Day 13: Secret Mustang Stashes and New Ninja Top

Still in the good January snow cycle, we take another Mustang excursion with very low expectations (do you recognize a pattern? "If you're not satisfied, lower your expectations") on a Saturday Kids In Ski Club Day.

Our expectations are low not so much because of the amount or quality of snow we expect to find, but because of the amount of tracks we expect to find on all the safer routes. 

I am trying out my new Ninja top that I purchased the day before. I has a hood and an off-set zipper that lets you reveal only your serious weather-assessing face at the top of the skin track. Yes, my avalanche beacon on my belly makes me look frumpy and pregnant, but check out the Ninja top!!

Serious weather-assessing Ninja Face.

We run into Bill and Dr. Peter, quickly assess where each person is skiing, then Bill gets a crackling voice on his Motorola from Parker, his 3 year old at home in Ophir ("Hi dad." "Hi Parker") It was pretty cute.

We decide to ski Mustang in a way that allows me to learn a little more about the terrain and routes, and us to poke around sniffing out untracked snow. It is so much fun! I successfully navigate some tighter steeper trees, then we traverse across an opening and marvel at how different the snow quality can be with just the slightest difference in angle away from the San Juan Sun, even in January.

The rare selfie. 

I like skiing like that, where you just enjoy being outside, watching the light change and analyzing the snow as you go, getting some surprisingly good turns by being observant, patient, and appreciative. There was plenty of untracked snow out there. Plenty.

Short post about that day. But that's kind of just all it was.

Day 12: Two Mustangs! and the Gift of the Magi! (sort of)

I have probably mentioned a time or two about how small our house is, which is mostly true when the kidlngs are with us. When it's just the two of us our home is "plenty" as the Hawaiians say. That being said, we still have to navigate tiny space considerations like One person in the kitchen at a time, and Should we hang more coat hooks or get rid of some coats, and What else can we cram under the dining room table that we use as a storage vessel?

Our upstairs bathroom is such that if 2 people are in it, one must remain sitting on the toilet (lid down preferably) while the other Does Stuff (teeth, hair, etc…). JC likes to keep an extra toothbrush and toothpaste in the downstairs bathroom which is just a toilet and sink, so he can do his teeth before his early morning forays without waking us all up, and he often does them downstairs at night as well.

Why am I telling you this, you are surely by now querying in your little brains.

Well, a little while ago we were readying ourselves for bed, which seems to take an unreasonable amount of time when all I really want to do is just Get In Bed, but anyway, I went upstairs and waited in our bedroom for a few minutes to give JC some space to do his teeth in the upstairs bathroom, while unbeknownst to me, he was doing his teeth in the downstairs bathroom to give me space to do mine in the upstairs bathroom.

We crossed paths when he crept upstairs (he walks around like a goddamn Indian, and inadvertently scares the shit out of me on a daily basis because you never hear him coming and then he suddenly looms in the darkness, silent…) and it suddenly came to light that neither of us had used the upstairs bathroom out of consideration for the other. We stared at each other for a moment until I whispered, "It's like The Gift of the Magi!". JC gave me that look that a dog does when you blow those stupid silent whistles, cocked his head to one side, and got in bed. So it may not be exactly like The Gift of the Magi, but sorta kinda close, in my book.

Anywho, we head out to Ophir to check out Mustang a couple of weeks ago for our usual Saturday ski tour excursion. We had medium-high hopes about the amount of snow we had received overnight, then dampened our expectations when the Ophir road showed less new snow than we had in town, but by the time we crest the top of Mustang, we realize we are in for it! In a good way.

A lone skier had broken trail for us the whole way up, which is not necessary but appreciated (thank you Dylan) and when we survey our first segment, we are overwhelmed with the amount of new snow - a total surprise to see the snow reaching up towards our knees. We reassess our routes and form a slightly safer plan for each of the segments, then start to make our way down, face shots the whole way.

As we are shuffling back to the start of the ascent up the jane's skin track, I am thinking my throat is kind of scratchy but I really want to ski another one, I don't want to get sick but how can I just go home and be done with all this before noon?? and then what, ski on the area all afternoon?? so I said, I'm in for another one. We see some of the Ophir old-timers heading up and they pass us, then we borrow some nice coconutty smelling sunscreen face stick thingie from a guy who is heading up the same way as us. 

Top of the second lap!

Turns out my energy is better on the second lap up, which becomes a subject of discussion and my conclusion is this: I may wake up naturally fairly early (between 6 and 7 every day) but it takes my body quite some time to really get moving. Yes I may eat a heavier breakfast but my energy has always come to fruition by late morning, and that is exactly what happens this day. We march up to the top again, connect with the old farts, hear a few stories about Ophir that neither one of us knew, then make our way down again, loving every turn. I am thrilled to have the strength and mental fortitude to do 2 Mustangs and still not be all that tired after skiing.

