic ride. Can't wait.

I wont say that up until this year I've been a slouch in the kitchen, but I certainly was not much of a cook. However, and I'm not laying vast claims to greatness or eternal fame, the chicken enchiladas I made last night were very tasty. And the peanut butter oatmeal chocolate chip cookies from this afternoon were not bad either. Healthy? no, but, I sure as hell ain't starvin', thats for certain.

Cooking is something that I do take a bit of pride in. Much like any other tangible forms of creation, such as knitting, there is something compelling about taking a bunch of items that would have no use otherwise, and using a bit of skill to create something that can bring comfort, joy, or simply contentedness. Cooking in this sense is still an operative word, because as much as I do not raise my own sheep to shear their coats and dye and spin their wool, I do not grow, harvest, and grind my own wheat to bake with. I don't even have an herb garden with which I can spice my own cooking. But, those are the final steps. When eating local is eating your food. It has to start somewhere though, and I say consciousness is where its at. Watch what comes home from the grocery, and watch what gets eaten. The next step is to cook each meal. Not adding milk to cereal, but taking the time to produce something of value. Something that makes you glad - or even proud - you are not wearing a loin cloth chasing squirrels. Thats where the recognition of food kicks in. That its not always the most efficient route, to take time to fry up some chicken, mix it up with corn tortillas, beans, green chili, jalapeños, and grated cheese, and bake it for an hour, but what good things in life arise from simplicity or laziness? Not these enchiladas, thats for sure. 

indian summer

Call me crazy, but with every passing beautiful day here, I am finding myself less and less excited for winter. What ho?! This is sacrilege! you must live for powder skiing and powder skiing only! Typically, yes, this is true, that by the first week in October the only word that comes close to describing my relations with the weather would be antsy. Usually I am beyond sick and tired of blue skies and warm temperatures - saying prayers at night - really yearning for snowflakes in the sky and skis on my feet. Maybe its some byproduct of spending too much time indoors this summer, maybe its a phycological response to my recent reclamation of bicycle riding, but I am really enjoying the beautiful weather.

Last year, on september 30th, I woke up to snow covering the ground. Not just a few flakes falling, but a legitimate coating. Turned stuff white for about 2 days, and eventually killed all greenery, but it foreshadowed what last fall in Bozeman was all about: Cold, with shades of white, grey and brown. Aha! you may think that sounds shitty (it was to a degree) but at last, here was a place that enjoyed winter as much as I did. Where the weather gods agreed that summer was long enough already, and that from october to may, the temperature should not exceed 60˚. And that was a good winter, 80 days of skiing was very good.

This fall could not be more different. Today was the first day with notable cloud cover in almost two weeks, and the live-blood of autumn is raging away. A coincidence this morning as I woke up with a stuffy nose and a sore throat. The room was filled up with the sort of grey light that filters in on a cloudy morning, and I had a hard time swallowing.  Nothing quite like it to remind one how much it means to be in good health and riding bikes in the sunny tundra a day prior. So today was a day to rest, drink lots of tea, hydrate, catch up on work and take care of the body. Tomorrow is supposed to be rainy, but a string of days 70˚ and sunny are expected to follow. Darnit if there aren't mountains to be climbed and bikes to be ridden, and I want to be in the best shape possible to enjoy the here and now.

Just what the doctor ordered