Flanks of New York Mountain, Central Colorado

Last ski season I spent a total of 51 days riding my tele sticks. For you statistical types, that’s 14% of the days in a calendar year. A respectable amount of days out I guess, but about 86%, or 314 days short of what I would’ve liked.

I spent a few of those days riding high speed lifts at some of the local resorts. By taking those high speed options, there’s always the possibility of ringing up 30,000+ vertical feet in a single sesh.  Of course that makes for an exhausting day out but also makes for great manly-man fodder when sitting round the pub afterward drinking pints with your crew.

I also accumulated some days at those same resorts where I’d start skinning my way by headlamp to “the top” long before most people woke up. That way I could have a nice casual climb up the groomers in order to work my lungs and legs, then follow with some nice, long ripping turns all to myself on world class resort terrain. With my legs totally jacked full of lactic acid, I could then catch one of the first high speed chairs of the day and squeeze in another few lift aided runs and feel like I’d rung up those 30,000 vert by 10:00! A fairly solid way to get a stiff workout to start the day if you had other things on the agenda.

And then there are the other days…my favorite days.

Some days I just don’t feel like fighting traffic, fighting for a $25 parking space, fighting for position in long lift queues, fighting to make more than two turns without someone cutting me off and fighting the urge not to grab the cell phone from some jibber-jabbering douche bag and hucking it off the lift.

These other days are the days when I find myself in snowpacked “parking areas” atop XYZ Pass or at some tiny, frozen trailhead leading up to some some backcountry hut. It’s here where I find a few other like-minded freeheelers and AT-types who’ve also opted to eschew the above mentioned realities of skiing at resorts and have chosen to chase a few solitary hours doing what we love…skiing…and who aren’t afraid to work for their turns.

I know there’s probably some room here for spirited debate amongst the general population, but I actually find early alpine starts appealing. Getting to work by 06:30 is grim and arduous but getting up at 04:30 to hit the backcountry is a labour of love.

On those early backcountry ski mornings I love going downstairs, turning on the coffee pot and smelling it brew while I’m getting things loaded into my truck. I love showing up at a friend’s house long before dawn and discussing how freakin’ cold it is and silently feigning rogue thoughts of going back home and climbing into a warm bed.

Then, right about daybreak, when we get to XYZ Pass or that tiny trailhead in the backcountry, I love turning off the engine and sitting in silence for a few seconds knowing when I open the door of my heated truck, the bitter cold is going to bite me like a rabid dog…and it makes me shiver a little…it does even right now. I’ll think how I can possibly make getting my boots on any more efficient. Nope, there’s simply no other way than to just get out and put them on.

I love the distinctive sound my skins make when I peel off the cheater strips. I love the fact that the coffee I brewed, regardless that I’ve been drinking the same blend for years, always tastes a million times better when decanted from a thermos into my crappy North Face travel cup. I love there’s a dozen or less other people standing around their trucks doing exactly the same thing.

There is nothing more gratifying to me than clipping into the bindings of my skis and taking those first few strides up a steep trail. My heart pounds at my chest and my lungs heave frantically trying to find purchase. Sometimes I don’t know whether it’s from sheer excitement or just a function of the thin, cold air.  Maybe it’s both. A few more steps and I’ll hopefully find a rhythm to my pace. A few more steps and I’m warm despite the near zero degree temperatures.

An hour, maybe two, maybe even three more up a ridge and the last of the cedars are well below us. Our legs are hammered and aching from climbing two thousand vertical feet up the steep, snow burdened ridge. If we’re lucky maybe a skin track will already be cut in. The wind bites our exposed skin but the amazing views of the surrounding peaks mask any discomfort. We’ll spy a little rock outcropping near the top of the ridge and decide that’s where we’ll stop, have a bite to eat and something warm to drink before heading down.

Bundled up in our puffiest down and our heaviest gloves, we sit quietly and ponder. No other people. Just me and a friend. We look at our surroundings, humbled. Life is clear and simple. Life is good.

One last sip of tea or coffee and we stand up and stretch our tight muscles against the cold. No words, just stripping the skins from our skis, checking avalanche beacons and getting the few items we have packed up. With a little nod, one of us will start down and the other will follow shortly thereafter. Time flies and stands still simultaneously. What took two or three hours up takes a fraction of the time to return. We’ll stop back near the truck, hit fists, say something deep and prophetic like “Nicely done”, then kick off our skis.

We’ll quickly throw our gear into my truck and start back without much fanfare other than another luke warm cup of coffee or tea, each of us casually reliving every hard earned step up and every quad burning turn down. Although we were together for hours, the experience was as individual as our fingerprints. On the way back down the hill at our favorite pub we’ll simply tap pint glasses of our favorite IPA and proclaim, “good day” and just leave it at that.

I feel so fortunate to have a season pass each year for a few of the amazingly beautiful resorts here in Colorado and California. I sincerely appreciate my days at these places more than you can ever imagine. But I’ll have to be honest here and say that my favorite days on skis are still those other days spent in the mountains with just a friend or two.

Climb high. Paddle far. Ride hard. Earn your turns.

My new journal...and it's stickers.

Yesterday, my good friend Jesse flew to Florida where he’ll sail someone’s boat down through the Panama Canal. He told me once he gets the boat delivered he’ll probably just take a bus up to his house in Costa Rica (that he built himself of course) to take care of “some business”. Knowing Jesse, I suspect this business involves an important board meeting, a surfboard that is. He’s a pretty damn interesting dude, to say the least.

The night before he left we talked on the phone for a while and he asked how my travel prep was coming along. I told him that in staying with my all too common M-O of waiting until the very last minute to think about packing, things are just a tad hectic in that department. Jesse, being as philosophical about travel as I am, brought up the point that if we really thought about it, what things are really so important that if we forgot them, it’d alter or diminish the experience?

I told him the one thing that I was most concerned with was finding the right journal, one I’d want to write in. I told him that’s the one item I travel with that’s personal and I can be pretty protective of it. I then told him how I’d found a plain black one at McGuckin’s then came home and put a couple of my favorite stickers on it to give it a little personal flair.

Jesse then threw out a good question. He asked me to suppose that I’d somehow managed to forget it for this trip, what would happen? I’m always up for a spirited round of what-if scenarios so I replied that it wouldn’t be the end of the world because I could just search around and find one once I got where I was going. I honestly like finding one beforehand because it kind of adds to my pre trip experience and helps put me in that travel frame of mind.