And then… within 17 feet of the car I have a total bonk. I was pretty much ripping into our bag of salty chips and peanut butter sandwiches while simultaneously taking my ski boots off and getting into the car.

Super successful day and incredible snow. Again. Here's some more eye candy of those blissful snowy January days:

P.S. Powder skiing is not overrated.

Day 11: The Roadside Attraction

The front door shuts, as the kids rush out to catch the 9 o'clock bus, to catch the gondola, to get to Saturday Ski Club by 9:30. J, buckling his ski boot says, "God I love this age." The kids. No more of this: Where is my glove? You've got 7 minutes! Yes, you need to wear your down vest. My sock feels funny….

Just this: getting their shit together, and getting out the door, on their own.

SIDE NOTE: We love the Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club. The kids love the Telluride Ski and Snowboard Club.

The day started out pretty cool as we had visits to our bird feeder from not only the black-capped and mountain chickadees, but both red- and white-breasted nuthatches, and a female hairy woodpecker. If you suet it, they will come. Of course the arrival of each bird is shrieked (by me): "WHITE BREASTED NUTHATCH!!" and all lesser birds (magpies and sparrows) are shooed away (by me) by racing across the living room, flapping my arms, frantically tapping on the window and muttering, "Fucking magpies" or "Assholes" or some such idle threat as the rest of the family rolls their eyes whilst eating buckwheat pancakes.

Anywho, the kids have now fled, and we are hopping in the car to ski The Roadside Attraction, a nice little shot right off the road in between Lizard Head Pass and Rico. We are hoping for few or no tracks from other skiers, as it is not that big of an area, and our expectation is that the snow is still good. 

Have I mentioned that whenever we are going through the decision-making process of what to do with ourselves, whether it is hikes/peaks/backpacks in the summer, desert hikes/backpacks in the spring and fall, or ski tours in the winter, I take it on as a mini-competition to see who comes up with the winning idea? It makes it waaaay more fun when we are weighing all our options and factoring in drive time, weather, possible crowds, personal objectives, etc… to pretend that I have to beat JC for coming up with the best idea. Last summer I think he won out, he pulled a couple of "outside the box" ideas out of his fundament, that proved to be fantastic excursions, and he does have a major advantage in the winter with his experience and sense of snow, but today I nailed it with The Roadside Attraction. I actually think he may have been considering it already and maybe he "gave it to me" but I was the first one to suggest it. Just sayin'.

So we drive around the corner and get our first glimpse of it and there are what appear to be 2 sets of tracks, but only on the bottom half. The top half and the skier's left that is a little steeper and shadier, so potentially has the best snow, is untracked except for a skin track across it. What does that mean you ask? It means by the people who skied here yesterday, they left the best skiing for us AND by skinning across it they drastically reduced the avalanche danger in the most dangerous spot! This photo is taken after we slew it and are driving away but it helps to have a visual:

The "nose" tracks on the left, the other set on the right by the treeline.

We skin up to the top, and make a plan. Here I am in my power pose:

And the plan ends up being 4 laps: 2 in the steep skier's left shady area and 2 on the "nose".We take our skins off, take a few turns to meet up and assess the next pitch, and are rewarded with some incredible snow, right from the get-go. Down to the bottom, back to our starting point, skins on, back up to the top. This time we ski down the nose, back up to the top, down the nose again, then calculate we have time for one more, head back up and take the skier's left again. The snow was absolutely perfect every single turn from top to bottom.

You can just make out Lizard head on the horizon between 2 trees.

This was particularly exciting for me, as multiple laps is kind of the norm and I want to start having the strength to do them, which as we all know, is mostly mental, backed by some heavy duty ass and thighs.

Back up for more!

Just me and the tree, throwing our shadows around.

So we high-tail it back to the ski area where we meet the kids at 3 when they finish up ski club. Cella has just done Gold Hill 9 (!) and we follow Anthony into the terrain park and ski alongside him while he does his crazy giant I-can-barely-watch jumps, then we all ski down to catch the bus home.

Here is Cella's little group at the top of Gold Hill 9:

That's her bottom right, all pink and purple.

Awesome ski day for everyone :)

Day 10: Brown's Gulch

The snow is like fur when we start to skin. Like someone's old white teddy bear, where the ends of the hair are kind of tufted up and separate from each other. The almost look soft. 

We are shushing up Brown's Gulch between Red Mountain Pass and Silverton. New terrain for us (N.T. we always call it, no matter where we are. Sometimes when we turn off a road or a trail onto one that neither of us has been on, I will cry out, It's N.T! or "We're on N.T! or something equally as silly and exuberant) . Today I play it cool because we have a third with us, Julie P., who has been into this area once so we decided to take advantage of her and learn some New Terrain.

We had surveyed our options on the drive up and over, after we picked her up in Ridgway, J scoping for wind-scoured areas to avoid and me and Julie talking about epi-genetics and the works of Bruce Lipton (naysayer alert), me becoming slightly car-sick as I always do on that drive. I have a weakness for skiing with anyone who starts sentences with "thus far…" and can discuss intelligently far-out topics that aren't really that far out, they are just far in.

