The Big Trip

I'm trying to pack right now for the big trip that I have been looking forward to for the entire ski season. Tomorrow, Dakota and I fly out of Denver bound for Calgary, then we'll take a bus to Lake Louise. After a day of preparation we have 6 days of backcountry skiing out of the beautiful Stanley Mitchell hut, 13 miles off the road in the amazing Little Yoho Valley of the Rockies. We are both super excited because we have never been to the Canadian Rockies, and its been a long time since we have managed to go on a trip together. I won't be able to blog until May when I get back, but the pictures should be amazing!

This week has been good. It started off in Boulder at Dakota and Kelly's baby shower, which was quite an extravaganza, then I spent a day sitting in a car dealership helping Jill negotiate to buy a new car. She bought a Toyota Matrix, its pretty cool. I returned to the western slope and spent a day shipping books for Wolverine Publishing, then had a peaceful but productive day climbing in Rifle with Micah, who was in town. He managed to send a 5.13a in a day, on his third try, so way to go Micah! Another day of work at Wolverine had me cold calling shops trying to sell guidebooks, then drawing some lines on photos for a new guidebook that will be released soon. Lastly, yesterday I went climbing in Rifle with Jill, who had a mysterious day off work, and my friend Mike from Basalt. It was a glorious day, made even better by the fact that I sent all the routes I had been trying for the past week or two, not falling once the entire day. How often does that happen? You'd think with such a busy week I would have taken some pictures, but I guess I was saving the mojo for the canadia trip. I'll post when I get back.

Monkey See, Monkey Do

When discussing the philosophical points of teaching skiing, we often spout out the mantra, "monkey see, monkey do," meaning if I model a perfect parallel turn time after time for some kid from Arkansas, they will inherently pick up on it and learn the same perfect turns. Take this philosophy to a different level of skiing - for instance, Tyler and I sitting on the couch watching pro skiers huck themselves off 80 foot cliffs in the most bad-ass TGR films - and you get end of the season pictures like this one. Granted, this hit is nowhere close to 80 feet, but for us it was an incredible culmination to a season spent pushing ourselves and our skiing on the slopes of Snowmass. Tyler got to be the model because I was the only one who could find a camera, but also cause he was styling his new jacket. This is his best hit of the season, one we estimated was at least 25 feet, and which he stomped in perfect style.

Four days before closing - there was plenty of fresh powder and almost nobody around to track it up. We warmed up the day with a couple laps on Gowdy's, supposedly the steepest run in the Aspen resorts. I remember the first time we skied this run a few months ago, inching over the lip at the top and carefully checking our speed with every turn. Today we took turns launching the lip and then ripping GS turns to the bottom, where ten seconds later we would stop and watch as our buddies dropped in 400 feet above us. To me this was amazing proof of what a 100 day season and the will to improve can yield.

This is one of our favorite hits, located at the bottom of the run Baby Ruth. A couple months ago we were scared to death to temp fate by scraping over this one, which we called an 18 footer, but on this day Tyler hit it with speed and took off from way above the rocks. Like every hit all day we both stomped the landing and ripped away to the laughing, whooping, screaming good powder in the trees below. I just gotta thank Tyler for being such a rad skiing partner cause the season wouldn't have been the same without him, and don't worry Mom and Dad, we always wear our helmets.

"Baldy One" Couloir - GS Turns in the Mist

Dakota and Kristo were in town for the past two days to finish off the ski season, which we did at Highlands on Sunday, despite the rain. On Monday we went back country skiing just outside of the Snowmass ski resort, using the lifts to gain about 3,500 free verts. Joining us were my friends from ski school, Jemma and Lee. Jemma is a fun-loving Kiwi who works here in the winters, and Lee is an American turned New Zealand resident who also teaches skiing year round. The weather was quite variable throughout the day, but it began with us freezing in low dense clouds on the lifts. Eventually we reached the top of the resort and began climbing up a ridge through a second, higher, cloud layer which oddly enough was sweltering hot and had us all down to our tee shirts. After no more than half an hour we found ourselves on top of a sub-peak of Mt. Baldy at around 13,000ft. The couloirs which dropped off the ridge from beyond this point looked a little less filled in, so we decided we would ski to the west down a huge broad gully coated with about six inches of fresh powder. Here is Lee and Jemma joining us on the top.

