Same Bat Time, New Bat Channel

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Ice Cave at 10,000 feet

Kyle and I have been tossing around the notion of camping above 10,000 feet for the entire winter season. We’ve even gone as far as picking out certain days and weather conditions to best suit our interest and were dead set on carrying out our mission; at some point anyway.

The evening of Sunday March 13, 2011 will go down in infamy as a day when two people did a spot of research on snow caves and drank until two in the morning discussing why they were better adventurers than the other. The next morning we rolled out of bed around 10:30 and sat on the couch in our underwear, eating a simple breakfast as was capable with our meager food options. We lounged around until noon and then Kyle got a hair in his brain and could not be talked out of preparing to leave the house to build our snow cave.

We hastily gathered our gear and double checked that we had all the necessary basics: food, water, clothing, and booze. This was to be an epic middle finger to all rational thought regarding proper winter camping--we weren’t even bringing a tent. We did have a tarp, peanut butter, Nutella, summer sausage, a half handle of coconut flavored rum liqueur, snowboards, shovels, knives, boots, and snowshoes. I also brought two oranges for breakfast and a pack of cards to keep us busy during the long night.

We left the house around 1:30pm and were in the gondola on the way up the mountain by 2 o’clock. This gave us two and a half hours before the lifts closed and the gondola made its final run down the mountain, which was reiterated to us by the slightly annoyed sounding liftie guarding the gondola entrance. “You guys going into the backcountry?” She asked, eyeing our massive packs and shovels. “Yep.” We responded. “K. Just be back by 4:30 or you’re stuck on the mountain.” Her tone was less than sharp but her eyes said “idiots.”

After a few traverses, three lifts and a slow hundred yard hike up the top of the peak we were finally at the entrance to the backcountry gate atop ninety-nine-ninety, the highest mountain in the resort. From here it was a simple lateral traverse along the ridge top with another winding hike and we had made it to our destination.

We’d scoped out our campsite the day prior on a ski break at work, taking time to find a place that was sheltered from the wind by trees and rock. What we’d found was beyond perfect for our needs. It consisted of a deep depression atop McDonald’s peak, to the left of ninety-nine-ninety, where a patch of evergreens poked out of the snowpack in a small ring large enough for our snow cave. It was out of the way of the wind, the trees stabilized the snow pack and best of all: we were out of danger of being blasted by ski patrol when they grenade the mountains in the morning.

By three fifty we’d made considerable progress, though not enough to convince me that we could feasibly stay the night and survive. Kyle was more optimistic but was eventually persuaded that tomorrow would be the day when we’d finish the cave and spend the night. We stashed our packs inside the burrow we’d created in the cave and I plugged up the entrance with a few shovels full of snow to prevent looters, something Kyle found hilarious. “Do you seriously think that someone is going to come down here, find our snow fort, find our packs and then steal our sleeping bags?” I couldn’t be sure, and didn’t want to take the chance.

* * *

The next morning we woke up at ten, again, due to the fact that neither of us had our phones with us which served as our alarm clocks. Mine was in my pack, four thousand feet from where we were now living and Kyle’s was left in the hotel storage closet. We quickly got up and dressed and were out of the house by ten after. Not satisfied with our breakfast from the morning before, we snagged a coupon for a buy one get one free breakfast buffet at the Hungry Miner’s Breakfast Bucket, located at the Best Western ten minutes down the road.

The Hungry Miner feels like a truck stop in Iowa, except that there are less obese, type-two diabetes ridden, families and more people wearing ski pants. The fare was average but there was plenty of it, each of us loading up a plate of sausage, bacon, cheese covered eggs and an assortment of sugary delicacies. We ate quickly and were in, seated, fed and out of the place in less than twenty minutes, heading straight back to the mountain for round two of cave construction.

We stopped by the hotel to say goodbye to our friends, promising to be safe and take pictures. We left with a lot of people feeling that they’d never see us again. There were a lot of smiles. The hike back up Ninety-nine-ninety was a breeze without our packs and we reached our camp at half past noon.

It surprised us both how little work was required to finish our cave and render it habitable. By one thirty we were content with our progress and I decided it was time to build a backcountry kicker a’ la every snowboarding movie I’d ever seen. After an hour we had ourselves a nice little jump and a manageable runway which landed on a steep, powdery face. On my third jump I nosedived on the landing, sending me tumbling down the mountain with three consecutive face plants. It’s the coldest my head has ever been.

After hitting the jump a handful of times, I noticed a group of guys no more than a couple hundred yards away, heading up the last hike before summiting McDonald’s peak. I called over to them and asked “Hey, do you guys want to hit this kicker with us?” They hardly shouted a reply before they were strapped in and coming right for us.

