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.
I recently had my 1st birthday. It was 15 MAR 08....what an awesome day that was. The heady atmosphere of those days still brings a warm smile to my face. I can still remember bringing Jenna home from the bike shop, proud as any new parent could be. I then proceeded to really learn to ride a bike....not what had been dancing in my dreams all those weeks prior to taking my first ride. I've come a long day from those 1st tentative clipless pedal strokes with no safety net but the rocks and cholla lining every turn at Hawes....I always do things the hard way. But along the way I've also learned to go with the flow from time to time.
I've learned the value of a good glove....and to always use them, regardless of how freakishly white your hands look in comparison to the rest of your arms.
I've also learned....scratch that....learning....that just because Jeremiah Johnson had no use for urgent care, does not mean that you have no use for urgent care. Patching oneself up when you clearly need stitches is stupid....unless you're' Jeremiah Johnson....then that's just rad.
I've learned that cactus doesn't hurt as bad as it looks, as long as it's not attached to your cuticle or your nut-sack.
I've learned to really like bike porn......
I mean....really like bike porn.
I even picked up a car color which matches my bike...not the other way around.
I've sought the infinite beauty of radial spikes......
while traveling on the finite simplicity of radial spokes.
Despite all of this, I've learned not to take myself too seriously while riding....
And have reaffirmed my commitment to quality post-ride recovery drinks.
I don't yet know what the next year (my second year) will hold for me and Jenna...but I know it will look something like this.
My knee took a couple of hits yesterday out on National...right in the soft tissue where my IT band meets my knee next to the patella.....I sooooo, did not need that. I still had a great time...but have decided to sit out the ride in Sedona today and possibly salvage my knee for the big day tomorrow at BCT.....here's hoping. Otherwise...some pics from Friday....it is way to hot for March already.
Looks Dry out there....don't it?
Cool edited shot...grey'd out the brown leaving a rare desert-flower like appearance to the oddities in the desert (Blue Bike, Green plants, yellow flowers, and red patina on hieroglyphics).
Thanks to New Belgium who sponsored the sag wagon midday with plenty of cold Fat Tire Ale.....goes well with an energy bar.
The Pre-Fling Ride was last night. Joined by some folks from the MTBR forum, we rolled Hawes for a Sunset/Night ride with drinks at Joes afterwords. Here is the link to the Spring Fling Site with details on the rides going on...and links to the pics folks are taking....they'll be posting up pics of the rides faster than I can and will be updated each day...so keep on checking.
On the PSA side of things...I want to remind folks that Skiing is not any more dangerous just because a famous actress dies skiing while taking a lesson on a bunny slope...regardless of what the media, attorneys and the rest of the talking heads would lead you to believe. Remember...they are compensated with publicity & free air time (more valuable than money these days) for saying edgy and controversial things. More people still die each year from falling off their toilets than from ski areas accidents. Soooo....wear those helmets while shitting lest you have Sanjay Gupta talking about you on Larry King Live.
(For starters...all pics are from Phish.com....the fact that I am not there is the subject of this angst ridden post)
If some of you read me back last year, you would have read this. If not....know this....I was supposed to be here. I tried.....I really, really tried. I bought hotel tickets on spec....which means that I bought them....and if I did not get tickets...I wasted my money.
Well......my money was wasted.....I lost the money....I never got the tickets in the lottery which is Phish reunion 09'.
I'm now sulking in a deeper funk than I was when OU lost to texas last year.....almost....but I think my readership (all 5 of you)......you get the point.
Here is the first set.....I could of...should of....wanted to.....be there......I saw you.....with a ticketstub.....in your hand.....I saw you...........
