And then you do a pilgrimage to some ruins

So one morning you wake up in the canyon, look out of the tent and you are the first one up so you get up and piss in the river (that is what is recommended because the land is so sensitive) and make some coffee so that it will be ready for the others.



And a day later you are walking along the hiking path around Hovenweep, an ancient (for our country) ruin from 1300 or so...before the drought forced them to leave and to move in with the pueblos along the Rio Grande (whose headwaters are in a different range of mountains)...and you can not help but to be moved by their presence and also by their absence.

So then you spend the night at the Strater Hotel, built 1889. Such a comfortable place with a bar downstairs, the Diamond Belle Saloon, in which an long lost friend, Gary Smith, played honky-tonk piano music at a distant point in his life. It was the closest I had felt to him in a long time.



But I thought of all of these places as sites of communal gathering...we in our rafts, these folks in their rock canyons, and us again in the bar. All places where we can gather as a species. We like being together...if we did not, we would probably not have gotten anywhere as a species because we need one another for defense and for identity.

On a slow river day

A rafting trip on the San Juan...low water level, fair sunshine bounding off the canyon walls, pulling at the end of the journey hard on the oars against a sudden strong upriver wind, setting up camp each evening in settings 300 million years old, trying to find the mayonnaise in some 10 food containers carried between two rafts and a canoe, learning to spend the entire day with another person in a small space in an immensity....

Meeker again

Richard and I were out for a drive after doing a presentation for the White River Electrical Association in Meeker (mainly known as the site of Meeker Massacre after which the Utes were pushed out of Colorado into Utah...of course no one mentions how many Utes were killed...ahhh ethnic cleansing long before the term was coined). The presentation dealt with a small hydroelectric plant they are thinking of building.

We went up over a rise beyond Meeker and followed the road around a bend and we pulled over at a set of markers explaining how a series of battles let to the expulsion of the Utes in favor of those who would "civilize and settle" the west. The valley stretched below us.



The pastures had been plowed clear in certain spots so that the cows could reach the natural pasture underneath. And then we noticed the calves, some of them days old, lying on the ground, absorbing the rays of the overhead sun. A few of them trying to stand for the first time...some giving up, deciding that laying down was really better. Spring comes to the valley quite regardless of what peoples live here now.

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.