…He’d ski Red Coon Glades after a long sunny stretch. Because, as wise ski bums say, “Anyone can be happy on a powder day…it takes a real skier to smile in the crud.” And I’ll tell you what; Red Coon after a long sunny stretch is the real crud.

A couple weeks ago Julia and I got a less than early start toward the south-facing Red Coon Glades on Mt. Emmons (aka The Red Lady), which was sub-optimal, seeing as how she had to work at noon and all. But, we figured the Red Lady would be our best bang for the buck: climb straight out of the parking lot, and ski right back, sans approach slog. Plus, I figured the skiing would be mighty fine: last time I was there the snow was so deep I was poling hard to make it down 27-degree slopes, so I hoped that the sunny spell after the storm would firm up the powder and give us some play. Plus, the glades, like the January sun, are so low angle, they [Read More]]]>

Julia, embodying post-fall joy. Note the trucker's hat and aviators. Just 'cause we're in the mountains doesn't mean we can't look good, right?

…He’d ski Red Coon Glades after a long sunny stretch. Because, as wise ski bums say, “Anyone can be happy on a powder day…it takes a real skier to smile in the crud.” And I’ll tell you what; Red Coon after a long sunny stretch is the real crud.

A couple weeks ago Julia and I got a less than early start toward the south-facing Red Coon Glades on Mt. Emmons (aka The Red Lady), which was sub-optimal, seeing as how she had to work at noon and all. But, we figured the Red Lady would be our best bang for the buck: climb straight out of the parking lot, and ski right back, sans approach slog. Plus, I figured the skiing would be mighty fine: last time I was there the snow was so deep I was poling hard to make it down 27-degree slopes, so I hoped that the sunny spell after the storm would firm up the powder and give us some play. Plus, the glades, like the January sun, are so low angle, they wouldn’t get so much sun that they’d crust over.

Wrong.

The powder firmed up, all right: firmed up into a 5 cm death crust with sugary swag snow below. As we broke trail, we let out our inner sailors: “What the [frisky kitten]!?, this is going to suck! Son of a [blow fish]! Here comes face plant city!” But, not only do sailors curse well, they also weather the storm and sail whichever way the wind blows, so we kept ‘er at full mast, and headed on up.

Eleven o’clock rolled around sooner that we expected, so about three-quarters of the way to our destination (Red Coon Glades) we grabbed a snack and stripped skins. Julia traded her cool-is-the-new-awesome trucker hat and aviators for a beanie and goggles, and then swapped back because, let’s face it, a trucker’s hat and aviators are the tool of choice when it comes to gettin’ ‘er done. We decided to stick to the trees to find the soft, shady pockets of snow. The philosophy was a sound one, as sound as Hayduke’s treatise on the relationship between beer cans and road ways, and similarly not without it’s flaws. The major flaw being: shady pow pockets, while rewarding, offer a false sense of security, a security that is quickly full-nelson body-slammed by the next crusty sun shot.

Skinny pants, wide skis. Living the dream. That's me, back seat crust cruising.

I headed down first, sitting heavy in the back seat, never daring to drop my knee, and feeling like a silly rookie for choosing a south face after such a sunny spell. I made some survival turns, and looked back to see Julia cart wheeling and caterwauling through the aspens. She tumbled to a stop a few meters above me, and lay still. I braced myself for cries of pain. Instead, she slowly rolled her smiling face my way, lay back in the snow, and laughed out loud. After that, our moods lightened and we took on every turn as a great cosmic joke – like somewhere Ra and Ullr are high-fiving and fist pumping like Saints fans at the Superbowl at our expense. May as well laugh with them, right?

So, if that intro paragraph sounded a little new-agey to you, I’ll come clean. I’m reading a self help book. As I mentioned last blog, the ol’ blood-pumper is a little bruised up (read: lady troubles), and my infinitely wise mother sent me If The Buddha Dated by Charlotte Kasl (along with some cookies and a sack of potatoes – now that’s unconditional love, right there. Thanks, Mom!). Long story short, if the Buddha dated, he’d not be attached to outcomes, he’d accept reality objectively and with love, and he’d make suffering his friend.

Now, if you hang in the adventure realm long enough, suffering becomes a well-known companion (soggy sleeping bags, red-hot blisters, screaming foot jams, etc.). Fight it, and we suffer more. Befriend it (you know, like on Facebook) and it makes us stronger. As Oriah Mountain Dreamer asks in “The Invitation:” “…I want to know / if you can sit with pain / mine or your own / without moving to hide it / or fade it / or fix it.” I wonder, can I? Skiing nasty sun crusts seems like a good place to start.

