In the Trees

I'm sitting in a coffee shop in Winter Park, waiting for the sun to come up before heading over Berthoud Pass, going back to Fort Collins after two days of good skiing. The groomed ski trails were sketchy at best, lots of bare spots and rocks, but the woods harbored deep powder. Few skiers were out...the destination folks and the day trippers were waiting for the snow that would accompany massive winter storms.

So few folks ventured into the woods. But the woods harbored old ski tracks, covered with the few inches of snow that had fallen during the last week. The tracks wound between trees, under branches, around logs, catching the sloping curve of the hillside. Skiing trees keeps one totally focused...following a trail between two trees and realizing the track was probably made by a 10 year old and one just might not fit...judging the degree of slope...avoiding tree wells (spaces under trees that are deep hollows)...trying to psyche out the next couple of turns. And, then, suddenly making a new track and hoping not to shudder to a stop in some deep pocket of powder or, worse, have the skis go under a log and suddenly stop resulting in some form, hopefully non-lethal, of face plant. More commonly, I turn off an old trail to make some new tracks and wind up buried in a drift of deep powder.

In the trees it's all about figuring your next moves through a tangle of trees and branches, being grateful for the helmet as you lean forward and downward, in the silence of the forest...pure concentration.

Not at all like the Denver road traffic that I had to move my SUV through in order to reach these still, silent woods.

Snow Mountain Ranch

We stayed in a high mountain cabin outside of the small town Tabernash with a group of friends from the Colorado Mountain Club. If it were not snowing too hard, you could see the western side of the Continental Divide across the valley, rising above the lower forested hills. We skied for three days, cross-country skiing, breaking trail sometimes, sometimes gliding on groomed runs, sometimes just standing breathless in the forest after a stiff climb uphill, discovering patterns in the snow.



And sometimes the patterns were ones we made ourselves in the shop at the Nordic Center. Yet they all seemed to represent a kind of structure to our experience, bringing the vastness of the landscape down to a comprehensible scale, one that could be touched and moved through. And moved on.

Parties

Christmas is the one time of year when everyone gets into art installations. The tree, decorations, music...kind of like going to a museum to see an ephemeral collection of objects. So we move around furniture, string lights outside, and create an atmosphere for reminding ourselves of our traditions and for enjoying a change in domestic ambiance. And part of that ambiance is directed toward getting together with friends and family, having a "hyggelig" evening (as they say in Norway and Denmark), being warm, cozy, and glad to be together. We are, after all, a social species.



And so there is the need for preparation...food and drink and music. As in past years, we have a band. This year, The Fort Collins Blue Grass Band, and last year, the Piggies. About 80 people come by during the evening...the older boys create a game room in the study where they can hook up to the internet...the younger kids stay downstairs for crafts and movies. Age groups creating their own sense of fun. We dedicate this and every annual party to our friend, Marita Vander Have, who died a year ago from cancer. We began this annual party with her about 25 years ago in Maryland and we have carried it west with us like a well worn leather coat.





But there are also parties that change the pace. Patrick and I went down to the Acid Candy Cane event at the F/stop, a coffee house that brings life and good drink to the Center for Fine Art Photography in downtown Fort Collins. Music by Dirty Monkey. Live Art. Opening reception. Now this does change the pace...kind of picks things up a bit. Enough at least to then move onto the party at Francisco's where the dancing is still going on. Funny, though, nobody wants to make breakfast for us at 2:00 am though we did call several friends to see if they were up. And, get this, they are still our friends.





And then the more formal dinners...Christmas Day around the dining room table, the three hour meals...interrupted perhaps for a walk around the block if it's not snowing too hard...and having the opportunity to just share the simple act of being alive, all at the same time, enjoying one another's laughter, talk, observations. Sometimes just being here is enough.



Happy New Year. Feliz Año Nuevo. Glad Nytt År.