Ironically, when we were traveling down in Southern Mexico a few years ago, I’d actually forgotten a journal I’d bought specifically for the trip. I realized the error mid-air when I dug around through my carry-on pack for it. Had two pens, but no journal! Of course by then it was too late to scour the airport gift shops for an overpriced, crappy replacement.

The morning after we arrived I took a walk through the neighborhood near our hostel and found a little tienda where I bought the only thing available…a cheap ass little 5×7, 100-page notebook. It was the kind with that spirally wire binder thing that invariably comes partially unwound leaving a pointy protuberance which will soon find its way under your fingernail while you’re blindly fishing around for it in your backpack…just sayin’. Anyhow, the price was right at about USD $0.20 so I bought it. Okay, that’s not exactly true, it was actually about USD $2.00 when I added churros y café con leche into the transaction. Damn those churros.

Throughout our trip, that little notebook/journal was brutally bounced around in my pack, rained on, used as a coaster for an “occasional” beer or margarita, used as a file folder for ticket stubs and maps, used as a flyswatter, a fan, an address book and of course, used from time to time as a place for me to record my thoughts. That thing was like the ultimate multi-tool! At one point when we were sitting around having a beer, I peeled the label off the bottle and taped it to the front of the journal just to give it more character. In the end, it turned out that that crappy little notebook/journal is one I have incredibly fond memories of.

Jesse and I concluded that if we’re true to our beliefs about travel, the experiences we have shouldn’t be altered by the kind of journal we keep or the possessions we take. The important thing is that we simply travel and experience.

It was nice to have that little philosophical wandering session with Jesse before we both head off to different parts of the world. Also kind of fun to think about the fact that everything I’ll put in my backpack for this trip is really nothing but a convenience item and could easily be replaced or done without all together. I also take a little pride in the fact that I can travel internationally for an extended period of time in a style where one backpack is all I’ll require.

All I really need is a ticket to ride.

Shannon at our Deaf School site near Kabul

Years and years ago, when I first started traveling, the basic reason was nothing more than I wished to change up my routine and see something different. Early on I tried the “tourist” travel thing (for a very short while I might add) with pre-planned tours and guided excursions into the places where they thought I wanted to go. While these types of holiday trips were indeed relaxing and thought/trouble-free, it didn’t take long to figure out that this type of “travel” definitely wasn’t what I was looking for. In fact, until I decided to simply buy an airline ticket, throw on a backpack and set off with NO plan was it that I finally understood the lure of being what I consider a “traveler”.

Because I’ve chosen to travel the way I do, I’ve been fortunate enough to serendipitously find myself in places that have changed me at the very core of my existence — places that left me with a recondite feeling that I somehow understood our world a little better. There have been times when I’ve found myself among poverty so desperate that it left me feeling hollow, selfish and nauseatingly helpless. Other times have fortunately been more comical such as the times without even the slightest command of the language I’ve tried to negotiate bus fare, get directions or order something from a menu that was not only free of beaks or talons, but at the very least cooked to the point where it wasn’t’ still wiggling around on the plate.

Anyhow, I was so blown away with the culture and kindness of the people on a trip to Southeast Asia a couple of years ago, I’ve since thought more and more about what all this travel really means in the grand scheme of things, if anything. Could there be another reason for it outside of becoming a more understanding and compassionate person? Could I possibly do something to help make a positive difference for the people in the countries where I’ve traveled? Sometimes I think yes, sometimes I think no. Thinking about making a difference in someone’s life thousands and thousands of miles away sometimes seems almost impossible, if not completely impossible. Besides that, if you could help one person there are just millions and millions of others in exactly the same situation, or even worse situations. It’s so overwhelming to think about.

Ironically, about the same time I returned from Asia the last time, I was attending another installment in a speaker series here in Golden at the American Alpine Center. Unlike most of the other typical presentations, this one wasn’t about climbing some ridiculously hard route in some remote place. Instead, this one featured a young woman named Shannon Galpin who’d started a non-profit called Mountain2Mountain. The goal of her organisation was to bring basic human rights, education and simple hope to women and children in conflict and post-conflict regions. Sounded interesting enough so we went.

Throughout the evening she explained how she believed in her work so much that she’d sold everything she owned, including her house, to fight this fight. She reiterated time and time again this wasn’t something she was doing on a lark but was committed to making a difference because she was, quote, “tired of sitting on the sidelines and doing nothing to change the way things are”. I think she also said something about “not showing up in Kabul on rainbows and unicorns”…which, now that I know her a little better, makes me giggle. She explained that she was a realist and knew wouldn’t see a global change in her lifetime, but if she could simply make a “ripple” in the way things currently are then that’s what she had to do. Her words that evening touched me in an extremely profound way. There was someone who was actually trying to make a difference despite the overwhelming odds.

After her presentation a mutual friend introduced me to Shannon. We talked for a bit before she graciously invited me and Donna to join her and her friends for margaritas. It was so inspirational to sit in a group of people who had traveled extensively (dirt bag style in most instances) and had felt the same feelings and emotions that I had felt all those times while roaming places off the normal tourist track. Looking back, this evening was probably the biggest seed that started my internal search for a more clear meaning of what my travels meant, or could mean.

Shannon and I have stayed in touch since and I consider her one of my closest personal friends. I’ve kept current on her projects in Afghanistan such as building rural schools, bringing health and education opportunities to women’s prisons and establishing mid-wifery programs in many of those same rural areas. I might also mention that she travels to these areas with only a translator and without a NATO or US military escort.

Oh yeah, and then there’s her historic mountain bike ride across the Panjshir Valley in the northeast part of the country. Why historic? Keep in mind that this is a country where in most areas a woman has few or no basic human rights whatsoever and then there’s the fact that in this country, the notion of a woman straddling a bike seat is deemed unacceptably provocative. In Taliban controlled areas of Southern Afghanistan women have been publicly tortured and killed for lesser offenses.

The Panjshir Valley where Shannon rode has not been and is not currently controlled by any Taliban factions, nevertheless you can probably imagine the commotion stirred amongst the villagers as she’d come riding into these traditionally conservative mountain hamlets on her “burqa blue mountain bike”! I hear her stories all the time and I still find it mind boggling that she’s doing this. You can read all about her ride in an edition of Outside Magazine that came out this past spring http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/biking/mountain-biking/The-Ride-of-Her-Life.html

Back around the first of the year she sent round an email to a few friends and from her words I gathered that some of the steam behind her efforts had begun to ebb. Knowing Shannon, this was not the norm so naturally I was concerned. The fact was that the job she was doing was so insanely huge and she was taking on so much of it herself that she understandably began feeling the weight of those efforts.