Julia, gettin' hers.

It’s a hard thing to reckon: Big time adventuring takes drive, goals, and struggle, so what place does a philosophy of surrender and acceptance have? Steph Davis, a very accomplished and driven climber, explored this theme in her book, High Infatuation: “I recognized the conflict between my spiritual philosophies [of go with the flow] and my personal ethic of hard work and determination,” she writes. In High Infatuation, Steph seems to surrender to the paradox – to climb for the love of climbing “simply and joyfully,” is enough; “my way to love this world,” she writes. I’ll take it another direction here, and say that I find that surrender and acceptance don’t presuppose passivity. We can accept our drive to summit a peak; we can surrender to our desire to be the first to ski a particular line. But we also have to yield to our limitations and the reality of the journey: sometimes we’re not fit enough, sometimes there’s just not enough hours in the day, sometimes the risk is too great, and sometimes the snow just plain sucks.

Oriah and Siddhartha would have made fine ski partners up there in Red Coon. But Julia and I did our best without them. As we surrendered to the reality of crud skiing, it freed us to laugh at our flailing selves, laugh at the infinite views of the West Elk mountains turned on by sunlight, laugh right back at Ullr and Ra.  Sure we didn’t make it all the way to Red Coon (a very short ski by Crested Butte standards); sure we didn’t get a single face shot (unless you count Julia’s face-plunge); sure that night over beers we’d have to listen to our friends say, “You skied where today?!” But hell, we did a fine bit of fun having.

What’s your Buddhist adventure?

Dedicated to Kellen and Jane. Rest in Peace, Kellen; live in peace, Jane.

“Out beyond ideas of right-doing and wrongdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. And when the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘eachother’ don’t make sense.”

-Rumi

It’s mating season in the High Country: all around I see the blossoming of new, survive-the-cold-of-winter romances, as well as (in my case) the bidding adieu to love past and passed. The stakes are high and our hearts, like a sketchy Colorado snowpack, are a veritable battleground of subtle yet dynamic, and powerful yet mysterious energies.

Last week I went for a tour with my friend Monica, who was in town to take her Level I avalanche course. As usual, the chug-a-chug rhythm and aerobic endorphins of steep skinning induced a good, philosophical heart-to-heart chat: my recently lost relationship, her recently budding-but-complicated relationship, relationships past and what we learned, relationships yet to come and what we hope. We climbed fast and between rapid breaths we chopped out the big questions of our day: “Why…doesn’t…he…just…tell me…” and  “Maybe…she…needs…more…stability…” Over water and snacks, we had more continuous conversation: “I’m just not sure where this leaves me…” and “What are you looking for?”

What, indeed?

Second Bowl: The open face with the dispersed trees slid about 200 vertical feet below us as we stood on top.

As Monica and I topped out on Snodgrass Mountain, we decided to refocus [Read More]]]>

Monica, enjoying a beautiful, introspective tour.

It’s mating season in the High Country: all around I see the blossoming of new, survive-the-cold-of-winter romances, as well as (in my case) the bidding adieu to love past and passed. The stakes are high and our hearts, like a sketchy Colorado snowpack, are a veritable battleground of subtle yet dynamic, and powerful yet mysterious energies.

Last week I went for a tour with my friend Monica, who was in town to take her Level I avalanche course. As usual, the chug-a-chug rhythm and aerobic endorphins of steep skinning induced a good, philosophical heart-to-heart chat: my recently lost relationship, her recently budding-but-complicated relationship, relationships past and what we learned, relationships yet to come and what we hope. We climbed fast and between rapid breaths we chopped out the big questions of our day: “Why…doesn’t…he…just…tell me…” and  “Maybe…she…needs…more…stability…” Over water and snacks, we had more continuous conversation: “I’m just not sure where this leaves me…” and “What are you looking for?”

What, indeed?

Second Bowl: The open face with the dispersed trees slid about 200 vertical feet below us as we stood on top.

As Monica and I topped out on Snodgrass Mountain, we decided to refocus our energies and turn on our avalanche goggles. We headed for the east bowls which we anticipated would still be soft and have a few inches of fresh from the night before. We skied up to the top of the locally-dubbed Second Bowl (conveniently placed between First and Third bowls) and checked out the steep 38-40 degree entrance. We’d felt nothing but stable snow so far: fresh, soft powder on top of a firm midpack that was bonding well with January’s old snow. It would have been tempting to just jump right in, but the steepness of the pitch and the shrubby aspen trees poking out (good trigger points) raised my hackles a bit. We decided to dig a snow pit for assessment in a flat spot jammed tight between the roll over to the bowl’s headwall and the trees.