Whiskey Tango Foxtrot.......they opened up with 'Fluffhead'.......I'm not sure they've done that before....and I was to be there....with a friend(you know who you are)........for his bachelor party.......this is a bad dream..............but I am here.............in front of my messy desk and my crappy computer........on a Friday night.............wishing the ski season was not almost over.........I hate my job......the snow is melting...............Phish is reuniting without me................all is lost...............I am pathetic............the Phish show I am listening to right now sounds great...........this is the music I was listening to when I became awake to Phish for the first time.....not conscious of Phish..........but AWAKE.........It reminds me of 98' almost passed out on my couch in the slums of the University of Arizona at 2:30 in the afternoon between Geology classes.............barely conscious....I let a phish show get past me........I have to admit.....I never made it to the end of this show......but my lack of energy this day did me a favor.....it held me captive....but acutely aware of the absolute clarity of Page McConnell's piano notes of percussion within "The Squirming Coil" waking me from my hazy drift into dream land.....I am realizing for the first time a piece of art I've yet to experience......the beauty is like the first moment....observing a butterfly...in flight...when you are three years of age......the thing that makes a mark on you for the rest of your life........the kind of moment that you hold on to because it's the first you can remember when you look back at 30 years of age.....the kind of memory that you scour your brain for the earliest indication of independent thought......and all you find are half second snippets of emotion.....not scenes...........emotions.....that fill the void in between sepia pictures your parents give you........you are held hostage to.....but beholden to......the only visual interpretation of what you are feeling right now.......and just now.....you feel........the squirming coil.........it got away.........away.....it got away........So you hold on to it because you are scared that each time you forget........you become older.........
I was supposed to be there....but I did not try hard enough....I was supposed to be there.
In my last post, I ranted about Trail sanitizers. I took matters into my own hands, spent some money and made up some laminated fliers. I rode out to Hawes this morning and put up a sign at every trailhead post and then, with BullitTom's help from the MTBR Forum...we put the rock back to it's original configuration. That sucker was heavy...but we made it. Here are some of the pics. I feel so much better now....and hopefully the sanitizers get the picture and stop their heinous acts.
The scene...note fresh dirt to left of trail...this is the hole where a cool boulder used to be that required you to have some very basic control over yourself as you passed, otherwise you would hang your shoe off of it, or it would grab your derailleur as you climbed passed it.....in no way an obstacle...just one of many challenges on the trail which made it fun.
I rode Hawes today and started a descent into a section we like to call Disneyland....it's called that because it's so much fun...tight and twisty, boulders which sometimes reach out and clip your feet.....or it used to be that way.
See....some folks who think they are "improving" the trail removed a large boulder and made what was a somewhat challenging feature nothing more challenging than a sidewalk. I learned to ride on this trail...what was once challenging is now easy. However, if that feature had not been there....I would not have learned steering control on the descent or while climbing. I clipped my pedals there a couple of times back in the day...and it taught me to be more conscious of my pedal stroke.
Now....some folks are attempting to make things easier....not by learning how to become better...but by modifying conditions to suit their own shitty abilities...the classic merican' dream.....football teams with no losers, 12th place ribbons, investment firms with no posted losses, etc.
These people make me sick. It's the same as the Suzuki method of violin teaching. Ohh yeah....I'm also a classically trained violinist....something I don't talk about much; but contributes to my arrogance and general sense of superiority...there, I've said it. But being a perfectionist, and generally pretty good at it has it's personal costs....anyhew....I digress.
Suzuki was a guy in Japan (I hope he's rotting in hell and chained to the guy who invented Muzak) who would take classic masterpieces of music by the likes of Mozart, Handel, Holst, Beethoven, etc....and dress down the music. All so he could teach 10,000 3 year olds how to "play" the violin in a soccer stadium....don't believe me?....google it.
Mozart wrote that piece of art to sound a specific way....if you can't play it the way he wrote it.....then you suck. There's no way around this....you suck. But don't fret...because you still have a way to not suck....you just have to pick between one of the following options: 1) Learn to not suck or, 2) QUIT! There's no shame in saying you can't do it...you either practice until you can do it...or just quit and say it's not for you.
Same situation here. So...I've drawn up a flyer I'm going to post up at all the trailheads.