One of our goals for this winter was to get to know the Red Mountain area better, so here is the perfect opportunity, we figured. Our conclusion: if we have someone who can take us onto a skin track through old-growth forests, with some knowledge of the area, let's do that. We are all a little uncertain of what to expect with snow quality, as it sounded like these areas got hit pretty hard by skiers throughout the week, but the avalanche danger had settled down after the Christmas week sketch cycle so we are hoping for the best.

It's pretty cold this morning and we were in no big hurry to leave our house and by the time we are headed up it is quite pleasant out. We are skinning up a road and then it veers off into a beautiful forest, which leads up right up to treeline below Ohio Peak. From there we can see a bomb crater where a helicopter unsuccessfully tried to get Battleship to slide, way across the way nearish the Ophir Pass road. We can also see a few humans headed up a long steep ridge above Silvertone (the Anvil?). Again, the perspective of familiar peaks now made unfamiliar is a fun challenge to identify them with faces hidden that we usually see.

We decide to take a short lap then another that will lead us back to the car. We have another group ahead of us that are trying to be un-cool but by the time we see then 30 minutes later and they realize there is more than enough snow for us all, they are friendlier. It's pretty thin getting up to where we start, but once we poke around the corner from the wind scour the rocks are hidden enough to forget about them and we make our plan of where to reconvene in a safe zone below. 

Because I am the weak link I go after Julie and before J, she hoots and hollers as she makes her way to the trees, and it is immediately apparent the snow is better than we had anticipated. Of course I am nervous when I go: I haven't really ski toured above treelike yet, it feels pretty exposed, and I really want to ski well. And I do. I get to Julie, then J reaches us, we marvel at the snow quality, then map out our next section - who skis first, what line we each want, and where we are meeting up again.

The next section is super fun, down a wide gully with roly poly features , then onto the next section, where we reconnoiter again and finally stop to put our skis back on, have a snack and some Constant Comment, and laugh about how insanely good the snow is.

We skin up through this incredible forest of huge spruce trees, widely spaced and solemn, the unfriendly/friendly group ahead of us, and we figure out a plan with them based on where they are headed. The map is moderately helpful in helping us figure out what we think is just beyond a ridge, we at least know the general direction we want to migrate, so we skin up above treeline again, discuss our options and do some investigating.

Julie's perfect form :)

We ski the top pitch, then assess the next section. The light is super tricky where we are, and we watch J head over to what looks like a shoulder or a nose, only to realize, as he does, that it is not either of those things, just a smallish ravine of sorts but not really. Hard to explain. 


J gets some shots of me and Julie making our way to our next meeting spot in the sun:

Bank shot!

The terrain is super fun here, with big rolling features and consistent snow the whole way down, I didn't fall (even thought I could see that J was nervous for me, even from looking at his body language when he was way below and shouted up that there was some wind riffle to be aware of).


And then we are together, resting on our laurels:

Getting back to the car is kind of like skiing down Telluride Trail at the end of the day, winding road, curving around and providing some fun corner drops. I decide to skip one unknown section that J and Julie explore, it is close to 3pm and I am tired and don't feel like wallowing around in a tree well, which my legs are telling me is a distinct possibility.

The Brown's Gulch day was significant in that we skied with someone else (dun-dun-dunnnn) and it was such a great fit. Three is safer than two, and getting up high above treeline has its own challenges that were good to experience, especially with 2 humans I trust so much. Those 2 have been skiing their whole lives so it was kind of like having 80 years of experience with me. I'll take it.

Day 9: Norelco Land

Saturday, December 26 in Telluride, as many of  you will recall, was cold as shit. The high at the top of the ski area was 3. All day that was as "warm" as it got. We opted for a ski area day, because we had just received 51" of snow in 7 days and the area was skiing great. We did a few hike-to's and a few Gold Hills and it was still truly a struggle for me to stay warm. Truthfully, I did not dress appropriately. (You know what they say: there is no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothes). I should have worn my insulated pants and "Down Patrol" giant marshmallow puffy jacket. The coldest part of my body - believe it or not - was my ass. When I got home and took a shower, my ass was so cold that the hot water of the shower turned cold when it hit my backside and ran down my legs. I shit you not. I almost came down the stairs to show JC how red my ass was before I got in the shower but decided that was weird and didn't do it.

Anywho, the point of that is leading into our Sunday Dec. 27 ski tour. I had to work on Christmas Day, but my awesome boss said I could come in at 10 and our Big Plan was to get up early (which we did, at 5am), leave the house at 6 (which we did, in a white-out blizzard), drive to Ophir and start skinning at 6:30. Here is where the plan goes awry. In these parts, weather can be very isolated, so we figured, let's start driving and see what happens. It is not out of the realm of possibility to get to Ophir and it is not snowing at all.