For a few weeks after her email, Shannon and I would meet for brunch or just hang out when I was up in Summit County or sometimes when she was down here on the Front Range. We’d philosophise about travel, her work in Afghanistan, fundraising ideas, mountain biking and of course ripping some big tele turns in deep powder. It was always incredibly inspiring to hear her talk about her work because she is so passionate about it.

To make a long story short(-ish), a few months back Shannon called and asked if I’d consider becoming a member of her Board of Directors at Mountain2Mountain. I admit that my knee jerk reaction was that I would be getting in way over my head and there was no way I’d do it. I’d read the bios of the other members of the board, the development board and the advisory board and I honestly couldn’t imagine what I could contribute that would be meaningful.

I consulted with some of my inner circle friends to ask their opinion about the idea of joining the organisation and basically what they told me was that what I could bring was a rare seed of enthusiasm and a sincere desire to make a difference. They said that that “seed” alone would be enough. As flattered as I was, I naturally thought that was a pretty bogus answer because this was an organisation that needed momentum and people who could make things happen…people who had traveled the world and seen things and knew things and could do what needed to be done. Then it hit me, maybe this is what all my travels in the past had led me to. All that time spent trying to understand different cultures, religions, beliefs, customs and ideals might finally have an avenue to be more than a bunch of selfish endeavours. So I agreed.

With another couple of new board members coming on around the same time, we sort of had a “let’s push the RESET button party”  and we all vowed to refocus this effort into the machine it had the potential to be. I’m happy to report that in just a few months we’ve made some amazing progress in gaining back that momentum and are in the process of doing some rather historic work in a region that desperately needs something positive. Let me explain.

Not long ago Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, generously granted Mountain2Mountain five acres in the Kabul area to build a  deaf school! It is here that we had high hopes of building the very first K-12 Deaf School in Afghanistan…the VERY first of its kind. With human rights a precious commodity in this war fatigued country, you can imagine the odds of a deaf child receiving a fair chance at  any kind of education, much less one that would cater to their specific needs. There again, Shannon had a big dream and through tireless work and determination, she got that land to get it started.

Despite having the land, actually building a school would prove a larger and even more difficult task. The first order of business would be to build a security wall around the land. Without that, the construction would simply never happen. Conversely, if we left the land open for too long it’d surely be absorbed into the community and we’d lose our rights to it. Keep in mind that things in Afghanistan don’t exactly work the same way as the US…to put it mildly.

Once again, tireless work (and luck) paid off when one of our connections here in Colorado, who just so happens to be from Afghanistan AND just so happens to own a couple of construction companies, offered to help us out. We are now ecstatic to report that our contact, along with his incredibly generous support in Afghanistan, has completed our security wall and presented us with the architectural plans for our deaf school. I should also mention that this wall was built solely on the belief that we would complete this project and would make good on our promises to him. The photo at the top of the page is of Shannon standing near the construction of the security wall during its early phases.

The wall and school projects are estimated to cost approximately $800,000 and we’re currently working hard at securing the necessary funding to complete it. One of the fundraising/educational efforts we have is a traveling, life-sized photography exhibit called the Streets of Afghanistan. http://www.streetsofafghanistan.org/   If you ever get a chance to see it, I would highly encourage you to do so. It is a collection of awe inspiring photos depicting life throughout this beautiful country comprised of photographic work from Afghan and American photographers alike. I should mention that the exhibit tour will conclude when Shannon takes it to Afghanistan and sets it up as a public display for all to see. That promises to be an incredibly moving event.  All proceeds from the US Exhibit Tour will go to the completion of our school.

We are also hosting regional cycling tour/events across the US where we’ll celebrate Shannon’s ride across the Panjshir region. http://www.mountain2mountain.org/panjshir-tour Keep in mind this is not a race (in most cities) but rather a celebratory ride with all proceeds going toward our efforts at completing the school. We even have 11-year old Reese Arthur in Saratoga Springs who is absolutely killing it by organizing a ride on her own to support the Panjshir tour! http://www.differencesmag.com/community-service/59/136.html#.Tl-Oxnk0T_Y.facebook This world definitely needs more people like Reese.

Most of all I’m just happy that Shannon has once again regained that inner fire and passion I saw when I first met her. She is a person who dreams big and I can tell you firsthand when she gets rolling with big ideas, there’s no stopping her. It’s pretty easy to feed off her enthusiasm and start to believe that you can also make a difference.

I’ll close by saying that I never thought the traveling I’ve done would amount to much more than a ton of photos, an increased appreciation for different cultures and more awareness of the tribulations people might be facing. I’m very proud that my journey up until now has led me to be part of Mountain2Mountain and their work and proud of our efforts to bring about change in regions where the simple notion of hope may only be a dream.

All we can do is try.

Ski hard. Paddle far. Run long. Climb high.

Just this week I booked my flights for a trip I’ve been thinking and dreaming about for a long, long time. Over the past several months, maybe even years, I’ve dreamt about what it will be like to set out on foot in the Himalaya with a plan consisting of nothing more than:

A)     Turn up in Kathmandu

B)      Walk around

C)      Figure it out

Until I hit the “Book” button on the airline’s website, it had only been a dog ear on another page of my things to do list. Now, it’s real.

I know I’m fortunate beyond fortunate that my current employer understands, or at least pretends to understand, that I’m not the kind of person who’s content to flit off to Cancun for a long weekend of pre-boxed, all-inclusive type vacations (not that there’s anything wrong with all-inclusive types of tour vacation, it’s just not for me). So, if you know me at all, you’ll know that every once in a while I get all itchy inside about traveling and need to step off the gerbil wheel in a big way. Even more fortunate for me is that my friend Jason, who will be traveling with me this time, is of the exact same mindset when it comes to striking out on an adventure with only a plane ticket, a backpack and a Lonely Planet book.

As real as it feels now that I’ve booked the flights, the true gravity of the adventure probably won’t settle in until I leave San Francisco and see nothing but ocean for the next twelve hours until we change planes in South Korea. From that point there will be no quickly bailing out and turning back. Even if I decided to abort the trip mid air and book a flight home from Seoul the minute we landed, it’d still take me more than a full day of sitting in a winged aluminum tube, hurling in the fringes of outer space at near mach speeds to get back to Colorado. To put things in perspective, the total miles Jason and I plan to travel during our trip (by airplane alone) currently stands at 23,278 — that’s not including the miles trekking, riding buses and catching trains. So you can see it’s not exactly the kind of trip that’s conducive to simply leaving a little food and water out for the cat while I’m away.

