Maintenance Man

It got cold in Bozeman.

The temps haven’t risen above 3 degrees F since Wednesday of last week, and they haven’t reached positive digits since Friday.  The high on Tuesday was 5 degrees below 0 F.

There are benefits to the recent cold snap – most notably, any ice routes that were still holding out should be fully frozen by now – but it sure is hard to really enjoy being out there when it’s impossible to ignore the cold.  Ideally, the weather will be something like water in a fishbowl: it allows me to do what I’m here to do, but it’s not something I have to think about.  Warmer temps appear to be on the way, and it should be in the twenties and sunny for this weekend’s ice festival.  Until then, I’ll just suffer through frigid belays or, worse, warm time indoors.

Rubber ducky, you're the one...

I will say that life in the cold climate requires all sorts of adaptations that I had never considered.  People love to rip on the hot, sticky summers in the South, and they often validate the criticism with the popular truism: “You can always put on more clothes to get warm, but you can only take off so much to get cool.”

Whatever.  Sure, it gets hot back home, but it’s nothing that a cool river and a shady tree can’t take care of.  Twenty degrees below zero, though?  That requires all sorts of extra work.  I have to make sure my tank stays at a quarter-full or higher to keep the gas from freezing solid.  When I leave my apartment, my hair crystallizes into little icy tendrils before I can make it to my truck.  I have to wear socks every day.  It’s inhumane, frankly.

In the interest of full disclosure, the predominant issue here is that I do not enjoy maintenance, and the frigid winter requires a lot of it.  One of my favorite things about guiding rafts is the daily dip in the river that obsolesces the tedium of bathing.  I can’t remember the last time I got an actual haircut – I just take it all off with clippers once or twice a year.  It will be a legitimate life crisis if I ever land a job that requires me to shave daily.

I rationalize this questionable behavior with the notion that my anti-maintenance ethic makes for a pretty seamless transition from the daily grind to expedition living.  A lot of people end up shipwrecked in the backcountry without creature comforts like fresh clothes and soap, but not me.  I live that life every day.  It’s a life free of minutiae and unnecessary additions, and it’s glorious.

Stayin' sharp

I do recognize, however, that this is a game of give and take – an economy of sorts.  If I want to climb ice three or four days a week for the next five months, I’ll have to learn how to live in cold weather.  There’s just no way around it.  It may take time – and it may produce some frozen tears – but it’ll definitely provide some great memories.  This is as valuable a trade as I am capable of making, for memories, after all, are the currency of the dirtbag world.

Sometime next summer, when the thermometer in Tennessee is chasing ninety, I’ll be lounging in a raft under a riverside mountain laurel with five other guides, and the conversation will drift to winter wonderlands.  In that moment, I’ll be wealthy, and I’ll share these memories freely and happily with my equally high-rolling friends.  Then maybe later, when I’m taking private stock of those memories, I’ll thank the maintenance moments for making it all possible.

But not today.