Who the Hell is maadjurguer?

My photo
I like to ski, mountain bike, drink beer, cook and listen to any jam band I can get my hands on; all while making a complete ass of myself. Hopefully this catharsis is as interesting to others as it is to me.

Wednesday, March 30, 2011

Maybe Not

I was in need a mellow day.....weekly epicness, on and off the snow, was getting to me....even splitchip took a week off, which says a lot.  Gnome has been itchin' to get out, so we finally hooked up with the aim for some northern facing slopes over in Lew Canyon in the Maybe Not avy paths.

It was great touring with someone new and chatting about life, bikes and avoiding train collisions at railroad crossings.

Gnome dropping in after we dug a pit at the entrance to Maybe Not.........

The soft whipped cream up top was nice, if not a bit variable from wind and sun.......

Making note of the variability at the first safe zone, we transition westward into trees.....

The snow became less variable as we transitioned....but the skin out to the west showed us just how much better it could have been......couldawouldashoulda.....whatever......

Gnome slicing.....

Pit Profile from Maybe Not.....

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Mind Eraser

After the recent snowfall, I joined Troy and Ben for a long, 12.5hr tour covering more than 11 miles, 5000ft in climbing, more than 6000ft in descent.  The general plan was to ski Snowslide Canyon, Jay's Slide and Determination chutes with an egress skin/slog out Freidlein Prairie Road to a stashed vehicle.....with Jay's Slide and Determination chutes being new to us.

The day dawned with Bluebird and calm conditions as we bootpacked our way around the NW flank of Aggasiz Peak...Troy took a bit of a slide here before slowing himself with his Whippet and arresting on a boulder.....
Photo By Troy Mario

After digging a pit with great conditions, Troy prepares to drop into Snowslide Canyon, Mt. Humphreys peak in the background......

Dropping in, the new board takes flight..........

....cranking soft turns down to the apron; Ben and I started drooling and awaited our turn....

After I dropped in, cranking some cushy turns up top and then letting it open up a bit, I turned to shoot Ben on his first tour of the Kachina's........

......the conditions were great for throwin' spray.....

.....and great for layin' it over.......

.....most of the day felt and looked like this......

Pit Results from Snowslide Canyon here........

Making our way down lower Snowslide Canyon, we transitioned south to the toe of Telemark Chute and started skinning up, lookers left of Jay's Slide.....

How many lines can you count in this pano?........

Transitioning through the trees, lookers left of Jay's Slide, we set a skin track up Birthday Boy Chute.....which was last skied on my Birthday....June 19th of last year....
Photo By Troy Marino

Cutting over just below the rock amphitheater guarding the entrance to Jay's slide....we proceeded to dig a pit....we were sorry to see so much debris fall down on such a virgin slope....but we'd rather dirty it up a bit than get rolled in an avalanche........
Photo By Ben

Pano shot of Troy picking the pit location, top of Jay's Slide.....

After pit tests and a brief discussion about a layer of concern below the new snow, we laid out a plan of attack and discussed consequences should the slope fail....I won the lottery and got to drop first....
Photo By Troy Marino

......according to Troy, my metronome like turns "looked like I was in slow motion, floating on a cloud of titties"......from my perspective....it felt like I was making slow falling turns on a cloud of titties.......
Photo By Troy Marino 

After making turns, I cut skiers left to a safe spot and filmed some shaky video of Ben dropping in....making high speed turns to skiers left of my track.....it's so hard to keep a steady hand when you're so amped....

Following Ben's high speed spray fest.....Troy dropped skiers left and let it go....



I love this these fast shutter speed shots of the spray, back-lit and in flight.....



Finishing up the lower portion of Jay's Slide, Troy snaps a cover shot.....
Photo By Troy Marino

Jay's Slide Pit Observations here......

In the fading sunlight of late afternoon, we climb back up the skin track we set to the top of Jay's Slide.  Taking one last look at our turns from above, cut by the long shadows; we started bootpacking up the Eastern ridge of Fremont Peak to the entrance of Determination chute.