Yesterday a couple of coworkers asked me how my “planning” was coming along. Of course I cringed at that “planning” word but I was uber pleased to inform them that I had in fact finally booked all our flights. They asked what places I would be flying into and it made me smile when I blurted out the cities of San Francisco, Seoul, Bangkok, Krabi, Kathmandu, Pokhara, Dhaka and Chittagong (Bangladesh). Funny but I think I’d only thought about the individual legs for so long that I really hadn’t thought about the trip as a whole until right then. I’m still smiling by the way.

The next question from my coworker was one that I absolutely despise. They asked, “Won’t it be hard to come back to reality after a trip like that?” The reason it irritates me so much is because travel for me is a way of finding reality, not escaping it. I’ve written page after page in my journal about the difference between being a traveler and a tourist, but that very term, “come back to reality”, represents the true apotheosis of the cavernous difference between the two styles of travel.

Every day when we pick up a newspaper, click on a news service on the internet or turn on the tele to watch stories about events around the world we unfortunately find ourselves being filtered and biased by our own surroundings. We can hear all day long about the violations of women’s basic human rights in Afghanistan, rape as a tool of war in the Congo, human trafficking in South East Asia, droughts in Africa, flooding in China or Maoist rebellions in Nepal, but the truth of the matter is that once we turn away from the story or turn off that information source, 99.9% of people will return to the usual grind without much more thought about those realities. The simple reason is that these stories are most always originating in a country without a face per se, so admittedly it’s hard, if not impossible to empathize without that personal reference.

Maybe it’s my insatiable sense of curiosity or my unquenchable thirst to look over the next horizon, but I personally feel a guttural need to put faces with those stories, to experience other cultures in a grass roots (i.e. dirt bag) style of travel without all those annoying filters, biases or tour guides showing me what THEY think I should see. I fortunately know and embrace the fact that reality is more than what my own life consists of…it’s a summation of every single person inhabiting every single place on this planet. When I’m in those faraway places I make it a point to be very cognizant that where I am IS reality, it’s reality for the people who live there and it’s my reality simply because I’m there as well. I desperately want to understand, empathize and accept but I feel I can’t properly do that without experiencing it firsthand.

Therefore, when I travel I know very well I haven’t escaped reality at all but rather just found a different reality 12,000 miles away…and I wouldn’t want it any other way.

I can vividly remember exact times during my travels when I truly, truly realized that true reality is where you are at that very moment. For example, I remember a couple of years ago when we were sitting in a small open air café along the Chaopraya River, sweating profusely in the omnipresent heat and humidity of Bangkok. I looked out across the street and into an adjacent market to a virtual ocean of dried fish selections, overwhelming smells, desperately poor people looking through rubbish bins for anything to eat, mysteriously exotic fruits and vegetables, writing and symbols on signs I couldn’t decipher at all, obnoxiously loud tuk-tuks zooming past while emitting grey-ish blue tinted exhaust, literally thousands of bicycles and motorbikes everywhere and people speaking a language I couldn’t even begin to understand…and that’s when it hit me, it’s when it always hits me. I was exactly where I wanted to be, where I needed to be.

From that exact second I knew I could either take a balcony seat for this amazing opportunity or I could fully immerse myself in that different world, accept that things are different and that I’ll probably be a little uncomfortable at times. I couldn’t wait to let myself be completely absorbed into the vibe and rhythm of my current surroundings and become part of that reality. With no tour guide to get me through the language barrier, no concierge to direct me to the “best” places to see, I seriously couldn’t wait to dive in head first and wallow around wholeheartedly in my current reality.

It’s those moments when I can chose to be a traveler or a tourist. There will never be a doubt what choice I’ll make.

So no, it won’t be hard to come back to this “reality” when I return from Asia and the high Himalaya. Once I’ve expanded those horizons and experienced those different cultures again, my reality here will take on a completely new definition and I’ll be able to start anew with my new, bigger eyes…and that’s a good thing. Acquiring new eyes is why I travel to begin with.

Climb high, ski hard, paddle far and run long.

For the last six-point-five days I’ve pretty much been obliterated with one of the only summer cold/flu/sinus infection type things I’ve ever had. I don’t get sick as a general rule and if I do, I can usually just ignore the symptoms for a couple days until they go away or I get used to them and move on. However, this time it crushed me and I found myself canceling a mountain biking trip to Fruita, a climbing jaunt and just about anything else that involved standing up or breathing.

I managed to work a full day yesterday and today but I can say with all honesty that my heart wasn’t into it. What’s worse was all the people coming by, seeing me in the throes of death and asking me cerebral questions such as  ”are you sick?“. The nice thing about having a sinus infection, about the only thing actually, is that when people say stuff like that you can produce a nuclear wave of green snot on command and cough up things the size of a house cat. That’ll send ‘em running for the hills and it doesn’t take but once or twice until word gets around the office and people leave you alone. Not covering your mouth during a violent coughing attack or offering to show the results of the Kleenex gets quicker results. Just sayin….

Anyhow, today I was actually feeling saucy enough to make the trip up the three flights of stairs to my office without having to stop ten times to avoid passing out. Small victories count in my world. By the afternoon I was feeling better and actually thought of maybe taking a walk this evening, or dare I say, maybe run a mile or two. Yeah, well, by the time 3:40 rolled around I was plummeting from my Sudafed Non-Drowsy stoke and gave up on those thoughts.  Once again I resigned to just coming home and making dinner for myself (Donna’s in Jackson Hole this week on business and Carly is out with friends).

As I pulled into the garage I glanced back into the jumpseat of my Tacoma and decided that since the pile was approaching the height of the back of the bucket seats, it might just be a good time to take advantage of my lack of physical energy and clean out my truck.  And what a treasure trove of goodies and memories of the past few months that produced. Okay, I do get things out  from time to time but I ski, run, mountain bike, climb or whatever else every weekend so sometimes it’s easier to just leave things there.

First was a dangerously warm can of Oskar Blues Old Chub Scotch Ale that I acquired a couple of weekends ago at the Singlespeed USA Mountain Biking event. So many good times there and so many memories…and some I’ll never get back. Glad that baby didn’t go off in my hot truck over the last couple of days!

Among other things were my filthy cycling shoes, ski helmet, tele boots, Gorilla Pod, assorted Clif Bar wrappers that had hidden under the seat, a lift ticket from skiing on Memorial Day in Aspen and a t-shirt I’ve been looking for.