After putting on our skis the clouds rolled in thick and we were forced to wait for a quick break to begin our descent. Dakota won a quick game of rock, paper, scissors, and took the first turns with Jemma looking on. The snow was fresh and heavy and the turns were great. Unfortunately we were continually plagued by the mist.

The bottom half of the run turned into a huge gully between cliff bands. It was not too steep, and the thick fresh snow was super supportive for big, fast, GS turns. I had the luck of getting the freshies through here, and ripped it for all I was worth, giggling and whooping the whole way. I stopped to take photos and Lee passed on by, charging down with Kristo and Dakota watching. Moments later he suffered a spectacular wipe-out, and I took the chance to lead through some fun little airs out the bottom of the chute. Our adventure was only beginning, as we now had to ski about three miles down the valley. The rain that began falling contributed to the super weak snow pack, and at times we were sinking to our knees with our skis on! Eventually we reached the melt-out zone, which around here has already risen to about 10,000ft and had to do a bit of walking. From here we were able to curve around and get back on to the trails of Snowmass, where we wasted no time making our way to the bar at the base. A super great day skiing with good friends, both new and old.

Bird shit, Hobos, and Some Sprinkles

Yesterday I went sport climbing at a limestone crag near Glenwood Springs called the Neighborhood. I went with Josh Wharton and Jed Wareham-Morris, who live not too far down the street. Jed is on the left and Josh on the right.

Together we are probably the top(only) three climbers who live in Rifle. Josh is a professional alpinist who zips off twice a year to climb the coolest mountains in the world, and Jed is a ridiculously motivated and slightly obsessive sport climber who lives, breathes, and thinks climbing. I have known both of them since I was in college in Boulder, and they are great climbing buddies to have around. This small obscure crag was one of the few places Josh hadn't climbed within a hundred miles or so, so he was psyched.

The Neighborhood has got some incredible ambiance, lemme tell you.
You have to park near the train tracks and walk down them a ways towards the canyon. As you walk you pass by some thermal holes which stink like sulfur and which rumor has it hobos actually crawl into and use as vapor caves. Soon you hike up a hill and encounter the crag - a short piece of dirty limestone covered in bird shit and practically grid-bolted. Litter dots the ground, and the highway noise from I-70, which lies just across the canyon, blares out any attempts at long-range discussion. The weirdest thing might have been the nesting Canadian Goose that Josh stumbled across at the top of the first climb, which hissed at him defending her territory. I had no idea geese roosted on cliffs. Around the corner was a larger cave which housed some harder routes. Unfortunately it was coated in bird shit, had pigeons flying in and out of it, and while belaying I was standing in probably 4 inches of bird shit. Josh thought the routes were pretty good; I was disgusted. I did find some old hobo signatures on a rock panel, one of which dated 1893, which was slightly anthropologically interesting. I can only assume that birds hadn't yet taken over when the hobos frequented this place.

Today the climbing was much nicer. Josh and I climbed with Micah, who was in town to give a slide show about his adventures last night. We climbed beautiful rock in the pleasant Rifle Canyon, and despite getting sprinkled on during one climb, the day was amazing. This is me climbing on the project of the day called Kingfisher.

Birthday Party in the Desert

Friday afternoon I made the last minute decision to bag the weekend of skiing and head to the desert for my friend Micah Dash's 30th birthday party. Here is the birthday boy himself, looking like he's been in the desert for awhile, with his girlfriend Amelia back and to his right and Ned back and to the left. I first met Micah many years ago when I was a young neophyte climbing in Yosemite Valley. He was pretty much a full time climbing bum then, but occasionally took the time to complete a semester of school at CU. While I was finishing up in Boulder we would sometimes run into each other on campus, and soon became partners for sport climbing. I climbed my first ever 5.13 with Micah belaying me, and he has been a good friend since. I had not seen Micah in almost a year, and seeing as how there would be a large and fun posse climbing in The Creek, and it was his birthday, I just had to make the trip.

Kristo was already on his way out from Boulder, but we agreed to rally together from my house. I managed to beat him there on my way home from Snowmass by just a couple of minutes, and one speeding ticket and about four hours later we made it to the monkey bivy beneath the Bridger Jack spires. Next day we climbed with a large crew at the Reservoir Wall. Here is Kristo climbing the short but amazing Left Crack, which he managed to redpoint at 5.12, being belayed by John Dickey. I played top-rope hero for the day, which was really quite mellow and allowed me to try a bunch of very hard climbs that would have required far more gusto to lead. As the day went on more friends kept arriving and the anticipation of the impending party grew. Gobi covered hands and impending darkness eventually drove everyone away from the cliff and back to camp, where the party ensued. A clear full moon night, a campfire, whiskey, beer, and lots of people made this a good one to remember.