On this day, Christmas, that was not the case. We made it as far as the Mountain Village entrance:

 and decided to turn back and wait for the lifts to start running so I could get a couple of runs in before work. It was a great decision. I got to talk to my family on Christmas morning, and we were some of the first folks to ski down Coonskin, which had been groomed the night before but now held somewhere in the neighborhood of 10 inches or so on it, so we just bombed down it together, twice, then parted ways so I could ski to work.

So. That was 12/25. 12/26 we skied on the freezing cold ski area and Sunday, 12/27, we head out to Ophir for our once-a-week ski tour. 

It was kind of tricky when we started to talking about our plan for the day. I have an admitted insecurity about how tired I get and how much I enjoy periods of rest, mainly because JC has the endurance and stamina of a goddamn moose, whereas I tend to vacillate between periods of high energy and motivation and lower energy and the desire to lie in bed and read all day, interspersed with sunbathing (summer), yoga (any season), and sipping tea/nibbling dark chocolate (winter). Sunday morning I was tired. Tired from the increased work over the holidays, tired from the brutal cold and skiing the day before, tired from the darkest part of the year, whatever, I was just tired.

So when we start to talk about what our plan is for the day, I am thinking, shit, here I am all tired again, am I going to have to be the one to say, the idea of nibbling dark chocolate while loading more books on my kindle is infinitely more appealing than putting on my ski boots and bracing against the cold?

Thankfully, JC said he was looking for a moderately easy and safe ski tour "just to get outside for a while." I suspect he was lying but who cares, it worked. And it was warming up nicely so far.

The avalanche warnings had gone from flashing red, to red, to orange, from several days ago and we are looking for terrain that had been skied already. Where we park in East Ophir we can see Jane's and Mustang, and surprisingly, neither had tracks on them, which left us thinking about alternatives to the usual routes down Swamp, as we were guessing it had not been skied either. There appeared to be one set of tracks ahead of us, but that's not really good enough. We were looking for some skier compaction and evidence that what we wanted to ski looked pretty safe.

The forest this day is beautiful. It has snowed so much that the inner branches of the spruce trees, all the way to the trunks, were plastered with snow.

As we ski up the Swamp track, we notice that the person ahead of us has skied the meadows, that the skin track kind of meanders in and out of. So there goes the possibility that the person ahead of us has skied the Main Event, and we start to consider the brilliant idea of doing what they did. Tree skiing at this low angle is incredibly safe, and so far we are only seeing one track. 

We get up to a place where we can peer out onto the Main Event and no, it has not been skied. The decision was made. We will ski Swamp Meadows, which I am secretly more excited about because it looks super fun and different and I am kind of scared of Swamp today.

We ski down through a couple of beautiful snowy meadows, loving every minute of it, then put our skins back on and head up to do it again, but possibly explore poking out into a new area. Which we do. This takes us back down to the road but is a little more roly-poly and exciting, as the snow is still incredible and it was like our own magical little land.

JC was fortunate enough to have the whole week off from work, and happened to run into some friends  a few days later as he was skiing in Ophir and when he described where we skied, they said, oh that is called Norelco Land! Like the ads for Norelco razors from the 70s:

Check out Santa zipping around on that incredible snow!

Anyway, we made the best of it and discovered a whole new zone that is super safe and the snow is really good. We will let someone else be the first people to ski out in the open, while we tool around in the meadowy trees, laughing at how little we need to have a fun day outside.

Day 8: "It's like skiing in Vermont… only better!"

Day 8 will probably go down as one of the most memorable tours but for quite different reasons from the birthday extravaganza.

The day is Saturday, the Saturday before Christmas and we are both worked from our work. 97% of the time, I have few complaints about being in the service industry, and about my job in particular, but the weeks leading up to the holidays is particularly challenging for a variety of reasons, and one of them is the sheer urgency our Guests have in regards to their Christmas and New Year's ski vacation. This time of year, it just plain sucks that so much of my time and energy are devoted to making other people's holidays memorable.

My office is down one person and to top it off we have 2 half-day trainings this week - trainings that I actually love. Essentially: how to communicate better with everyone. But the time away from our office has placed us even farther behind where we should be, heading into 2 of the busiest weeks of the year.

That being said, I am just plain tired on Saturday morning as we are planning our adventure. Fortunately, so is JC. He is working towards a deadline of getting some people into their remodeled house by Christmas, which is creating a massive amount of work and stress on his side as well. We take our time in the morning, drinking coffee, reading, eating, talking out our plan for the day. 

 My only real goals for the day are to get outside, get some exercise, get away from most other humans, and ski some different terrain. All of that was accomplished, plus so much more. 

We talked about driving to Red Mountain but neither of us was up for the drive. We talked about a few options in the Ophir direction, and gambled on the sunny side still being good, even after a day of warmish weather. JC had skied it with a friend in an early morning venture and raved about it, and we both thought that the lowers may be sun-crusted and tricky but that once we got up a little higher, the snow would be holding up nicely for a couple of laps above treeline. Well, as many of you know, it is very easy to underestimate the power of the San Juan sun.