It was a group of five friends from Boston who were on vacation in Utah, snowboarding for a week in the majesty of our home mountains before heading back to their snow covered high school football fields back home. They descended upon the ramp in a flurry of shovels and enthusiasm, quickly transforming our meager kicker into a lippy booster capable of launching our flailing bodies ten to fifteen feet high and twenty feet across the face.

Jessie, one of the Boston crew, happened to be a photographer and pulled out his Canon 5D to snap some photos and capture the action on video as well. He doubled as ramp construction manager and with his help we were able to keep hitting the jump and get bigger and bigger air while documenting the excitement. I decided to step things up a notch and threw my signature, and only, trick: The backside one-eighty. It didn’t really impress the way I had planned, they were all pretty good snowboarders with ten years under their belts, but it did step up the level of tricks from there on out. Pretty soon “back flip” became the word on everyone’s lips and within two or three tries Jessie and his brother had both landed one, cruising away from the landing with massive cheers and shouting. Kyle and I knew we were outdone, but I still wanted to show that I had some skills too, so I began trying backside three sixties, which I never really did land, but the photos Jessie got of my attempts were glorious.

By three thirty we’d demolished the landing zone and the Bostonians were eager to get down the mountain, lest they be left behind like us. We said our goodbyes and exchanged info with Jessie so he could send us the pictures and clips. I showed them the way to McDonald’s peak and explained the way down, giving away the secret to my single favorite run in the entire resort. They thanked us and took off for the descent of their lives while Kyle and I looked around for another place to build a jump, seeing as there were still four hours between us and sunset.

* * *

What we built next was supposed to be named “The Backcountry Buck Huck” but a more appropriate moniker would be “Death by Air.” Our initial plans were to build a wedge shaped ramp which would gradually lift you off the surface of the mountain and float you through the air to the soft, un-spoilt spring-corn landing. The runway was smooth as glass and shot straight down to the edge of the lip, which was not supposed to be a lip at all. After an hour of laboring Kyle and I stood to the side, he turned to me and asked “Well, you wanna guinea pig it?” I hiked up the hill to a place that I thought would give me an appropriate amount of speed then strapped in and pointed the nose at our beast. I have never flown so far, or with so much fear in my heart, in my entire life. My initial jump put me about twenty-five to thirty feet down the hill, where I promptly crash landed. Kyle, standing next to the ungodly creation, could be heard up the hill behind me laughing hysterically and sucking in air like there was a shortage. I got up and brushed the snow out of my hair, shook out the cobwebs and began the hike back up to the top.

Kyle’s first hit was no more gentle than my own, though he did manage to outdo my distance record by five feet. Climbing back up to the start of the runway, it was no easier to stare down the face at the behemoth than it was the first time, in fact, it was even worse because you knew what it was capable of doing to you. We took turns crashing terribly into the snow and climbing back up for more. After hitting it no more than five times a piece, we looked at each other, the dread in our minds apparent in each other’s eyes, and nodded. It was done. We wouldn’t go near it again.

When we got back to the camp we were completely devoid of energy and vigor. Kyle grabbed his pack and dug out the peanut butter, bread, Nutella, and summer sausage which were our only food stores for the night. We made sandwiches of equal parts all four ingredients and ate the way famished disaster survivors eat. Seconds was a must, but this left us with only one piece of bread. I turned to Kyle, “There’s only one more piece of bread in the bag. We’re going to have to do something drastic to decide who gets it.” He nodded in agreement; his mouth full of peanut butter and sausage. I looked down at my own sandwich and dug in again, my mind distant as I thought about how we would decide who got the last precious piece of food. A few minutes of silence passed before either of us spoke. “Kyle, I have an idea.” He looked at me, mouth too full again for speech. “We could cut the bread in half so that we both get a piece.” It was a flash of insight that neither of us were used to. “Yeah, yeah we could do that. That’s a good idea.” I went on, “I say this because, while I was eating this sandwich, I thought about you eating that last piece of bread in front of me and I knew that I would have to kill you.” He laughed so hard that a piece of sausage flew out of his mouth, which he quickly retrieved from the snow and ate again, “Dude, I know, me too.”

Our batteries recharged we traded in our snowboarding boots for hiking boots and strapped on the snowshoes. Then we grabbed the bottle of liqueur and my camera and set out for the nearest peak to watch the sunset. Along the way we discussed China’s ability to take over the world economy, America’s situation in the Middle East and our last remaining options there, how cool our snowshoes were and how, with every pull, our body was being warmed from the inside from our magic bottle of booze.

