Barneløpet 2010

The Sons of Norway lodges in Colorado sponsored the annual Barneløpet or "children's race" at Winter Park. Something about the combination of snow, outdoor sport, young people, competition (for some), medals (for all), and the mountain landscape makes me joyful. The races are organized by 1K, 2.4K, and 5K and participants range the gamut from Nordic teams from Boulder to first time skiers.

The groomed trails at Snow Mountain Ranch and the lodge buildings make for an ideal setting. In the past few years, I helped to organize an afternoon orienteering course, but this year an orienteering club set up a circuit with electronic interfaces and ability to upload results to the web. Whew. Enough of paper and pencil.



As the Olympics bring home, good Nordic skiing requires great athleticism. During the past few years, a growing number of free groomed trails, like those in Leadville, have opened up for the public. Maybe next year I'll get me a pair of those thin skis and long poles and really cool outfits.

But then maybe I should leave that for the next generations, some of whom can't yet quite make it around the 1K course.

Friends and Family

A good deal of hanging out skiing in the mountains for a month (or more) has to do with hanging out with other people, skiers and non-skiers. So, thus far, Charlotte, Ingrid, Geoff, Pacha (dog), Jerry, Eve, Katlin, Bethany and, soon, Matt, Shannon, Harris, Addi, John and Teresa have been/will be here to enjoy this space: the house in South Main, the river running alongside, the mountains, Monarch Ski Area, and the hot, hot springs. The house breathes easier when human warmth is added to the heat put out by the furnace.

After taking Bethany and Katlin back to the airport (Why do the drivers in Denver honk at me on the sidestreets? Is it so clearly an SUV from the mountains covered with snow and road dirt? Or have I forgotten how to drive in a city?), I was listening to a radio discussion of a book on Eric Weiner's book "The Geography of Bliss" which, like some other recent publications, looks at happiness ratings of different countries. And, well, it generally all comes down to "relationships"...which would seem to indicate, given the nature of the health care debate, that the United States is not a happy country.

But snow and ways of playing in it along with mellow warmth inside a house or in hot springs can greatly increase the happiness ratings. Maybe that should be part of any comprehensive bill?

Cottonwood Lake

A few miles above Cottonwood Hot Springs along Cottonwood Creek a thousand feet or so below Cottonwood Pass is Cottonwood Lake. I went out there this afternoon to do some cross country skiing, expecting to find a trail, but only found deep, deep snow, too deep to plow through with my back country skis. So I headed out around the lake. The ice was thick, judging from the depth of the awls of the guys doing ice fishing on the far side. And the snow was windswept in many places, making for a smooth glide. In spite of the strong wind and snow falling through the late afternoon light.

It was a contrast to our house a few miles across the Upper Arkansas Valley where the sun was shining and folks were watching tv and quilting and preparing supper. The east and west sides of this valley provide such contrast in terms of snowfall, temperature, and conditions. And differences in how to experience the day...all of them good, but marking the kinds of choices we are able to make when our time is open-ended and our ability to experience life presents so much choice.

Mineral Belt Trail

The Mineral Belt Trail runs for 12 miles above Leadville through the ruins of the mines that brought, for a while, great wealth to this town. And to families like that of Meyer Guggenheim (as in the art museums in New York, Bilbao, Abu Dhabi) and Horace Tabor (multimillionaire, US Senator, who lost it all in the crash of 1893 and whose wife, Baby Doe, froze to death in a shack by their mine). Legends and stories line the trail. And such stories: the violence and back-breaking work of the miners, the ethnic-based mining camps (as in Finntown where, surprise, the Finns lived), the bars, brothels, the instant unimaginable wealth.



Mining in Leadville survived after the silver gave out...the last major operation, the Climax molybdenum mine (check the periodic table of elements), shut down only in 1982 (and was to open again before the latest recession hit). The closing of the mine devastated the town's economy. Many folks living in the town now ride buses and cars each day for low wage labor in the ski resorts of Copper Mountain, Vail, Keystone.

In winter, the trail is groomed for cross country skiing...the skate skiing kind...and the Leadville Nordic club is serious about their technique. Its members have read all the historic markers years ago; no reason for them to stop as they glide by me. But besides the historical texts, there's that view out over the town, Turquoise Lake, and Mt. Elmo, the tallest peak in Colorado. The beauty gives me pause...will have to work on technique another day.