A couple of local families are skiing up to the Opus Hut with their young adult kids, incredible athletes all of them, swimmers, runners, skiers, you name it and they can probably do it as good as, if not better than, the next family of Telluride athletes. Their kids are home from college for a short time and they corralled them into a mountain hut overnight foray. We also chat with Fiona and Chris, two hut keepers skiing up to start their few days up there, making food and keeping the families happy and warm.

We veer off onto the sunny side and it isn't long before I realize three things:

1. I am tired.
2. I have overdressed.
3. The snow is bad.

The first is one is not surprising. I decide to slow down a bit and just keep going, one foot in front of the other until we reach our de-skinning spot. There are some cool animal tracks on the snow, chipmunks, squirrels, ermines, and ravens, even the spots where those crazy birds have swept their wings onto the snow before lifting off to roam around looking for trouble.

The second one is easily fixed. I announce "Disrobing!" and the caravan halts for me to take a layer off and marvel at how great it feels to stop and rest.

The third one is slightly troublesome, simply because the snow is not getting better as we ascend but worse.  Yes, you heard me. The San Juan sun has baked the surface of the snow, condensing and crusting the top 2 inches into a layer that makes it slightly challenging to pull the baskets of my poles out of as I skin. I entertain my brain with a new technique I call the "stab and flick", where I  poke my pole tip in, then lightly flick it behind me before stabbing it into the snow again, in an attempt to free it from the entrapping crust on the uphill side. 

Oh and then I had a couple of wipeouts, falling and sliding downhill on a couple of sloppy kick turns. 

I then entertained myself with capturing the beauty of natural icicles on trees: 

but that doesn't last very long and I think JC is beginning to suspect I am faking reasons to take breaks. It is not much farther that we assess our options, as we are nearing the area where he was assuming the snow would be good skiing quality. And then… we get there… dun dun dunnnnnn. It is the same.

At this point in time we decide, it's going to be treach (Dad: this is the first part of the word "treacherous" and pronounced just like the first part of the word, I put that there for your benefit) descending anyway, let's turn back and cut our losses.

JC turns to me and says in all seriousness, "I'm going to say this one time: I'm sorry." There is good snow everywhere today, but sadly, not where we are.

We stop for a tea break, and scope the families like scattered ants nearing the top of Ophir Pass with the new Nikon Monarch binoculars I got him/us for a combo birthday/Christmas present, then both agree that we just want to get it over with, take our skins off, put our skis back on, and make a plan for getting the hell out of there. 

The previous week we did some training at work that was basically how to connect with Guests and serve them better, as we are in the service industry. In the training a TED Talk was referenced, which you can watch here if you have an extra 20 minutes, but in a nutshell, it basically shows that you can change your hormones to higher levels of testosterone (confidence) and lower levels of cortisol (stress) by holding arranging your body in certain powerful poses (like Wonder Woman). I have started employing it when I start my day at work or prior to a challenging physical pursuit (like skiing sketchy sun crust) so I stand like Wonder Woman before venturing forth.

On another day I may have opted to actually make turns and ski down the crusty slopes but given the fact that there is an old mining road criss-crossing the slope, with just enough of an angle away from the evil sun to keep the snow soft and skiable, I choose the road. JC practiced skiing in such conditions but I just don't have it in me and embrace Plan B, following lynx tracks here and there, until we reconvene at a stream crossing, with rusty toxic mining residue that leaves our skis orange and grungy even into the next day.

And then the aspen grove! All I will say about the aspen grove is that there came another fall (for me of course) that leaves me wallowing, floundering, thrashing about, breathing hard, and completely unable to hoist myself out of the snow until JC says, "Stop moving!" which stills me enough that he can turn my skis around for me and heave me back to my feet. For some reason I find it hysterically funny and have to pull it together to keep maneuvering through the shrubbery and branches in the aspen grove.

We both burst forth onto the Ophir Pass road, with a comical turn full of flourish and pizzazz, as though we were skiing that way the whole time, then it is the shush back to the car. I ask, "Is that what skiing in Vermont is like?" to which he replies, "Yes! Only better." ;)

At the car as I am taking my boots off I say, "Well, it could be worse."

"How?"

"We could be fighting." 

And we fire up the little Forester and zip back to the ski chalet, where we make a spontaneous decision to drive to Montrose and load up on groceries.

But wait - why didn't I ski the sketchy crust after my Power Pose? Well, I didn't want to. But I think the moral of the story is that whatever choice I made, I made from a place of confidence, and with zero stress. I guess it could have been really worse: we could be skiing in Vermont and fighting.