We made it to the top just in time and sat down on the icy snow to enjoy the blaze of yellows, oranges, pinks and reds which saturated the sky before us. The gunmetal gray clouds whisked by, their bottoms painted with the blush of the fading sunlight. We sat entranced, neither of us speaking for many long minutes as the scene played out in front of us, caught up in another episode of Nature’s television--the same ongoing nightly broadcast which has entranced man for the past millennia.

As the sun smoldered into the distant peaks the air grew chill. We grabbed our stuff and started the downhill saunter back to camp, not wanting this moment on the top to end.

Back at camp, we climbed into our cave to settle in for the night that had been destined since we first stepped foot in Utah. Snuggled up in six layers a piece, we slid into our sleeping bags and flicked on our headlamps. I grabbed the cards and Kyle grabbed the booze, the game was Texas Hold ‘EM, the stakes: pulls from the bottle.

I lost, or won, depending on how you look at it, nearly every single hand and when it was noticed that only a small portion of the alcohol was left, we played high card for the last chug. Kyle won that too. With that, we plugged up the mouth of the cave with our packs, flicked off the headlamps and squirmed around in our sleeping bags for a while until we found something resembling comfort.

Within five minutes I felt the first icy cold drop on my face. Two minutes later, another. After three drops in ten minutes I called to Kyle, “Are you getting dripped on?” He replied that his situation was the same. We wiggled deeper into our bags and tried to forget about the fact that our very breath was condensing above our heads and raining down upon all of our gear.

Sleep was caught in fits. The only way you knew you had actually been out was the fact that you could still faintly recall a dream, a dream that was now far away from the wet, cold, windblown surrounding you were now faced with. Kyle’s dreams were so vivid that he woke up a number of times with a start, sitting up stock straight, questioning me about trains, ski patrol, and wild moose. He had dreamt that we had placed our camp on top of train tracks and spent five or six seconds desperately searching the ground for them, then he woke me up to ask me whether ski patrol was going to knock the cave in while we were still inside it, sure as anything that they were right outside with shovels in hand. The last time he woke up he didn’t get more than five words out about the moose before I told him to shut up. If he wasn’t waking up to badger me about scepters from his mind, he was complaining about being cold and wet or tossing and turning back and forth while bumping his gangly arms and legs against me. Dawn could not have come too soon for us this morning.

At seven thirty Kyle couldn’t take it any longer and got up to check the weather. It was snowing and windy, with low visibility and a high chance of both of us being grumpy. I crawled out of the warm sanctuary of my sleeping bag and into the reality of our situation. We were up hours before any lifts were open, we had only two oranges to eat for breakfast, our boots and gloves were frozen solid and there was nothing to do but pack everything up and get home.

We shoved our soggy sleeping bags into their cases and folded up the wet ground pads enough to stuff into our packs. I was in charge of packing up the tarp we’d laid on the floor of the cave, possibly our most ingenious item of the whole trip, and struggled to keep the snow out of everything. When we’d packed all out belongings I noticed some trash strewn about and began to collect it. I called over to Kyle, “Dude, grab the Malibu bottle out of the cave. If ski patrol finds that, they’re going to think two teenage girls slept the night up here and got drunk.” He nodded solemnly and we strapped everything together, not looking forward to our victory lap down the mountain.

After struggling down what would normally be a routine line down the hill, we reached the one and only chairlift that separated us from the gondola, and hence home. We pulled up to the front of the gate at a quarter to nine, where the liftie controlling the chair informed us: “I can’t let you guys on until nine unless you have early riding passes.” Our faces must have said it all because he followed with, “I’m sorry guys, if it were my resort, you’d be on there right now. But, rules are rules.” We stood aside as a couple of people who were properly passed made it onto the chair and counted down the minutes until we could get the hell out of the cold. Another liftie came up to us, “Do you guys have passes? I need to scan them.” We both said that we did, but that they were in our packs and we really didn’t want to take them off and dig through our gear to find them. He said he couldn’t let us on the lift until we had our passes scanned. At this point I was getting irritated. “We couldn’t have gotten to this lift without a pass, we both work here at the Sundial hotel and we just want to get home. We camped last night on Ninety-nine-ninety and were miserable. Can you just let us on the lift?” He walked over to the hut, where the head honcho apparently sits and gives out orders, and came back. “I need to scan your passes.”

By the time we reached the bottom of the gondola, where all the eager tourists were waiting in line to get to the top of the mountain where it was forty degrees and raining, we felt like hell. We marched over to the Sundial hotel to stash our stuff in the back and grab my car, greeted by our smiling friends who were happy and astonished to see us alive. “You guys actually did it?” “You guys are nuts!” “I can’t believe you guys did that, was it worth it?” We mumbled and grumbled our replies, though it was nice to have a little adoration cast upon us after the night we’d endured. Our boss, Mary, walked up and asked us why we had all the gear, before we could reply one of our coworkers blurted, “They camped out on Ninety-nine-ninety! Can you believe that?” She couldn’t and she broke out in laughter as she walked into the hotel.