Ah yes, and lest we forget the dirty woolen ski sock that had gotten down beside the jumpseat and eluded detection for a while. I think that’s the one that went missing after a particularly warm skin up Peak Nine in Breckenridge a month or so ago. That may have also been the day my toes were actually pruned up from all the sweat in my boots. Man alive, finding that thing certainly explained some things and got the cat off the hook. Good times.

On a roll, I decided I’d clean out the glove compartment, which is a name I find odd because I’d never put my gloves in there. Anyhow, various stickers, torn lift tickets, the requisite insurance and registration stuff for big brother Colorado, napkins from various road trips and various and assorted condiments. All things I fully expected to find after a long ski season and all with great memories attached! Then came the thing I didn’t expect to find.

I pulled out a folded piece of paper and when I opened it I saw it was from the funeral home where my buddy Chris had his service back in November. Hit me a little harder than I expected. I read through it, folded it back like it was and put it back. Amazing how fresh that sting can be after almost eight months.

So I gathered up all those other awesome treasures and brought them into the house…and tossed some things into the trash en route (not my sock!). Needing a little fresh air, I spent the next little while out in the garden watering plants so I wouldn’t get in trouble for neglecting them while Donna was away! While I was out there I thought about all those things in my truck and how it kind of told a story about how I’d chosen to deal with Chris’s death.

I could have sunken into despair, given up or scaled back everything I did out of fear of the same fate, but I didn’t. I don’t live in fear at all, quite the contrary actually. I admit it was hard at first just to find the motivation to get out of the house because I was so shattered with sadness, but I did. It took me a while to get that mojo for adventure back, but I did. Chris and I shared a frenetic, sometimes crazy zest for life and we fed off each other. Chris helped me be who I am and he would always knock down any self doubts before they could ever materialize…not just for me, but for everyone.

Yeah, I was down following his accident, still am from time to time, but I know what it felt like to live the dream and go big before all that happened and there is no way I was staying down forever. I just needed to reset for a bit, honor what Chris gave me (and still gives me), then come back even stronger and more hungry for life. Chris was a huge part of that and I will never let him down when it comes to living the way I should.

One thing that I need to mention is that by being hungrier for life and living bigger is that I’ve met some of the most amazing people. It is a privilege to call them my friends. They’ve been incredibly supportive through those tough times and contribute every bit that Chris did to my life. I hope I can repay them someday.

Anyhow, a little later, while making myself a nice dinner and looking for the right red wine to pair with my chile de arbol shrimp pasta with feta and amoxicillin, I grabbed a bottle of wine a mutual friend of Chris had hand crafted and brought down to help celebrate his life back in November. No better time to open it than right now. Salud Chris. Salud Tom. Thanks for the life you helped open for me Chris. And thanks Tom for the friendship and good times to come. Familia. That wine rocks.

So finding all these little trinkets in my truck this afternoon was actually a brilliant reminder that I’m back to living my life “in the right”. Not living every day to the fullest is dying a slow miserable death and I’m honestly not quite ready to check out just yet. And once I get out of this amoxicillin/NyQuil coma I plan to rally with a renewed vigor.

Pretty amped about finding the sock and solving that little aromatic mystery. My friends will be happier passengers for sure. Good day.

Paddle far, climb high, run long and drop those tele turns deep.

I was looking back at some of my journals recently and found tons and tons of spirited entries about lots of things that were simple yet extraordinarily moving. Sitting in markets in a faraway country, sitting on a high pass absorbing 360-degree views, eating strange foods from street vendors, sitting with my coffee watching a foreign city awaken to a new day are just some of the things that I’ve wrote countless and countless pages about. It’s the simple things that always pull me back to “center” so much of my travel is spent trying to go as simple (sometimes dirt bag is the correct term) as possible.

I like to think that my appreciation for those simple things filter into most aspects of my life, from the way I live day to day to hopefully the way I capture images with my photographic pursuits. In fact, I try to keep my photos as simple as possible in order to convey that very thing, simplicity.

On Monday of this week I received an email which, for me, validated my efforts and passion for capturing some of these simple images. The email informed me that some of my images were going to be used in a globally recognized publication, one I personally have a great deal of respect for, one of the extremely few.

The best part about this is that I can honestly say that in getting those shots I stayed true to my desire and passion of capturing the simple side of life. I didn’t go looking for the shots, it’s what came at me at the time. I didn’t manipulate the situation, only embraced the moment and let emotions, my own included, dictate the shot. I’m not the best photographer in the world, far from it, but I know my own emotions and perpetually look for simplicity in life and that’s where I think I can make my photos capture something a little different, if only to me.

So getting word from that publication was definitely a nice highlight in my work as a photographer/journalist. However, the day before I actually received something I’m far more proud of and certainly hold as a higher form of validation. I humbly received the Devon Award completely out of the blue.

I don’t know who said it but there was once a quote that went something like “Cats and kids are very much alike, they both know who they can trust in the first second they meet a stranger”. I think we all have that gut instinct about the people we meet but as we become adults we learn to fake our way through uncomfortable interactions so as not to hurt feelings, offend or downright piss off others. Naturally that’s a matter of courtesy and I’m not saying we should stop being nice, but the unfiltered honesty of a cat and a kid can deliver a stinging blow, especially if we take the time to reflect on that honesty.

So, on Sunday I met with a good friend who founded and directs a non-profit organization called Mountain2Mountain www.mountain2mountain.org. Because of our schedules and life, we hadn’t seen each other in quite a while so needed to catch up. Shannon brought her daughter Devon along, who I’d never met until then, and a couple of my best friends also popped over the pass from Vail. It was so incredibly nice to step away from everything for a couple of hours, have a leisurely brunch with great friends and just enjoy life in the mountains.

While we were having brunch, Devon busied herself with her drawings since all the adult conversation was likely about the most boring thing a six year old could possibly endure. As we talked, she quietly went through page after page, filling her sketch book full of amazing drawings. It was pretty impressive that she endured well over an hour of our talk and never once asked to leave or do something different. So dialed into her drawing was she that she even turned down breakfast AND hot chocolate.

Then, just as we readied ourselves to leave and go out for a walk, she handed me one of her drawings (and an envelope) and told me it was “for me”. I was also instructed that the envelope was not to be opened until I got home, to which I promised I wouldn’t…and didn’t.

