Shaking the Snowglobe

Nick and I planned a ski tour for this morning. Originally we targeted the Silver Couloir off of Buffalo Peak, one of the fifty great ski descents of North America as arbitrarily chosen by the writers of this book. It did look epic, but last night a storm rolled through and dropped off 5+ inches, bringing avalanche danger up to a level 3 “Considerable” (out of five possible levels) and thus out of my comfort zone (plus 1 point to our developed pre-frontal cortexes). Instead we opted for a sub-30 degree angle tour that is found in a different guide book, this one effectively named “top fifty safest ski tours in North America”. Given my food poisoned induced queasiness had not quite settled, this sounded like a great compromise.

We set off for the trailhead around 7am and were soon skinning through a fire road surrounded by snow filled pine trees and the occasional unidentifiable but pleasant bird song (all bird songs are unidentifiable to me, unless I am with Thornton). A mile and a half later we reached the actual approach and ascent, at which point my nutrient deficiency from the past two days of having an unsettled stomach became pretty obvious. Five days ago I was feeling like Superman, strolling up to the Highline and West Basin Ridge in Taos with relative ease and excitement. This morning I felt like some kryptonite was gnarled in my weak, wimpy tummy and had to stop every 15 steps to catch myself. This is the year of being incredibly kind to yourself though, so I recognized that the altitude here is higher and that my body is still recovering from illness. I’m definitely still awesome. We climbed a bit further, soon reaching the top of the tree-line where the snow got firmer and icier, the visibility went away, and the decision to transition and descend was easy.

The initial descent felt awkward and unathletic – I was skiing on a few inches of powdered sugar sprinkled on a large frozen popsicle using two cardboard boxes under my feat. My touring boots are also, sadly, certainly too narrow around my ankles – the insoles pinch at my large, jutting ankle bones in a way that makes descending uncomfortable. The middle section of the descent was super fun though, the snow pack underneath the recent powdery layer changed quickly to a softer and more forgiving underbelly – I was able to find a few swifter and whimsical-ler turns. The final section was just a snowy stroll back on the fire road. All of those sections lasted roughly 10 seconds. A few pumps with our poles and we were back to the Mazda – faces frozen, hands chilly, and smiles wide. It seems that no matter how short the ascent, or meh the descent, skinning up a hill and skiing down retains a high floor of joy.

Nick and I have been half ironically listening to Noah Kahan’s song, “Stick Season”, which the New Yorker labeled the latest iteration of an Americana sub genre known as “Stomp-Clap-Hey” (aka every Lumineers song). Stick Season is about the period in Vermont between late Fall and early Winter when no leaves are left on the trees but snow has yet to fall. That particular image is irrelevant…the pine trees around us are evergreen and snow was falling during our hike, but something about the forest we skinned through, the short-ish descent, the abandoned cabin we passed, and the meh type snow did remind me of Vermont. Add in the Waffle and Bacon takeout we picked up on our way home and the transportation to New England was pretty much complete. It turns out, today is actually the anniversary of the 1980 USA Olympic Hockey team beating the Soviets 4-3 in Lake Placid, the Miracle on Ice. Lake Placid is in New York but I mean it’s just an hour drive from the Vermont border, so it’s pretty much Vermont. I don’t have much of a point to this early morning Vermont adjacency but in this Western ski tour it was fun to at least feel mentally transported to an East Coast experience for a few hours.

I’ve another day of some stomach recovering, reading, and possibly downhill skiing in the afternoon if I’m feeling up for it. Very likely another mega series of foosball with Nick. Certainly another movie night. Last night we tried to watch Stop Making Sense, the Talking Heads concert movie, and for the first time maybe ever I was unable to find it on any possible streaming services….which of course only made me want to watch it more. We settled instead on Talladega Nights, Shake n Bake.

The final leg of the trip is taking shape – Nick and I are going to head back through Salt Lake City on Saturday night and grab another day of skiing (as opposed to swinging lower through Las Vegas), and then land in Bishop, CA with some friends for some climbing and maybe a ski tour or two.