Skiing

So what is it about skiing? Why all this time (the month of February) at Monarch and Copper Mountain and Winter Park? Well a bunch of reasons. Like the beauty of the mountains in winter...riding a lift (and that in and of itself is fun...sitting on this open seat suspended above a steep mountainside)to a high ridge and taking in the mountain ranges...some close, some far.

From a ridge line at Monarch this morning, you could see the Collegiate Range over which Monarch Pass is the only open road in winter, to the west the San Juan Range, to the southeast, the Sangre de Cristo Range.

And then there is the sense of focus that comes when you are racing down a groomed slope or skiing the trees (gotta avoid those logs and those low branches) or making your way through choppy powder, cutting curves in the snow. This focus is purely physical...your senses feeding information to the brain, the brain sending signals to the hips and knees...keeping your body pitched forward down the slope or around the obstacle, using the skis and poles as extensions of your body...no time to be thinking about health care reform...just a kind of basic survival as you test yourself against the pull of gravity and the conditions under your skis at this moment and looking ahead for the next ten moments. That's what this towhead (well I assume he's a towhead under the helmet)is just beginning to get a feel for.
















But it's not just about downhill. After skiing at Monarch this morning, I switched to my cross country skis and skied up a nearby trail to the top of Old Monarch Pass. This was the pass used from the 1880s to get horses, carts and prospectors down into the Gunnison River Valley from the Upper Arkansas. It was replaced in the late 1930s (ahhh...stimulus money back then) by a new road (Route 50 from Sacramento California to Ocean City, Maryland)with fewer tortured curves.
The old road makes an ideal cross-country route...it parallels some of the downhill runs at Monarch...but it requires work. And the reward that comes from rounding that final curve is different...a feeling that somehow you have earned that downhill that comes when you turn around and head back down.

Either way it's not about the gear. It's about what the gear allows you to do and to feel. My father came from Telemark in Norway and I've always felt I should learn that style of skiing out of respect for my traditions. But that will have to wait for another season.

View from the windown

So I'm still trying to figure out this place, the Upper Arkansas Valley. I wake up in the morning, looking to the west, Mt. Princeton across the valley floor. Went skiing at Monarch...no new snow so I kept to the groomed trails, sometimes in the trees. It is supposed to snow tonight and tomorrow...could use some new snow. The signs at the base warn of "Early Season Conditions" but, dude, it's February...getting toward the end of the season. Soon the signs will say "Spring Conditions," meaning the snow is more moist, tending to melt in the April sunshine. So, like, when does winter begin?



and then on my way into Salida (where the Arkansas leaves the Valley, making an abrupt turn to the east to carve out the Royal Gorge on its way to the Mississippi), I noticed this cemetery off to the side of the road...wooden crosses...a barbed wire fence. I stopped and parked and could not make sense of the names or the dates (it seemed to be a cemetery for children...they were all so young) and then I realized it was an improvised pet cemetery...wooden crosses (are all these pets Christian...is there pet baptism?)... But it caused me to realize I'm not just in this valley...I'm in this valley with communities, with people, with history, and with pets. Hmmmm....it's not all just about skiing.

South Main

Came up to the Arkansas Valley yesterday, driving up from the Front Range, over Kenosha Pass, across South Park (as in the tv program), over Trout Creek Pass, then down to this valley, turning north and then east to the river itself. The river runs through cold banks of snow, making the water seem black by contrast. I'm staying at South Main, a "new urbanism" development, being built by a group of friends who are kayakers. In addition to houses and businesses, they have built a white water course that is now ready for the spring snow melt. There is an art gallery up the street and a brewpub around the corner...but you can see the Collegiate Peaks to the west through the empty lots...an occasional house here and there. South Main is an interesting example of a created community (think utopian design meets kayaking champs...a number of World Cup finalists work with the development corp).

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.

In the mountains

I drove up to Buena Vista over Kenosha Pass for a few days in the mountains. Crossing the pass into the huge open snow covered space of South Park is always dramatic. Urban life is left 4,000 feet below on the front range. It is quite unlike the drive up I-70 and through the Eisenhower Tunnel where urban and commercial sprawl follow you over the Divide. The drive over Kenosha brings you into a different world.

I stayed at the Cottonwood Hot Springs, sharing the loft in the dorm room with Tim. He was living further up along Cottonwood Creek at 11,000 feet. He is in a camp tent for the winter, wood stove for heat, and working on a house he is building at the mouth of an abandoned mine. The land is part of a mining claim he bought a few years back. His claim is three miles up the mountain; he gets there by snowshoe or snowmobile depending upon the weather. When he has business in town, he spends the night at the Hot Springs where he works in exchange for board. His wife, not too surprisingly, is living in Texas. We share evening and morning conversation and coffee in the lounge. I marvel at the ways people come to create a life for themselves.