We looked at layers and performed some stability tests, and the snow seemed surprisingly stable. Pits can be notoriously misleading though, because of a concept called “spatial variability.” What a layman might translate to: “Dang snow ain’t the same ever-where.” Seems like a “duh!” right? Well, even a couple meters away snow and the stability of all its layers can be drastically different.

Unfortunately, the light crapped out on us just as the snow slid, so the details are hard to see. That's the 65 cm crown face in the center, and my tracks to the tree that triggered the slide.

Case in point: after refilling our pit, I post-holed about ten feet to our south to get a peek at the steep rollover of the bowl. I didn’t leave the flat top, but I still held onto a tree for security. I noticed that the snow suddenly changed. The top dozen centimeters were wet, and heavy – perfect for snowballs. I scooped some up, squeezed it, and threw it at the slope below – just a friendly “Take that, Mountain!” Then I got a bit stuck in my post hole, and asked Monica to come pull me up, which she did, and as we took a couple steps back towards our packs, we heard a soft humph…swooosh! The whole bowl, about 15 feet below us, was ripping out. We watched a huge powder cloud ride toward the valley and flow like a white river onto a flat, treed bench. That wet snow had gotten heavy enough through the day to slide on top of all the brushy willow trees which had weakened the snow pack below. Spatial variability.

Monica and I looked at each other wide-eyed and buzzed. “Can we just hug for a minute?” I asked her. “Yeah, let’s,” she said. We took a couple deep breaths, and then went and found some shadier, low-angle glades to ski on. The rest of the day we assessed why it wasn’t dumb luck that we hadn’t dropped in. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t, but it still shook us up that we had even considered skiing that bowl. Hell hath no furry like siding snow and broken hearts.

We Midcountry residents tend to be a nomadic bunch, not only in place, but also in spirit (and maybe the two things are not so different). So, in one place (either physical, emotional or both) we find a deep, meaningful solid love connection. And yet, a mile or a month later, we are wallowing the sugary tree wells of love, face planting through sun crusts, watching our entire mountain crumble with destruction, and we yearn for the next fresh pow stash.

Monica, enjoying the next fresh pow shot. We did end up getting some good, safe turns that day.

A few days after skiing with Monica, I was chatting with yet another Midcountry friend about relationships: mine, his, the usual. “I find that I’m easy to love in Yosemite and Indian Creek,” he was saying to me. “And then there’s everyday life with me, when I’m in an office and I’m not at my happiest, and I get frustrated easily with things like slow computers. And then my partner starts wondering, ‘who is this person?’” And I knew exactly what he meant: Spatial variability.

I recently parted ways with a loved one, and I can’t help but feel like my instabilities (like changing towns and mountain ranges every four months and going incommunicado in the backcountry for weeks at a time) contributed to some fear about and distrust of our future. I can’t be sure – I find emotional cause-and-effect as nebulous as avalanche forecasting – but I wonder.

To Monica and all you other Midcountry Bumpkins post-holing around in love, we gotta hang in there. Got a Midcountry love story to share? Comment away. And remember: Be careful, because in the continental High Country, no matter how good things look, there’s almost always a weak layer deep, deep down. Depth hoar. Sad but true.

Happy Valentine’s Day.

First face shots. They’re an inaugural event that ranks right up there with the first night sleeping under the stars, first Brass Monkey, the losing of virginity, etcetera. My first face shots came in some glorious Cameron Pass powder – Montgomery Bowl, to be exact. I spent most of my youth snowboarding, so when I learned to Tele ski, snow in the face was quite novel.

I got the skin track blues. En route to the Mt. Gordon summit.

My friend Levi recently got his first  (Cheers!). He drove 24 hours, toured for six days into the Canadian Rockies, and summited two peaks to get there, but get there he did, by god.

Levi and four mutual friends – Sam Riggs, Michelle Bodenhammer, Judith Robertson and Monica Reuning – recently completed the so-called Mini Wapta Traverse, a 16-mile round trip along the Wapta Ice Field in Banff National Park. The tour, with multiple day excursions including ascents of both Mt. Gordon (10,500 ft.) and Mt. Thompson (10,200 ft.), took them 8 days. The route is a shorter version of the Wapta [Read More]]]>

Pow powty pow pow, eh. That's Canadian for "awesome skiing." Craggy St. Nicholas Peak looks on approvingly.