I love the openness of the desert. I have always been attracted to desolate, remote places, where there are no sounds except the wind or an occasional bird, and lights from towns don't even come close to penetrating the darkness of night. I love being able to watch the entire sky light up during a sunset in colors that would look fake if they were painted; with no buildings or telephone wires to obstruct the view. We remained in the desert for two more days, climbing and relaxing, cooking and hiking, until everyone had somewhere else they needed to be. Somehow when I leave the memories all become blended into the giant continuum of desert road-trip memories, eventually becoming indistinguishable from every other trip to the desert, but always enshrouded by that feeling of comfortable loneliness which draws me back with wonder every time.

Warmest Winter on Record

Scientists recorded this winter to be the warmest winter on record worldwide. The month of January was over one full degree hotter than any other January ever recorded. The Colorado high country began it's winter with a boom - over 5 feet of snow fell in October alone. That trend has pretty much completely reversed itself, however, and as of about a week ago the Colorado River headwaters snowpack was at about 82 percent of normal. Compare this to last year when it was at about 129 percent of average, and you get a bunch of grumbling ski bums. Graphs of the snowpack show that this season's trends are eerily similar and even slightly lower than the winter of 2002, which was the previous warmest winter ever, and which was a huge drought year for Colorado and the rest of the West. Here in Rifle we have just experienced the first few days of April, yet it feels like May. The temperatures are in the mid 70's, the leaves are on the trees, and the Colorado River is running at near capacity. Oddly enough this is the busiest week of the spring ski season at Snowmass, yet lifts at the base of the mountain are being forced to close due to lack of snow. I took this photo over a week ago - ski in ski out anyone?

Work and Wet Snow

Work: yep, been a lot of that lately. I've logged my all time record of ten days in a row working(heh, its a lot for me), and it felt pretty much like a blur. Which is where the laziness comes in. I haven't been taking any good pictures lately because I've just been working, and I've been too worn out to deal with writing any new blogs. The ski season is almost over, though, (at least for the resorts) but until then I'm just trying to log as many days as possible. The weather has been very warm, and the snow has been, well, variable. Glop, glue, mashed potatoes, sludge, sticky white crap, however you want to describe it "new" or "powder" has not been an oft used adjective lately. But, the sun makes the days pleasant if nothing else.

Speaking of wet snow, the last good ski adventure I had was about two weeks ago, the day after returning from the desert. Danny, Trish, and I met up with Dakota and Kristo at the summit of Vail pass for a day of back country skiing. It was my first day of spring skiing this season, and has yet to be rivaled. The terrain shots I took were a bit lackluster, but there were lots of classic people shots. Here is Danny and Dakota taking in the ludicrous flying pink elephant that we saw. The shot of the elephant turned out blurry.

Here's a shot of Kristo finishing up our best line of the day. The snow was excellent wet corn smeared on top of a nice hard base. It was delicious and creamy. This was Kristo's first ever day of ski touring, and his outfit was totally classic. I was psyched to have his great personality and lively jump turn as part of our team. Overall our day involved a lot of distance for not a ton of downhill, mostly due to some sightseeing, but afterwards it was great to be able to see out tracks glistening like golden trophies for all to see from I-70.

On a more serious note, I talked to my longtime friend Stefan Griebel on the phone this morning and it seems like he will be alright. This is him in the ICU after breaking three vertebrae in his neck in a ski fall at Mary Jane last Sunday. On the last run of the day he was mocking down a groomer and felt his ski "doing something weird." Posed with the split second decision of whether to try and save it or take the dive, he opted to go down, and doesn't remember anything until he was looking up at the sky with his sunglasses broken and blood on his face. He finished the run, but eventually checked into the clinic, feeling dizzy with blurry vision. Many hours later it was determined he had three fractures in his neck vertebrae. Luckily he is alright and was able to go back to work today. Anyway, working at the resort this season I have seen many grizzly wrecks and have seen more friends go down skiing. Just be careful, especially with the sticky snow. peace.