Day 7: Birthday Powder Part Deaux

The next day, Sunday Dec. 6, is our birthday and we decide it was so good the day before, we are going back up and doing it all over again. Same route, up and over from Waterfall Canyon, which is an immensely more delightful route than up the Swamp skin track. Yes, it is longer, but you pass through so many different zones, it feels more like a tour than a run. We have discovered that often in the summer months when we are doing multi-day peaks, I am often stronger and more energized on day 2, which is weird but whatever. I was banking on that today because the previous day had been very tiring. This touring business is tiring in a different kind of way, most of which I attribute to the amount of mental energy expenditure it requires. Gear switches, planning, avalanche awareness, partner communication, there is a just a lot for your brain to process.

So we are marching up and we find this delightful forest embrace, like a root that found a long-lost friend in the dark of the earth and said, I can't believe I found, I'm never letting you go, even if we get thrust up into the sunlight and snow.

At the top, we make a rough plan of where to ski, which we predict will take us through a brief section of mild and manageable sun crust, then over towards a section that should have remained soft and unaffected by the sun. But as we start to maneuver through some funky wind drifts towards the level spot where we will finalize our plan, I realize: I'm tired.  Shit. Here we are, now it's actually our birthday, we've seen how great this snow is, and I have to pull it together and make some turns that are worth it, dick around through the sun crust and get over to where it is good, and then muster up enough strength to do another lap of some sort. Great.

So we get down to where it is good, and it is still really really good, and we decide to stay on that side and do 2 more mini-laps instead of heading all the way over for another full lap that will take us back to the top. JC seems okay with the plans but I can tell he really wants to go all the way back up to the top, but whatevs. 

He employs a nice strategy of skiing up our ski tracks for a bit, then we have another little snack and some tea from the thermos, take our skins off, and ski back down to where we just were, super soft snow, and super fun turns. Another snack, a little more tea, skins back on, skin up our tracks again, another snack, a little more tea, and skins are off again.

From here, we can look across the canyon and see two other skiers reaching the top of the Magnum, and make nice and easy (or so it appears) turns all the way to the bottom. Here is the picture but I don't think you can make out the humans unless you know where they are.

It is the sloping coulior that goes from the big snowy field on the bottom left to the snowy edge in the upper right that is half in sun and half in snow.

There are people out all over, enjoying the perfect weather and snow conditions.

So any who, we ski down again, this time all the way to the road and out to the Ophir Road, back to the car.

Laps on the good snow. That little grove of trees up there was our tea and snack spot.

Here comes the birthday boy!

All in all, a very successful birthday weekend. We don't usually get good snow in early December. This year, we are certain, will remain memorable for quite some time.

Day 6: Surprise Snow

Birthday weekend. It's cool when you have the same birthday as your husband and it falls on a Sunday in December. You can ski all day, both weekend days, see this forecast: "20% chance of snow showers before 2pm" and think, meh, we'll go up there and see what we see. At the least we will be away from the ski area, a couple of inches will freshen things up a little, make for a few good turns here and there, and some exercise.

We start up the Waterfall skin track with some flakes sifting down on the 2 inches or so that have already fallen overnight. I like this route because it feels like a tour, an expedition, not just a slog up a skin track to do a run back to the bottom. It is deliciously quiet, just becoming full light, and we are breaking trail on the way up. I say "we" in the same sense that I say "we pulled all the winter gear out of the crawl space," or "we rotated the tires on the Forester". It actually means only one of us.

We keep our hoods on most of the way, as the snow continues its soft descent on us, even after some moments of sun when I think it is time for sunglasses, when it is not. I develop a new technique (!) after the aspen grove while skinning through the mining road that is flanked by dwarf- and human-sized spruce trees. I announce it (of course) as the Pre-emptive Strike! It is a simple act of me striking the fronds of the spruce branches prior to brushing past them, to dislodge snow and, worse, needles, both of which can invade the open zips on the sides of your legs. The snow sucks for obvious reasons but apparently (this has yet to happen to me) the needles pose a far more serious threat because they can work their needly way down into your ski boots for the duration of your tour. 

Anywho, the Pre-emptive Strikes keep me entertained for a stretch and as we ascend up to treelike, it is dawning on me that not only has it snowed the whole time we have been skinning, but there is also more snow up there than I was expecting. A lot more. Which calls for a change in our planned route, as our first objective is no longer as safe as we would like, considering the fact that we are standing at the top of the ridge with 8 or 9 inches of snow around our feet.

Some early bird had wormed their way down, and their tracks had filled in a little with the morning snow, but aside from that, we were the only humans around. Odd? Yes, considering that it was relatively late on a Saturday morning, and there was a lot of snow. So we re-route ourselves with a new plan, and set off on a run highlighted by perfect snow and dreamy turns… the whole way down. The cool thing about the snow is that people skied the shit out of that area in the early season, which means the underlying snow got a lot of action and compression. Then to have the new snow on top meant that we were just skiing the new snow that had fallen overnight. Which was nothing short of delightful. As you can see.

Closer...

Closer..