First face shots. They’re an inaugural event that ranks right up there with the first night sleeping under the stars, first Brass Monkey, the losing of virginity, etcetera. My first face shots came in some glorious Cameron Pass powder – Montgomery Bowl, to be exact. I spent most of my youth snowboarding, so when I learned to Tele ski, snow in the face was quite novel.

I got the skin track blues. En route to the Mt. Gordon summit.

My friend Levi recently got his first  (Cheers!). He drove 24 hours, toured for six days into the Canadian Rockies, and summited two peaks to get there, but get there he did, by god.

Levi and four mutual friends – Sam Riggs, Michelle Bodenhammer, Judith Robertson and Monica Reuning – recently completed the so-called Mini Wapta Traverse, a 16-mile round trip along the Wapta Ice Field in Banff National Park. The tour, with multiple day excursions including ascents of both Mt. Gordon (10,500 ft.) and Mt. Thompson (10,200 ft.), took them 8 days. The route is a shorter version of the Wapta Traverse, a major hot spot for Canadian ski mountaineering due to the relative safety of the route, and easy access to the route’s nearby peaks.

Peyto Hut: somewhere between Arctic mobile home and Japanese Zen garden.

Along the way the crew stayed in two huts, Peyto and Bow, which looked pretty foreign to a Colorado hut-tripper like me. “The Peyto Hut was definitely like a trailer,” Levi says. “It looks like someone dragged a little mobile home trailer up into the mountains.”

Levi, Michelle and Sam skied Mt. Thompson on day four out of the Peyto hut. “We made two unsuccessful attempts at another peak,” says Levi, “and then in an afternoon we skied Thompson. It was New Year’s Eve, so we were really feeling like we had something to celebrate up there on that mountain. Then we had a tremendous dinner in the hut – chicken pot pie, two appetizers, two desserts, whiskey and Bailey’s.”

On day 5 the group toured 4 miles to the Bow Hut, their second of the trip. “The Bow hut was a little more like a 10^th Mtn. Division Hut,” Levi says. “You’ve got a wood stove, a common room, bunks, and such.” From Bow they made consecutive day trips up Mt. Gordon then along the Crow Foot Route, which includes descending then re-ascending a 35-degree couloir.

The group definitely got another classic Wapta experience: whiteout blizzard navigation. “It wasn’t much of an issue,” Levi says, “but it brought challenges. Especially skiing downhill – you didn’t know how steep of a slope you were on.”

Hmmm...shall we take the fast way down, or go back the way we came? On the Summit of Mt. Thompson.

Despite ticking off tall mountains, and traversing glaciers with deep gaping, blue tears, Levi’s highlight was a simpler experience – one that can be found  pretty close to home.

“After skiing Mt. Gordon we were skiing the slopes above the Bow hut, and we were actually on the glacier,” he recalls. “The snow was so good. We just kept getting free refills from the wind and new fallen snow. It was just fantastic powder skiing – my first face shots ever. It was also a relief to have skied Gordon because it was our one objective of the trip. We made it on our first try, and we made it as a group, all together.”

Levi is one of my heros these days. He trades 30 hours of work per month for rent in Leadville. He ski tours by day, and he watches Kung-Fu movies by night. He is a self-proclaimed unemployed backcountry ski bum, and that’s the way he likes it. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t wear an avalanche transceiver. Oh no, avalanches wear a Levi Burford transceiver. Recently Levi surfed my couch while we took a Level II Avalanche class in Crested Butte, and as he unloaded a huge Tupperware bin of dehydrated food he scavenged from Outward Bound course leftovers he said, “Man, I can probably stay unemployed until after February with all this food!”

Good luck with the unemployment, Levi, and stay above the snow. I look forward to more of your tales from the Midcountry.

Anyone else out there got a tale from their own personal Midcountry? Let’s hear it!

Unless you’re skiing the Red Lady, just about every backcountry ski tour in Crested Butte requires a fairly flat valley approach of 1 to 3 miles. The tried and true method for these laborious tours is to slog in and slog out with big fatty skins on those big fatty skis that are so much fun in powder. I’ve tried other methods, too. One day I skied home from Snodgrass with one skin on, one skin off, like some kind of seizing, lurching skateboarder. Granted, I made it back to the car before my ski partners, but when I got there I was so off balance I could only walk in counter-clockwise circles for a good four minutes. I’ve also tried kick wax, but that stuff’s too gunky; if you use it before the climb it’ll mank up your skins and then kill your downhill buzz.