The ridge up Fremont gave us great views of the Inner Basin, long on shadow....
Photo By Troy Marino

The ski out Determination chute was 1" death crust, making my transition one of survival...the splitboarders surfed it up though......
Photo By Troy Marino
Returning to the car at 9:20pm....all were exhausted, having been without water for the previous 2 hours...but happy to drink a beer and toast a great day of having our mind's erased.

Monday, March 21, 2011

Mikee Linville Backcountry Awareness Scholorship

This is a shout out to all in the Flagstaff area......KPAC is having a fundraiser generously provided for by Uncle Buzz Chocolate's.  If you have the chance, please check this out.  In all seriousness....the best food I've ever eaten in the backcountry, was provided by Uncle Buzz....all at 12,000ft...the freshly smoked salmon with capers and pasta was epic.  Beyond the food....it supports a good local cause and an organization I'm actively involved in.

Thursday, March 17, 2011

Liberator

Setting out at 8pm Tuesday; splitboarder, Miguel and I skinned up through the darkness of night to a sheltered bivy spot and crawled into our bags at 1am Wednesday.  Our intention, to ski a new line to us called Liberator; a NE facing avy path, draining into Bear Jaw canyon.  The skin up became a calming experience in a sea of mental uncertainty....me in a zone, counting each step out in my mind....right, then left.....1-2, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2.........all the way to 40...then stop and breathe in 10 times while feeling the heart rate in my chest and neck recede from the red zone....and then repeat for 5 hours.  I quickly forgot all my worries as my heart rate, breathing and sensory organs took in the calm night on my breathing breaks.  The warm glow of a moon overhead, illuminated the snow in sparkles, casting long shadows from the trees in our path.....1-2, 2-2, 3-2, 4-2.......breathe.....in, then out, 9 more times....then climb again until 3600ft of vertical Zen has been attained.

Our headlamps, turned to low, barely illuminated the carpet of snow around us....lights bobbing up and down in the darkness behind me; stars overhead shining down with clarity on an even clearer night.  Worries I had spinning in my head were sometimes voiced...and countered by Split with a wise reply.  One in particular stuck with me when I was future-tripping on the quality of snow for the next days line based on observations at the moment...his reply:  "Stop worrying about that, it's the future, it probably doesn't exist".  Indeed, I thought, as I continued to count.

Morning dawned with high winds, contrasting the previous nights calm.  We melted snow to make water for an hour or so, ate breakfast, then continued our climb up, making the ridge to the west of Abineau peak and peering into the Inner Basin, spotting and talking about lines skied in the past,and more to be done in the future.

From right to left:  Humphries Peak, a splitboarder, Fremont Peak, Doyle Peak (in trees).

Contouring around the north side of Abineau Peak, we made our way to the top of Liberator which drains into Bear Jaw Canyon....snacked and talked snow shop...me admiring the view of fading cinder cones and the north rim of the Grand Canyon on the horizon.
Photo By Troy Marino

We then dropped 1300ft on perfect, heavy whipped cream powder through perfectly spaced steep trees followed by open fall line avy path skiing down into Bear Jaw.  Time slows down when you live in the now........life as a blur passes you by, leaving you in the moment.

Pure expressions of wonder and happiness were seen, peering back up at the art of the turn, taken in instant reflection, cataloged away for remembrance on warm July days.....

True to it's name, Liberator freed me from the future....here I am, pondering the moments.  With a future uncertain, and a past fixed for eternity; ensure your moments are good ones.

Friday, March 11, 2011

Beauty Found

I've learned that you can't ride away from your problems.  At best, a ride gives you an opportunity to sort through feelings and issues.  Upon the conclusion of your ride, if you're lucky; you've found catharsis and epiphany.  Lately, my rides have not given me either and have just been more time to spend inside my head....a place I had a serious need to get outside of, a place I've been living in for the past 9 days....a place I desperately wanted to escape, but was failing completely.  One way or another, I'd beat it out of me.

Plans were made to pull together a bikepack which would take me 120-140 miles up, over and around 4-Peaks using nothing more than dirt roads, singletrack, desert washes and just a few bits of pavement to connect the dirt bits together.....all from my house....all in 2 days.  Ambition sometimes eclipses reality.  A reality that dictated to me that my previous week was spent in an emotional hole, physically spent from sitting, resting and attempting to sleep in various hospital chairs.  Inactivity is the bane of my knee's existence ...and was going to let me know about it, despite my ambitions.