Power turn for the grand finale!

When we get to the bottom JC casually asks if I want to do another lap, already mentally calculating how I could return to pick him up, if didn't want to, but of course I do! We shush over to where the skin track goes up the regular way, kind of to the right in the photo above, in the trees, and start marching up.

Part way up I learn a valuable lesson: try to keep your skis free of snow and ice. Because when you don't, and the sticky sides get a lot of snow and ice and moisture on them, they don't work so great, meaning: they don't stick to your skis when you are going uphill for another run of snow that is "as good as it gets", and your husband rescues you by switching the one troublesome ski for one of his while he navigates uphill until he remembers he has duct tape (!!!) in his pack, and tapes the errant skin onto my ski while I wait in the snowy forest above with one of my skis and one of his skis on:

Look at that lovely skin track beckoning us on...

We arrive back up at the top and still… no other people. Except for the new young avalanche forecaster from the Front Range who asked us some questions about the terrain. And off we go for another blissful run, just as good as the first.

Day 5: Skiing the Mank

Cotton Candy Dawn

Our Agreement this winter is to ski tour together at least one day a week. Snow or shine. Our one day last week put us in a bit of a time constraint but I heaved myself out of the world's most comfortable bed and got with it before it was light out, a dusting of snow on the quiet streets as we drove out of town.

This is a time of day I prefer to be drooling and slumbering, so to see town so quiet and vacant was charming and bizarrely motivating.


It was surprisingly not that cold (I put a lot of trust in the Plum Line shell) and we marched on up to the top of Jane's, the black diamond skin track that draws you up through the dark evergreen forest, then through the aspens, up and up across sun-baked shoulders and slide for life kick turns. We had just the right amount of not too cold air and a trace of new snow that we could get a little grip and enjoy the toe prints of snowshoe hares be-bopping around looking for each other as the light rose.

I was dimly aware that the skiing would be challenging as we neared the top and I was not disappointed! We managed to get a few decent turns in here and there, including a big Jay's Meadow bypass of some sketch section, but we took our time and gradually worked our way to the bottom as we got colder, and colder, and colder. By the time we were back at the car we realized the early morning cloud cover had wafted away, and the humidity and temperature had dropped another 10 degrees or so and we were f-f-freezing!

Then back home by 9:30 for Second Breakfast and the remainder of the day on the ski area, tooling around on Chair 9.

As JC said that day: "Anyone can ski powder, but can you ski the mank…. and have fun doing it?"

The answer is yes. To see the sunrise over Waterfall Canyon with fluffy cotton candy clouds and imagine the lynx lying in wait on a branch over the trail while fluffy cottontails leave a whisper of a footprint strewn about, to feel the strength of your legs and lungs as you steadily  make your way to the top of the slope, and then to enjoy each and every turn, even the manky ones, just because you are outside in the dawn's light talking about maple syrup…. yes. Just yes.

Day 4: Superfund Tour

I would be remiss if I didn't include our Sunday afternoon venture across the street. JC did an early tour out the ski area, and into Bear Creek. I stayed home to do an online yoga class, part of a 6 week course I am enrolled in.

Here is the crazy thing about yoga, and I am guessing it is the same for most endeavors: there is so much to learn! The Course is all about arm balances, and I have gained so much for my personal practice, as well as my teaching practice, I can't wait for May to roll around so I can share it all with the Ophir ladies in our Wednesday evening Town Hall classes next summer.

Two summers ago a friend took me bouldering on a breezy summer evening and there was a point where we were looking at a giant rock with some vague (to me) hand- and toe-holds (I use the word "holds" very very loosely, because honestly, none of it looked remotely possible), and we were standing there kind of scratching our heads and rubbing our chins (mine in earnest and hers, I think, as a show of solidarity). She says, "When you have a problem like this, you can look at how to solve it in a lot of different ways," then she spiders on to the boulder and moves in a manner and direction that I didn't think was humanly possible, and suddenly, she had gotten from Point A to Point B, via points F, Z, Q, and possibly M.

And it is so very true with the asana practice of yoga. I see what the final pose is. I know where all my body parts are supposed to end up. But there are so many steps and ways of arranging yourself, that you start to look at asanas as problems that are waiting to be solved, equations that some days have an answer and on other days, maybe not.

So I am basking in the sunny south-facing window eating my usual post-Sunday-yoga lunch of grilled cheese with pickles and mustard, Constant Comment tea with honey, high as a kite on my practice, when JC rolls in, high as a kite on his giant tour, reporting that the snow was "surprisingly good" and eager to continue skiing with me the rest of the afternoon. Er….. I do want to ski but am not sure I want to commit to an Ophir tour that gets us back to the house right at dark on Sunday. Plus it will harsh my mellow.

Our compromise was to walk up the street and lay down exactly 60 tracks on the mine tailings in a few short runs. The snow is the perfect depth, we got to ski together ("group therapy", another Brucie quote), we stayed close to home and didn't have to get in the car.