Enter kick skins. In a nut shell, kick skins kick ass. I learned about them from all the ski gurus in Crested Butte: [Read More]]]>

Kick skins: the most useful handful of gear since GORP. These BCA Skin scraps I use weigh in at 65g, including the tip clip. Add a hyper light stuff sack and total weight is 77g.

Unless you’re skiing the Red Lady, just about every backcountry ski tour in Crested Butte requires a fairly flat valley approach of 1 to 3 miles. The tried and true method for these laborious tours is to slog in and slog out with big fatty skins on those big fatty skis that are so much fun in powder. I’ve tried other methods, too. One day I skied home from Snodgrass with one skin on, one skin off, like some kind of seizing, lurching skateboarder. Granted, I made it back to the car before my ski partners, but when I got there I was so off balance I could only walk in counter-clockwise circles for a good four minutes. I’ve also tried kick wax, but that stuff’s too gunky; if you use it before the climb it’ll mank up your skins and then kill your downhill buzz.

Enter kick skins. In a nut shell, kick skins kick ass. I learned about them from all the ski gurus in Crested Butte: those folks who routinely ski over to Aspen for a latte in the morning and make it back in time for the Teocalli Bowl rope drop; those folks who glide past Chuck Norris on the Nordic trails and drop pointers on his technique.

Kick skins are like the thong of climbing skins: sleek, slender and sassy. They are essentially super thin skins that cover just enough of your base to give a little kick, and still allow for a substantial glide.

Key ring tip clip for the Nordic skis. Note the duct tape reinforcement: uber importante.

I like to use the scraps from when I trim my fat skins. That way I don’t spend as much money and I throw less away. “A skin saved is a skin earned,” George Washington once told his father as he chopped down a pesky apple tree.

Then, I scavenge some kind of tip loop set up. For my Nordic skis (Tempo classic skis that are older than I am) a key ring works well. Those are cheap at any thrift shop of hardware store. For my telemark skis (Black Diamond Nunyos and BD Kilowatts) I use standard skin loops. I regularly find these cheap at used gear shops, or from friends getting rid of old, goobery skins. I just run about 1.5 inches of the skin tip through the tip loop, fold the skin back on itself, and secure with a couple wraps of duct tape. I don’t bother with tail clips or fixtures: remember, we’re aiming for glide here.

Fat tip clips for my tele skis. Again, gotta use the duct tape 'cause the skin's so skinny.

I use 18mm skins on my Nunyos (105-73-93mm wide) and my BD Kilowatts (125/95/112 mm wide) – not because this is some sort of magic ratio, but because that’s how wide my skin scraps ended up being. I use 25mm skins on my 50mm Nordic skis because I only carry one set of skins Nordic skiing, and I might need them to actually climb some hills, while on my tele skis, I’ll have fat skins for any serious climbing. Another trick: I carry two kick skins and one full width skin for my Nordic skis. If I really need to climb, I can put both kick skins on one ski, and the fatty on the other.

Right down the middle = more kick, better climbing, less thinking.

Now, there’s a couple ways I’ve used kick skins. There’s the good old fashioned missionary positioning, where you just run the skin down the middle of the ski. Or, for those who like to live on the edge, you can run the skin along the outer edges.

Missionary’s good for greater kick, steeper climbing and more mindless plodding. The edge method requires slightly more technique, but can pay off with speed and longevity: it allows some skating, and if you weight your outside edge on the kicks and your inside edge on the glides, you’ll be cruising. This can feel awkward at first, but which great things in life don’t?

Despite all their newfound fame and glory, kick skins also have some drawbacks, limitations, and special considerations. First, they add weight to your pack. If you’re going to be doing any substantial climbing, you’ll have to carry both kick skins and fat skins.

Outside edge placement = skating options, and greater kick and glide potential with proper technique.

I found my kickers to lose traction once the slope got to be above 15 degrees, or so, but this will depend on your skin-to-ski width ratios. Second, you’ll probably want a little stuff sack to keep them dry and clean. Kickers are skinny and lack tail clips, so any loss of stickiness is a bummer. A little dog hair on a full skin might not matter much, but on a kick skin it could neutralize a high percentage of your adhesive.

If any of you readers have used kick skins and would like to share any beta or experiences, feel free to use the comment form below. I’d love to hear about it!

Kick on dudes and dudettes.