We walked around town for a while and sat in a park to continue our conversations from brunch. Devon engaged herself again with climbing on rocks, putting shards of sandstone into fun designs and stopping by every once in a while to point out the chipmunk (through she was convinced it was a ferret) sunning himself. As we sat there I thought a lot about what it meant to have received that drawing from her. I actually thought about the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote that goes something like, “To laugh often and much; to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children…to leave the world a better place…to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”

Naturally I had my camera with me and several times there in the park I wanted to pull it out of its case and snap some photos of Devon. Every time I thought about it, I couldn’t. Not sure why actually, but I couldn’t. Maybe it was that I knew all to well I could never capture the emotion I had of being accepted as a person through the unfiltered eyes of a six year old. Any photo I took wouldn’t do justice in my mind. Or maybe it was just one of those moments where the camera needed to stay holstered and I needed to enjoy life for what it was in that moment.

This was on Sunday, word came about my photos on Monday. While Monday’s news was amazingly validating for the photography work I’d done, receiving the Devon Award the day prior definitely put everything into the context it needed to be put into. Yes, I had captured simplicity of emotion in a couple of photos and it was luckily recognized by a publication I respect, but to live my life honestly enough to have it recognized by such an awesome kid is far greater validation to me than any publication, buyer, critic or editor could ever bestow upon me.

For a person who laothes the thought of putting any awards in my office or hanging my diploma for all to see, I have no hesitation at all at proudly displaying my Devon Award.

Thank you Devon. I hope I can always live up to your expectations.

Me, post skin and ski up Peak 9

This past autumn I sort of decided that I would maybe start thinking about the possibility of trying something other than snowboarding this winter season. Keep in mind that about thirteen or fourteen years ago, after discovering snowboarding, I had vowed to never ever ski again. Besides that, I was always just an “okay” skier and never really excelled at it so the thought of going back never seemed an option.

The thought of strapping two skis back on my feet only came back to my thinking when my buddy Chris told me I should give up the snowboard and try some AT gear  (all-terrain). He said that instead of post-holing in waist deep snow with my snowboard strapped on my back, I should skin up so I could move as fast and efficiently as my lungs would allow. Yeah, it was hard to slog up backcountry peaks just as he said, but I truly loved the sensation of ripping big powder turns on my snowboard so much that it always seemed worth the extra effort. Reluctantly though, I told him I’d consider skis for this season.

I still remember his excitement when I told him that I’d indeed bought a pair of skis off Craig’s List. But let me clear that statement up a little. He was excited until I told him I was buying a telemark set up instead of the AT set up he had suggested. If I remember correctly, I think his exact words were, “Why’d you go and buy that hippie shit?”. Then, just like the Chis everyone knew, he laughed and  immediately starting listing out all the “skiing projects” that we HAD to do this winter in the backcountry. I hated to squelch his always present enthusiasm for the next great “project”, but I told him I at least needed to get my ski legs back under me before I ventured off into the backcountry. I told him it shouldn’t take long at all since I was athletic and as he knew, can be as determined as anyone once I put my mind to learning something.

Because of the circumstances, my maiden voyage on the the tele skis was put on hold for a bit. However, when I did finally get them out, I decided that A-Basin would be a great place to start learning this whole telemark business. I figured I could just run laps on their intermediate terrain while I got the whole knee dropping system worked out.

Seriously, how hard could it be? I could go anywhere I wanted on my snowboard and I had all the confidence in the world when it came to ripping big turns. I surmised it shouldn’t take but a single day to figure this tele stuff out because like I mentioned before, I was athletic and had the determination of a pit bull when it came to learning how to do something new.

Well, that was terrible assumption number one…of many to come. Let’s just say that getting clipped into those funny looking bindings and getting on the chair lift went off without a hitch. Once off the lift, the overall game changed a little. I was quickly served up the biggest piece of humble pie I’ve ever eaten. There would be no intermediate anything that day. For the first time in many years, I cowered at the sight of a blue square on a trail marker and frantically searched my trail map for anything with a green circle. In fact, every joint in my body would turn completely rigid when I’d look down anything more steep than a handicap ramp at the grocery story. There was simply no controlling those damn skis with those crazy loose heels flopping around.

So to recap my first day on tele skis, let’s just say the pit bull mentality I thought I possessed turned out to be more befitting that of a pitiful little lap dog. And yeah, my bravado about being able to learn things simply because I was “athletic” had been reduced to a head-hung-in-bitter-defeat walk back to my car after only three exhausting hours. I admit it, I was shattered. Fail.

As is the always the case with me, I whimpered around for a day or two nursing my demolished ego before I got another little spark of determination. I decided that I’d go back the following weekend and try again. And against my better judgment, I asked my friends Bryan and Andrew if I could tag along with them…them both being freakishly good tele skiers. My thought process was that I could follow them around, watch them and try to learn what I was doing wrong. I say “doing wrong” because I had pretty much determined that nothing I was doing was “right”.

The day started better than the ego crushing marathon I’d had at A-Basin but chasing Bryan and Andrew around was not as much fun, or as easy, as I thought. After a couple of easy runs I told them to mercifully leave me to my misery and go have fun, which they thankfully did. However, in the following couple of hours, I finally managed to link a few crude tele turns together. I wanted so desperately for someone I knew to see me to show them that I really could do this. But alas, only elderly grandmas and their tag-a-long toddlers were to be found on the embarrassingly flat terrain where my first true quasi-tele turns finally happened. Therefore, I kept the jubilation to a minimum.

Bryan, Andrew and I had agreed to meet back at the village later in the day so despite my newly found slightly-faster-than-glacial pace, I started down a little early to allow plenty of time. About 500 vertical feet above our meeting place, I glanced up and over to see Andrew screaming down a steep trail that fed into the trail I was on, naturally making some beautifully graceful tele turns!

So happy was I that I had finally linked some turns, I decided I would confidently bust a couple out right in front of him…to which he would be duly impressed. What I hadn’t calculated was the immense degree of leg fatigue that learning to tele can dish out. I sort of dropped my right knee and I turned a little to the right. I sort of dropped my left knee to link the turn back to the left.  What followed was the most wicked cramp in my quad that I’d ever experienced. I crumbled into a massive heap right in front of Andrew. Fail. The elderly grandma and her three year old granddaughter confidently skied around me. Fail, again.

For the next few weeks I continued to go up both days of every weekend to try and get those elusive fluid and beautifully graceful turns figured out. Some days were grim, other days only horrible. Just when I’d gain a little confidence, the changing terrain and snow conditions would move the target and I’d come home frustrated and demoralized…but never defeated. I just kept plugging away and even went up to Canada with a friend where I got thoroughly schooled, again.

