the white room

Day 63: Beginning of the best time of the year

Day 62: Fun in the B.C.

Headed up to J.L. with Elaine and a couple friends from work. Super deep in the trees, and even the bowl skied well. Things are getting good out there - we've left the early season phase and moved into mid-winter. Powder snow and exploration for the next three months or so. And then, spring season, which is my favorite of all. Back at it today - off to the 110's!

Day 55: Under the full wolf moon

21st best photo of the year...

...according to these guys. Evidently we beat out the royal wedding. Kind of wild. Right place, right time, great photographer. I guess my favorite part of this photo is just the passion and almost overcome the world element to it. Well, that and the fact that I'm wearing F3's.

Day 52: Quit whining and go ski!

Computer screen broke on the 26th. Took it to a repair shop, got it back today...relatively inexpensive thanks to a used screen. In the interim reading, eating and skiing. In what is supposed to be a horrible early snow year...well, the skiing sure has been fun. A little of this, a little of that. Some steep north facing slopes in the trees to keep the skills intact. A day sliding around on Lambeau Field, aka Eldora. And a bunch of night skis on the Nansens up at Brainard. Beyond fun, primal...incredible.

Back in Vermont, we'd call these conditions powder. We'd ski in garbage bags in the rain, -25° ice in January, anything, all the time. Because it was fun. Today was like being 15 again. Ducking through tiny slots in the trees, pine boughs stuck in the hair, hopping tree stumps. It's fun, and part of the fun is the silliness of it all. Remember when we were kids? We'd ski in this stuff and grin the whole time. Let that kid come out!

The snow will come. Best to not go soft waiting for it to arrive.

Why I ski.

Why do I ski? I ski to see the sun at that low angle as it rises over the ridgeline and sends the snow into the most brilliant sparkle. I ski to enter the domain of the lynx, to see it's tracks, to touch it's wildness. I ski, because when I ski, every problem, everything not pure, everything that weighs us as humans down dissolves and is gone. I ski because it makes me smile, it makes me laugh, it makes me shout for joy. Finally I ski because the wild mountains make me feel insignificant, and in that insignificance, I feel absolutely alive.

Day 41: Skiing with a legend

Christmas Eve may have been the best ski of my life. Up to Lost Lake on the Nansens with Elaine. The night was perfect...cold, zero wind, excellent snow. Orion raged overhead, as did the whole Milky Way. And on the way down, torches, to celebrate, well, pretty much everything.

Saturday morning we saved opening presents till late in the evening, as we were invited by our boss and mountaineering legend Gary Neptune and his wife to go for a ski. The man is well into his 60's, but it doesn't show. Of course it doesn't - he's been up a ton of 26,000+ foot peaks, including Everest, and still skis in marathons on a regular basis. We ended up going to Blue Lake, and it was good. Got home that night, cooked some salmon and blueberries, and opened a few gifts, including a one-piece, amazingly comfortable, post-ski outfit for Elaine that makes the Norwegian flag look amazing. Twas a good Christmas.

Happy holidays all!

Day 37: Up to King Lake, into a storm

A storm is moving in from the west - ending our December drought - so we skied west today. 20-some-odd kilometers of mostly breaking trail up to King Lake right smack on the divide. It was good skiing, hard work, and the Fritjof Nansens performed beautifully. Tired, but not worked. It feels good to sit by the fire, eat some tomato soup and bread, and relax.

Weather forcast for where we were tonight:

Tonight: Snow. Low around 2. Wind chill values as low as -15. North wind between 5 and 14 mph, with gusts as high as 22 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 5 to 9 inches possible.

Thursday: Snow. Temperature falling to around -4 by 3pm. Wind chill values as low as -20. Southeast wind between 8 and 15 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible.

Let the storms rage, and the snow come on tomorrow, the first day of winter. Based on the preparations of the squirrels this fall, and the massive piles of pine cones everywhere, I don't think it's going to be a mellow one in the Rockies.

Day 36: Kikistua

Day 36 featured powder turns at Butler Gulch.

My very first foray into the world of endurance sports happened around the age of seven or eight while living in Norway.  In the winter, as is customary in Norway, my family would go cross country skiing every weekend. It was quite a way to grow up, and when combined with daily skis after school it helped me become quite adept at handling a pair of nordic skis at a rather young age. Those days are vivid in my memory.

We would take the trolley up from Oslo, past the legendary Hollmenkollen ski jump, to the end of the line, a place called Trivanstua. Trivanstua was a large radio tower that overlooked the city, and it was the jumping off point to probably the best nordic skiing in the world, a place called Nordmaka. Nordmaka was basically a high wooded plateau that featured thousands of miles of cross country ski trails.

We would get off the train and my dad would fire up the blow torch to pine tar our wooden skis. To this day, the smell of pine tar holds a special place in my heart because of this. Then it would be the wax of the day, and we would be off on our daily adventure. Soon we would leave the hustle and bustle of the main terminal behind, and be off on our exploration of the trails.

Some of the trails were flat, but many were quite challenging. My school would have ski carnival//race every year, and my first year, in first grade, I remember racing (relative) across the flats when my ski popped off on the very first hill as I was trying to herringbone up it. Not knowing any better, and of course being in race mode, I continued up the hill, sans ski. I'm not sure if I finished the race on one ski or not, but it was a rather comical moment.

The hills were made much more challenging by our wooden edges. I remember a terrifyingly steep decent, that was always sheer ice, as the snow is much wetter in Norway than in Colorado. I dare say I was OK on those little skis though, and I don't think I walked many, if any, of the hills.