At the invitation of Randy, I headed up the hill for some BC fun this weekend and an overnight at the snow cave. The recent return of high pressure to the area earlier in the week brought high westerly winds which stripped a lot of the latest snow off of western aspects above treeline. The following above average temps baked the remaining powder into 1-inch thick mank in the trees. Based on this, we scrapped our plans for Lew (Philomena Springs) Canyon and sought some wind/sun-protected areas in the trees off of Temptations ridge and gully. Cresting the treeline, we traversed across Temptations itself. Randy had no trouble traversing, but the ice was giving my dull edges fits and caused me to eject one of my skis in skin mode as I was hammering out an edge hold...leaving me exposed with only my uphill ski holding me to the mountain with an icy runout a couple hundred feet below. After some creative yoga assisted by my now anchored poles, I managed to hack out a ledge large enough to stabilize myself and the wayward ski which I had caught with my downhill boot before it had a chance to fly by itself. After this bit of drama, I convinced Randy to pull skins and traverse across in ski mode....much better. Unfortunately, that was most of the excitement for the day. Even the northern aspects of Temptations gully were suspect to the warming temps with crusty conditions interspersed in between cream-cheese powder.
Retreating back to the cave after our day I shot some B-roll which sums up 98% of the days activities.
Sundown pano from the Snowcave looking WNW
Light from the snowcave entrance
After a nice sleep in the cave, a hot cup of Yerba Mate and a fire brings us back to life....
Views of the approaching light...note the shadow of Kendrick Peak (center) cast upon the pink haze on the horizon(center left).
Panorama of the approaching light.
Another shadow, this time of the Kachina peaks and ridges, Aggasiz on the left, Humphreys on the right with the 2 false summits to the left of Humprhreys clearly seen.
Looking north, a view of the North Rim of the Grand Canyon -Coconino Sandstone glowing pink in the morning glow.
After the big snowfall; D, Snowcave Man, Splitboarder and myself headed up the mountain to try and poke around Allison Clay. If it was safe, we were gonna ski it. If it was not....we were gonna hit the trees. Either way, we had come for the 30" of fresh light stuff which had fallen after a depressing two week absence of Ullr. The fact that it was in the middle of the work week made no difference...we came to party.
The skin up left us in awe at the bluebird, near lack of wind and cotton candy trees.....an absolute treat.
On the way up, we stopped for lunch at Snowcave Man's Snow Cave, fully equipped with AM radio tuned to the Hopi station, reading materials, munchies....and one awesome poem I could not do justice retelling here.
After a quick stop over at Snowcave Man's Snow Cave, we the crested the ridge between the plane crash site and Allison Clay where we got our first look.
We continued on above tree line and descended below the cornice on the southern aspect of Allison Clay to dig a pit.
The results were fairly stable.....
......so we continued a climbing traverse on the pit slope to gain elevation.
A nice sundog became our target as we climbed higher...but somehow was almost lost in the glare and effort of the bright day.
Topping out at 12,000ft, D snaps shots of us from a safe zone below. I love this shot which shows some of the wind kicking up around us, the rocks and the sastrugi...the ethereal nature of this shot plays up the atmosphere and elation we felt for being out on such a beautiful day, not working and doing what we love.
Splitboarder went first. The 15ft long rooster tail behind him was the 1st sign that we were all in for some goodness.....
Yours truly in the #2 slot,
Snowcave Man followed me.....it was all smiles.
After pounding out the upper portion of Allison, we all regroup in a safezone to soak up our work. Expressing surprise and jubilation over our good luck to catch Allison pregnent with snow and happy, we continued on down the bowl. In my last few visits with Allison, she was starting to sound like Holly Hunter's character in Raising Arizona......."By the looks of her, she appeared to be as fertile as the Tennessee Valley....but the Dr. explained to me that her womb was a barren and rocky place, where my seed could find no purchase." Not this time Dr......, not this time.
D cranking some sweet powder tele turns down lower in the runnout zone....you could hear her laughing with each turn.
As nice as it was up top, it was even nicer down below......
Images taken by D, Splitboarder, Snowcave Man and me