With each and every outing I honestly would learn something new and then one day, just after I got back from Canada, it finally clicked. I had taken a beating for weeks and weeks and just when I found myself on the ropes and thought the knockout blow to my psyche was on the way, I had my breakthrough day….finally. I left that day with a huge smile…from ear to ear. I had never had such a fun day on skis, and yes, even on a snowboard.

From that point it’s only gotten better and better with each outing. I’m probably in the best winter shape I’ve ever been in. I’ve skied more days than I’ve ever skied in a single season. I’ve met some of the most down-to-earth and amazing people I’ve ever met. And dare I say, despite the complete and absolute smack down I took early on in the season, I’ve never had so much fun in my life. I’ve gone from being terrified of trails with names containing the words “bunny”, “cotton” and  “easiest way down” to feeling confident enough to head out  on my own to skin up peaks and ski down things I wouldn’t have thought possible five months ago.

Was it worth it? Was it worth the early beatings, the rampant frustration, the humiliation, the crashes and all the time I spent leading up to my “Ahhh-haaaa moment”. Click on the link below and I think the answer will be pretty clear.

http://vimeo.com/23094718

Paddle far. Run long. Climb high. Ski hard.

Something I’ve been thinking about recently was how some of the simple things that excited me as a kid have now changed in relative scope and more importantly, have managed to grow exponentially. If you know me at all you know I’m talking about travel, and more specifically, about adventure travel.

I still remember the excitement as a kid of simply going to the airport to meet arriving family and friends. I’d stand glued to the window, absolutely in awe of the gigantic airplanes systematically coming and going. I also remember watching people come off the jetway or walk down the stairs onto the tarmac and I’d be absolutely consumed with envy that they had been on a plane traveling from a faraway place. I would always look at the arrival board to find flights arriving from the farthest places possible, especially the international flights. I’d run to that gate just to see the beautifully exotic faces of people from different countries then imagine in vivid detail the physical landscapes of where they lived, the foods they ate and the sounds of their city.

I’d listen for any words they’d speak in their native tongue, even a single word, because for me it was like a real-life, interactive world history and geography lesson. I’d literally spend the next several days (and sometimes months) finding their country on my globe and daydreaming about how someday I’d travel to their country in search of some great adventure. And even though I’m all grown up now (theoretically) I still love airports and still get that feeling of awe and excitement when I see travelers from other countries when I’m in airports. I especially get ramped up when I’m the one with the passport in hand, backpack on my back and holding the ticket to the treasures of a faraway place.

I was watching a movie once about adventure travel and there was a guy talking about the whys of travelling “dirt bag’ style and he pretty much summed everything up in one simple statement. He said, “I’d rather die at 40 having lived my entire life filled with adventure, with the volume turned wide open, than die at 80 having lived a single day being bored”. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

I suppose the difference in all of us lies in the initial willingness to explore and challenge ourselves at any level. If we don’t try, we don’t expand. If we won’t move around, we won’t know the world around us. If we won’t nourish our soul, we simply won’t grow. If we don’t grow, we stagnate and die.

Okay, time to get back to daydreaming about the next airport window I can look through, which is coming up fast.

Climb high, travel far, run long and ski hard.

Jason at out camp outside of Taos, NM.

It’s no secret that I love to travel…and travel simply. Whenever an opportunity arises to get my passport out of the tiny little fireproof box in my closet, I take it.  Add to that the simple pleasure of spending a few pre-trip hours at the Boulder Bookstore sifting through Lonely Planet, Moon and Rough Guide travel books and I find my imagination completely running over with thoughts of adventure and yet unknown experiences.

In the not too distant future, my friend Jason and I will have our passports and travel books in hand as we head out for about two months of traveling around the Himalaya. We’re planning to travel super light and super simple. The thought is to keep it to one backpack each filled with a bare minimum of clothing and personal items. The only other “stuff” we plan to carry is some light climbing gear, my camera and Jason’s sketch pads, our personal journals and our Rough Guide travel books for each of the countries we plan to travel through.

One thing we both agree on will be to keep “modern” technology to an absolutely minimum. Things such as GPS type devices, “Smart” phones or any other type of electronic device designed to take the guesswork and fun out of travel will not be making the trip with us. To stay in touch with family and friends, we plan to use the always interesting and sometimes hit or miss internet cafés in small villages along our journey. There’s nothing more frustrating and simultaneously comical than paying the equivalent of $0.15US for an hour of intermittent dial up service in some strange land!

It’s funny, the first question I always get when I mention dirt bag traveling to other parts of the world is, “Which guiding company are you using?” Then, every time they ask, I give my standard answer, “Me, my Lonely Planet book and the kindness of the strangers.” Then they’ll ask if I’m taking a satellite phone in case of an emergency, to which I always respond with, “Do you know how much a sat phone costs, much less use? No.” I have been chastised and brow beaten for choosing this style of travel in the past and I fully expect to be chided and thoroughly admonished in the time leading up to this trip.

I know this style of travel is not for everyone and frankly I’m glad it’s not. To me though, there is nothing better than talking to locals to get  any needed information, either by trying to speak their native language, sometimes pointing at phrase books or when all else fails, playing charades. The most interesting times come when trying to figure out a little more complicated dialogue like which third class bus or night train to catch to go halfway across a country. Yeah, it can definitely be a little frustrating and nerve wracking at times, but part of being a traveler is diving in head first and learning to figure things out on the fly. Having a guide and taking out the personal interaction between me, the language the customs and the culture is taking out the initial reason I wanted to travel in the first place.

Sadly, in this “there’s an app for that” society we live in, it appears even the simple joys of a good old fashioned road trip are falling to the wayside. There seems to be a strange desire to know everything in advance and have no adventure in discovery whatsoever, or at the very least have a 4G network available if things get too out of hand when you can’t find a Starbucks in a strange town. To me, this whole know it all before you go mentality kills a good adventure and people don’t seem to care.

A while back, Jason and I set off on a four or five day road trip down to New Mexico to do some climbing, mountain biking and chillin’ in the desert — another chapter in the Pro Leisure Tour. Although we did have our cell phones (I had just gotten my first one two weeks prior) we never dialed it or opened it once, by choice. I don’t think either of us had texting capabilities, much less voice recognition. I know for sure we had nothing electronic that would aid us in navigation, food and beverage location or any type of Doppler radar coverage.