Checking my setup the day before....everything was in it's place and locked down.

Heading out under clear cool skies, the sun felt warm....perhaps a bit too warm, but I pedaled on, quickly making work of the singletrack from my house.  Hawes, Twisted Sister and Wild Horse trails flew by as I viewed back from where I came...perhaps a mistake to look back at this point in the trip.

Making my way past Saguaro Lake, 4-Peaks began to come into focus....no longer the one-dimensional profile towering on the skyline, canyons and ridges began to appear lending reality to my progress...yet it was still so distant across the deceivingly flat bajada I was yet to cross.

Nearly out of water and 30 miles in, I found a seep and proceeded to dig a hole to let it slowly fill up so I could filter water.  This rest was rewarding as I spent 15 minutes pumping, yet the sun just beat me down in this wash, devoid of shade, in this sandy pile of reflection; my only companions the bees swooping down on the water and my thoughts which swarmed inside my head.



Foreboding thoughts then crept in:  The first sustained climb up 4-Peaks was now upon me....or I, upon it.  Up to this point, I had allowed my mind to wander and rehash the events that have defined my existence since my wifes hospitalization.  Fears, doubts, worries....I wanted to work through all of them.  I talked to myself as I rode higher and in the process, paid little attention to conserving my energy on the climb.  I'm quite certain in hindsight, it was here on this climb, where I began digging a hole much deeper than I am tall.

Cresting the climb in exhaustion, a climb spent in the sun directly overhead, heating every rock cliff off to my right; I was bitterly baking from the radiant heat, lack of breeze....and my first flat tire.  The sound of sealant and air spraying out of my rear tire brought me back to the present.  I was only able to stop the air loss after holding my finger over the gash and letting the Stans fluid coagulate within the rift punched into rubber. Still baking in the sun, I peered ahead at 4-Peaks as I pushed off with my worries once gain, still holding winters snow on it's protected north aspects....me, dreaming of cool breezes and pine trees.....


Then the second flat happened, again...my Stans fluid was not stopping the flow of air from the puncture.  At this point, I pushed over the bike, pulled out two tubes and proceeded to use the pliers on my multi-tool to pluck every cactus spine from the inside of the tires and install tubes.  I was now out of tubes....out of options, out of mental strength....exposed.  Here I was at mile 35, crunching numbers, trying to justify how I could complete this ride in the time I had.

And then my knee pain began, just as quickly as my reality came into focus - my bid for the circumnavigation would have to be abandoned.  Resolved to make lemonade out of this lemon...I continued to climb until I could find a stopping point with clear sight lines of 4-Peaks for Sunset and Sunrise.

Crossing a creek at mile 40, I spied a ridgeline up ahead and resolved to spend my night there.


With good access to the running creek about a mile away,  I quickly escaped behind a boulder on the ridgeline for some shade and a Don Miguel burrito.


From here, I had an uninterrupted view of the peaks.....and I melted into the rock.

I sat and stared at the mountain until the colors began to appear and the shadows grew long.

And then I wept.  Wept for feelings which I had not allowed myself to fully embrace the previous week.  Feelings placed into a locker because I was in survival mode, feelings that would render me useless in my efforts to ensure my wife's survival.  For 20 or so minutes, I wept and I snapped shots of 4-Peaks as the falling sun transformed the landscape before me.





Looking back behind me from time to time, I spied the warm glow of a fading sun on the objects which brought me to this place....

.....and stick figures on the skyline, awash in the glow of another day.

Falling asleep under clear and cold skies, between two boulders; I drifted off to sleep in a complete state of mental exhaustion, peering up at the milky way, counting satellites flying overhead.

The next day began with Venus rising over 4-Peaks, framed by ink black and pale tangerine......

The following minutes exhibited a transformation so beautiful; I'll just let the pictures talk....me, shooting this from my bag in wonder.




As in the sunrise, my ride out was constructive in much the same way that the previous day's ride had been destructive.  Putting in some Jerry Garcia Band for my return....I poured out of the valleys and canyons with a renewed focus, having found beauty again after 9 days of suffering.