The trails in Norway always led somewhere, and usually that was to a cabin, or hytte as the are called in Norway. These were amazing places for a young child, with a roaring fire, older, strong skiers and of course yummy food, from pasta to hot dogs (pulsa) to some bizarre hot fruit drink.

My family always encouraged my skiing. We joined something called the Norwegian Ski Foreningen, and with membership came a card where you could chart how many kilometers you skied each winter, and if you skied a certain amount of kilometers you would earn a gold, silver or bronze pin. For my age at the time, 300 km was a bronze, 400 km a silver and 500 km a gold. I of course had to go for the gold. After each ski my mother would write in the distance we skied and the destination.

There was a destination north of the main area that always held a mystical quality for me - Kikustua. Kikustua was a long was away, a solid 24 km round trip from Oslo, which at the age of eight or nine is not a small thing. While skiing trails I would see signs pointing to Kikustua, but it was almost out of the realm of the possible. Kikustua was the place for super heroes, for gods, and I was just a kid.

The thing was though, we were skiing a lot. As March approached I'd had a lot of miles under my belt and had done well in the school ski carnival, placing first in alpine and third in nordic. My parents decided I was ready.

My memories from that ski are spotty, but there are some. First, it was long, but beautiful. I remember narrow trails through the woods, new snow-draped woods, and I remember the cabin. It was full of skiers, and I was certainly the youngest one there. They were all strong men and women, speaking Norwegain, looking alive. I remember food, I remember the fire. And then, I remember on the way home, the worst bonk of my young life. An absolute stop, laying on the snow style. My mother and father did not panic. Instead they produced a chocolate bar, Norwegian chocolate, which I engulfed and almost instantaneously was back on my feet and charging to the finish.

With that ski, I managed to cross the 500 km threshold for the winter, and earned a gold pin for the season. I've done a lot of ski and bike adventures and races since, but I must say the feeling of accomplishment I felt at finishing that ski to Kikustua perhaps surpasses anything I have done since. It was, in a sense, the first time for a boy to accomplish things reserved for men.

I'm thinking of this because tonight my wife and I are planning a ski for tomorrow - oddly enough it's also 24 km round trip, just like the ski to Kikustua. It's up to a place called King Lake. There will be no huts, as this is North America and things are a bit more wild here. We'll likely be greeted by endless trail breaking, the stark Continental Divide and swirling winds. No matter. Skiing in the U.S. is different - unless you want to ski around in circles at the area with lycra clad bike racers - you'll want a pair of sturdy skis with metal edges, as you will encounter all sorts of snow conditions with the exception of groomed trails.

It's going to be an exciting adventure. Elaine has only nordic skied maybe 12 times, a couple this year, a couple last year and about half a dozen in 2007-08, the year when many suspect we were doing unsavory things but in actuality were just going skiing before school and enjoying the peace that this activity brings.

We're packed up and ready to roll. We have soup in a thermos for lunch and plenty of candy bars. The leather boots have been Nikwaxed, and Elaine did some custom work on her boots (by the way, she is quickly becoming an ace boot fitter at Neptune - she's got a knack for it...come on in if you want an amazing fit). Our skis have tip-to-tail polar waxed in, and the wax of the day is in the pack.

I am very fortunate to have such a wonderful set of parents, to introduce me to this sport of skiing, and also a phenomenal wife. Just tonight, we were kind of hemming and hawing about what to do on Christmas Eve. Going to church was of course an option, but while we're both deeply spiritual, we have an aversion to churches as we have found a lot of judgement by man in the house of God. Elaine suggested tonight that instead of church we head out for a night time nordic ski Christmas Eve, with headlamps, our dog and a thermos of something yummy. I couldn't ask for something more perfect.

People tend to focus a lot on our age gap, but they are missing the point completely. To have somebody who completes you so well, whose interests parallel yours, and whose happiness is derived from the same things as yours is a rare thing indeed. And then, beyond that, something so much deeper that I can't really even put it into words. It took Elaine for me to find that, and I have to say preparing for a ski with her outstrips any preparation for adventures I did with the boys back in the day. The only thing it compares to is the anticipation of those early skis with my parents in the woods of Norway.

Here's to family, here's to love, here's to skiing and here's to adventure. That combination is, in my book, the absolute key to happiness.

Day 33: Maiden voyage for Nansen

I have to say my job at Neptune is perhaps the best job I've ever had. I get to talk about skis and adventure all day, and get to work with my wife. What's there not to like. Long after my tenure at Neptune is over, I will treasure something Elaine and I got the recently - a couple pairs of Asnes Nansen backcountry cross country skis. We have a lot of skis to be sure, and they are all fun in their own way. Perhaps someday I'll talk about my quivver. But for now the focus is on the Nansens.

The Nansen's are made in Norway and feature the graphic of Fritjof Nansen, a great polar explorer, skiers, ship builder and peace maker. They simply scream adventure. Yesterday Elaine and I planned on just skiing the Brainard Lake trails, but the skis drew us further into the mountains, to the point where we debated going all the way to Blue Lake. We didn't have any food though, so we only went to Mitchell Lake. Still, it was an incredible day. Next time, we're bringing a thermos of tomato soup and bread and will go all the way to Blue.

Perfect skis. Thin enough with a nice camber for kick and glide, wide enough at the tip to break trail and inspiring enough - Mr. Nansen stares up at you all day long - to make you go a little further into the mountains and see new things. Paired with old school leather boots and three-pin bindings and they make perhaps the perfect ski set-up. May they bring us two or three decades of adventures together.

Thank you Neptune Mountaineering, the best ski shop in the world!