We both agreed beforehand that we wanted to keep any type of planning to a bare minimum. If we felt like climbing, we would. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t. Same for mountain biking, hiking, eating, taking photos or sketching. And that’s exactly what we did. We listened to local radio stations, ate in local, non-chain places when on the road, and if we got low on gas, we’d actually pull out my aging road atlas and manually figure out how far the next town was and do some rudimentary math to guesstimate if we could make it or not. We never once yelled into a personal handheld device to await an electronic voice that would tell us of available fuel stations or inform us of what local eateries might be available…sorted alphabetically and ordered by cuisine and price type. Sometimes we’d actually ask the people in the gas station what the best place to eat was, to which there was often heated debate between the Dairy Treat and the local taqueria, and sometimes we’d simply let it be a surprise.

We took circuitous routes going and coming and frequently stopped at historical markers and points of interest when we came across them. We slept in the back of my truck, warmed ourselves against the chilly desert mornings around a campfire, cooked our food on our little camp stove, drank insanely strong percolated camp coffee and cheap Mexican beer (sometimes simultaneously), ate bacon with every meal and most importantly had no formal plan or constraints other than I had to be back to work around the following Tuesday. It was perfect.

Shortly after we returned we met in Boulder at Sherpa’s for a beer and to exchange our photos. In our recap of the trip we both agreed it was exactly what we each wanted and turned out to be more than we expected. As a result we both came away refreshed and fulfilled and strangely the only tools we had were a crappy map, some gas money, bacon, coffee, beer, a well worn camp stove and some spare time.

Ironically, the same people who told me that our New Mexico road trip sounded like the best trip ever are the same ones who vehemently rebuke my preferred style of dirt-bag foreign travel. In my mind they are exactly the same. I prefer to keep them both super simple, employ no formal guides, have no steadfast plan and certainly harbour absolutely no expectations as to how things will play out. It’s just different languages, food, scenery and modes of transportation.

Maybe its straight up fear or maybe it’s just that people are now so accustomed to having an ocean of information right at their fingertips, literally, to take the mystery out of a good adventure. I think I can speak for Jason when I say that we fail to see the fun in planning something into oblivion and removing the potential for adventure. Planning every minute of a trip or having someone to “guide” me through the rough or uncomfortable spots isn’t travel, that’s tourism.

I guess I’ll always just take the knowledge gained through experience path, instead of the experience gained through knowledge route, but that’s just me.

Run long, paddle far, climb high and tele hard.

Ymir Peak, near Nelson BC

When I started learning to telemark ski this year I was greeted, okay, actually slapped in the face with an ocean of challenges. Finding my balance on skis again, getting used to funny looking bindings that don’t connect at the heel, independent leg action and quads that rebelled after just a couple of hours of doing deep lunges were just some of the adjustments I had to make after spending the last 12-15 years on a snowboard.

I fought through all that stuff and finally got to a point where I felt like I was advancing my skills and improving my technique. However on my first “real” powder day on the teles I found that despite the euphoric feeling of “flying” through the deep stuff, I was constantly falling over when I’d slow down or try to stop. Part of the problem was that it was snowing really hard, visibility was low and depth perception was a huge issue. The long and short of it was I essentially lost my balance when I’d come to a stop or just straight up got vertigo and would topple over.

I did that for about half the morning until a fellow tele skier came up to me and offered some friendly and quite helpful advice, something I absolutely love about the tele community. He said when I slow down or come to a stop (and even while skiing for that matter) in those conditions I should always look at the horizon and not look down at my feet and skis.

I hadn’t really realized I’d been doing that, but when I thought about it, I actually had been. I don’t ever remember looking down at my feet when I was snowboarding, which may be why I never remember toppling over when I came to a stop, even on the crappiest of days. Part of the coolness of telemark though is the rad movement of the skis and body with each turn so I guess I’d let myself get mesmerized by my own skis and feet! Sloppiness and bad form on a bluebird day with groomers galore will make for plenty of heroes in the tele world, but on a powder day with difficult visibility, well, it’ll find you out in a hurry.

So, back onto the lift I went and made the traverse back across the ridge to another trail there in Game Creek Bowl, one still filled with surprisingly deep powder. As I stood ready to drop down the steeper trail I was awash with all the little tips that’d been clogging my head since starting to learn how to tele. Instead of letting it bog me down too much though, I decided I’d just try focusing on the horizon this time — and of course hauling ass through deep snow!   

I dropped in and picked up some good speed as I got into the fall line. I could feel my skis rise on the soft snow and I was “flying” again! I made my weight shifts as I started to initiate my turns, dropped my knee to finish it out and once again my decision to learn the sport was affirmed by the ever-addictive adrenaline rush. I cranked out turn after turn and could feel my soul smiling deep within. Then it came time to slow down and stop.

Just like my new tele friend suggested, I picked a specific point on the horizon, kept my focus squarely upon it and turned my skis to a quick stop. Voila! I didn’t get that vertigo sensation with the weird light and lack of depth perception and most importantly, I didn’t fall over. Life was good.

Over the last several months I’ve had to deal with some less than fortunate things in my life, some of which hit me harder than I thought humanly possible to endure. Looking back I see that throughout that hard emotional learning process, I’d metaphorically found myself looking down at my feet instead of looking out on the horizon, something I had always prided myself for doing. Even running, something that has always been my “go to” source of meditation and spiritual re-centering had taken a backseat. I honestly hadn’t been able to motivate myself to run more than five or six miles at a time since this past November, much less fifty or sixty miles.

A couple of weeks ago though I went up to Canada to ski with a good friend. Throughout the five days of traipsing around Washington and British Columbia we talked a lot about life’s experiences and how when certain things happen we sometimes get emotionally bogged down and yes, topple over. Sometimes when that happens we unfortunately aren’t able (or willing) to look beyond that single hard step in our journey to the greater path ahead. And just like my tele comrade had suggested a couple of weeks earlier, my friend reminded me that though things can be hard, I needed to stop looking down and redirect my focus on the beautiful horizon ahead.

Now that I’m back I honestly feel like I’m once again breathing easier, both spiritually and emotionally. I’ve started to run a little again, I feel better about ending some long friendships that had run their course, I feel an amazing spiritual connection to some of the new people who have come into my life and I’m sort of beginning to come to terms with Chris’s accident, though that’s still excruciatingly painful at times. Most importantly though, I’m feeling more focused on the horizon ahead just like I always had before. I can definitely feel the visceral passion for living the dream every single second of every single day filling my soul once again. Life is good.

Telemark = life and life = telemark. Go figure.

Run hard. Climb high. Paddle far. And by all means, drop those knees!