But I had come up mainly for alpine skiing. I'm not sure what I love the most: the sensation of swooshing downhill over fresh powder (like gliding on silk) or the simple feeling of being high in the snow covered mountains at places where only lifts or snowcats can bring you. Ski Cooper, outside of Leadville (highest incorporated city in the United States at 10,152 feet), was just opening for the season. The sides of the groomed trails were three to four feet deep in powder. And if the lifts seem slow (this ain't Vail), they give you a chance to take in the spare beauty of the far mountain ranges and the simple pleasure of being outside in the snow on a bright sunny Colorado day.

Public Space

On my last day in DC, I visited the Pension Building, now the National Building Museum, the most astonishing public space in the capital. It was built after the Civil War to house the pension offices for the veterans and civil servants. Now receiving a pension (probably from a computer system housed in some cubicle-laden dreary office complex), I feel a deeper affinity with this magnificent edifice...its gigantic columns lifting the roof skyward. Groups of school children come into the space and sit or lie on the floor with their teachers looking up, up, up.

One of the exhibits on display in the columned interior was on the history of the parking garage. And one of the statistics cited dealt with the period before the advent of the automobile when cities were filled with workhorses carrying people and goods. It is estimated that in New York in 1900, the city held about 100,000 horses which produced 2.5 million pounds of horse manure per day, which all had to be swept up and disposed of, most of it probably dumped into the river. Now that was an environmental pollution problem. So the automobile was responsible for cleaning up the city, parking garages replacing stables.

Ahhh....magnificent museums...places for learning and gaining perspective in space and time.

The National and Other Galleries

One of the joys of urban life is being able to move through its collections of art and architecture. In Washington for a few days, I was able to catch a few of the new exhibits at the National Gallery...small French paintings on one floor of the East Wing and photography in the West Wing. Walking through the vast public spaces of the museum is always a treat...as much for the paintings on the wall and the sculptures on the floor as for catching the manner in which people interact with the art, how they become part of the exhibit themselves, how they add color and light and movement to the art, blurring the lines between themselves and the objects.



Earlier this year, I made a trip (pilgrimage?) to Chaco Canyon, the site of extensive Anasazi ruins in northwest New Mexico. The isolated canyon contains the largest collection of Pueblo sites north of Mexico...sites that were used up until the mid 1100's when drought caused the massive migration out of the region toward the Rio Grand valley.



The same creative impulse to communicate through forms and shapes is found on the canyon walls and in the now-deserted plazas. They communicate a sense of place beyond the place itself. The images chiseled into the canyon walls, the doorways opening onto doorways, the design of rock walls all indicate a universality in the human desire to move us beyond our day to day existence.

Thanksgiving

We arrived at Kent Island on the shore of the Chesapeake Bay on Tuesday, beginning to settle into the house we rented for the holiday. A strong wind blew across the water for the next few days, but it was no matter as Ingrid, Geoff, Haile, Tom, Jose, Jens, Ben, Teddy, Margaret, Tony, Christian, Kendall, Rink, Rob, Dan, Vanessa, Chase, Drew, Claudia, and MJ showed up over the next few days. But we in turn traveled back to the western shore of the bay for Thanksgiving Day with Margaret and Tony...enjoying the fresh oysters, the company, the back deck.



Though, of course, this is a holiday of food, wine, and hanging out. Time for catching up and expanding the sense of family. Christian Werge, a cousin from Mexico working now as an architect in Alexandria, joined us (we share the same great-great grandfather) and later again with his girlfriend, MJ. Ingrid and Geoff brought bikes to try out the trails on the island. Teddy was preparing for a trip to the Gambia to do photojournalism for a nonprofit "Riders for Health," combining his interests in motocycles, photography, and exploring the world. So we catch time with one another...no other agenda than to enjoy one another...well and the pies.





So the days slip along like waves across the bayfront. We held a final feast of crabs, oysters and shrimp on Sunday afternoon after the winds had died down and the sun had broken through. A truck had parked down the street with "fresh crabs, fresh oysters" posted on cardboard signs in the morning. And a neighbor lent us a huge kettle for steaming the crabs. So it was a classic Maryland afternoon meal on the deck overlooking the bay.



Before sunset and folks beginning to make their way home.