Shadow Turns!

I know it's kind of lame to show me with my tracks in the background but I am still in a little bit of disbelief that it is finally happening. The kind of tracks I saw people make for the past 6 years and think WTF? How do they DO that?

And honestly, for me it just… happened. I don't know how you teach someone how to move their body like that. Yoga? Place your right foot forward, bend your right knee 90 degrees, line up the inner edge of your back foot with the heel of your front foot… But skiing? It's a moving target.



I think there is a period of time where you are building up the strength you need to then stop using your strength, stacking your bones in a way that you no longer need to rely on your muscles so much, working with the natural forces of the universe instead of against them.

And when it starts to flow, you just keep moving.

Day 3: McMillan Peak - haha

Telluride-Ridgway-Ouray-Red Mountain Pass. 

The morning route includes an almond chai stop in Ridgway whilst we motor down the valley gaping at frost-encrusted trees bared to the world around cows so motionless we thought they were frozen to the ground. -5 at our house but warming quickly. Iridescent confetti snow sparkles. 

And then, grazing on the side of the road, a bighorn ram and his mini harem, his horns curling around his head like great Nautilus shells, listening for the secrets of the ancient seabeds. Fossil headphones?

My lesson today: learning to trust the warmth of the shell. Not the nautilus shell - the gore-tex shell that should be enough to combat my fears of getting - and staying - cold. The Plum Line! (Remember?). The comments I often hear in my office (aside from my nickname of Weatherbird, and the fact that eat constantly) is that I am never cold. Gee, really? Knee high ski socks, leather boots, lined wool pants, camisole and cashmere sweater? Cold, you say? As if. On ski tours my inclination is to bring crazy amounts of layers consisting mainly of downy feathers. But today, not so much. Puffy jacket, backup Hestra mitts ("the ovens"), faith. 

One of the things I love about the ski tour up to McMillan is the skinning. No sun-slicked kick turns in steep tight trees, just long, mellow skin tracks leading you up up up, allowing you all the time in the world to fall into a steady rhythm as you march to the top.

The wind has savaged the snowy landscape here, radically different from our last excursion. The snow we slide through today has fins, ledges, riffles, spines, overhangs, pockmarks, divots, turrets, miniature hoodoos, and any other shape you can imagine, cast no deeper than 6-8 inches.

At the top we chat with some nice folks, one woman from Montrose and her Swiss friend, plus two dudes that seem borderline goony. I comment to JC as they ski away from us: "I make the assumption that all skiers from Switzerland are really good."

As you can see from above, a good amount of time on top of something in this area, whether winter or summer, usually ends in picking out the peaks, which can look radically different from different angles. Depth perception and directionality make the name game fun. I think that's Grizzly, right? No, the one with the jiggy jaggy ridge behind that hummocky one in the foreground… Or is that San Miguel? You get the idea. 

We dig into Monster Bars (I will write the recipe here another time), then I take a few turns and go down on my hip, off pops my ski and I have gotten my first fall of the season out of the way. The ski down is challenging but not un-fun. From grassy tufts to all the features I named above, to wind board, back to a grassy tuft, we get it all. Literally every turn is different. It seems to require a combination of being super relaxed and responsive to what your ski discovers, while being pretty attentive to what is coming up next. At the bottom it improves and we skin back up a short way to get a few more of the better turns in.

I develop two new techniques today, both of which I thought were originals but, as JC comments, I think ski touring is kind of like playing music: someone else has probably thought of it before you. I have techniques for everything, and am often proclaiming Check out my technique for folding a towel when I have a cup of tea in my hand and don't want to to set it down! or Check out my technique for spinning the lazy Susan in the cabinet and trying to grab a measuring cup out without touching the sides before it closes! It keeps life endlessly interesting and I highly recommend it. 

Another brief picnic in the sun with a thermos of Constant Comment, then we find the most delightful little tree shots back to the car, darting in and out of the woods like two frisky foxes playing hard to get. The snow in the shade is incredible and an awesome way to end our little tour. It's kind of a joke that this is my first peak, as it's not all that peak-y but wharves, I'll take it. 12,084 feet.

We decide to drive further down the highway to check out a run called Sam's that looks immensely appealing, perhaps for a birthday tour in 2 weekends? scoping for a creek crossing and a skin track, then into Silverton where a $4 bag of salty chips will keep us interested in the drive to the hot springs. I haven't been to Silverton in a few years, and it is always fun to take a tour around the town, reminiscing about the unpaved streets in Telluride when we moved there. Cords and cords and cords of wood are creatively stacked on porches, filling the spaces between steps and windows.

We rendezvous with some friends at the hot springs, the jet home to stuff our faces on big steaming bowls of buttery gluten threads (angel hair pasta), hot tea and reading. I just finished "All the Light We Cannot See" and I found it utterly spellbinding. My conclusion after reading it is this: Extraordinary people often lead ordinary lives.