Upon reflection, a few changes to our planning and execution would have gone a long way towards making our night more enjoyable, but you can’t beat the feeling of coming down off a mountain at 7:30 in the morning to confused and bemused ski patrolman. We knew what we wanted, we knew we were capable of doing it and we executed our plans, however haphazard, with style and class. These are the times we’ll remember when we’re old. These are the stories I’ll tell my grandchildren, for the hundredth time, as they tune me out while sending instant brain messages to their friends through implants which connect them to the internet in their mind.

Next it’s Alaska, where I will hopefully find myself in more interesting situations with better gear and more appropriate training. But, who needs that stuff anyway?

Sundance Came and Went

It's immediately obvious what someone's intention is when they arrive at a hotel. If they're baggage includes a ski bag, you know they want to hit the mountain. If it's a couple and there's only one small carry-on, you know they want privacy. If It's a five foot nine platinum blonde woman in a leather one-piece suit with six inch stiletto heels, lips like two night crawlers that were sucked through a vacuum and sunglasses large enough to protect an astronaut in space, they're here for Sundance.

It brings all kinds, but most of them are hangers on to the Hollywood lifestyle who want all the perks of celebrity status but have none of the credentials. They hit this quiet city en mass and goddammit they want a taxi here now. Their arrival is akin to the cicada plagues of rural farms in South America. Though the infestation takes place at a higher altitude, the basic gripes of the natives are the same: Too loud, Too many, and Where the hell did all our food go?

My Sundance experience was marked by one trip down to main street, the epicenter of the madness, where I found endless atrocities of the eye. Kyle and I made the trip on the free bus into town and were immediately assaulted by laboratory designed scents which are said to make women more attractive; when used in moderation. The combination of thirty six distinct scents on a single bus proves that less is definitely more. Despite the single digit temperatures (Fahrenheit, mind you), there was no shortage of unmasked thighs atop rickety high heels which proved ill-suited, who'd have imagined, in the slush and snow smothering the streets. These creatures stalked the choked sidewalks billowing designer smoke from their over-ripe lips as they caught up with friends over their cell phone with such mind numbing one-liners as: "Ew, are you poor?" (I am not making this up)

Needless to say I steered clear of the fifty dollar cover charges for the bars and decided it would be a better spent night if I used it to practice long exposures on my new camera. This proved interesting but not altogether fruitful. The highlight of the evening of photos came in the form of a group of trannies walking down the sidewalk, to which I called out "Hey ladies, can I have a picture?" They immediately swarmed me and began making awkward innuendos designed to lull me into a stupor long enough to switch teams. Or so I imagine.

The night ended as well as it began, with Kyle and I sitting on our couch fighting for the coveted space on the couch nearest the space heater playing Nintendo 64's finest production, Mario Kart. And it was good.

* * * *

One of the highlights of working in the valet industry, is meeting and interacting with a large swath of people that would normally never come across my path. Though this is not often as exciting as it may seem, ninety percent of the time I'm left squirming through conversation with a mid-western, God-fearin', Ayn Rand stereotype bubbling forth with inanities as pleasant to my ears as cats going through a wood chipper. But do not lament for me, for that ten percent of the public that I do enjoy engaging with on a deeper level of conversation than their day-to-day gripes has born some interesting results.

For instance: One sunny afternoon while standing outside the hotel making sure shuttles are coming and going while people make room on the circular drive for other guests to maneuver their massive vehicles, a nondescript pickup pulled up to the drive and rolled down the window. Immediately I was struck by the beauty of the passenger who held out a blackberry cell phone which had given her directions to our hotel. "Is this where I'm supposed to be?" She asks with a look of sincere confusion. "Well, that is almost our address, so I'm going to guess that you are in fact in the right place. If I could just get your last name I'll call in to our front desk and see if we have your reservation." She smiles and her husband leans across the center console, "Cool man, thanks for the help." I dash in the front doors still woozy from her beauty when the front desk girl tells me "That's one of our celebrity guests, don't stare at her and just be cool." Be cool? Do you know who I am?

I saunter back outside and casually stroll towards the truck. "Yeah, we've got your reservation, our bellman will be out shortly to escort you to the proper location as your information states you're not in our hotel exactly, but in the single family lodges adjacent." These places are massive, and I mean echo in the living room massive, containing six-plus rooms and a private jacuzzi.

The bellman rushes out and hops into a shuttle, motioning for them to follow so that he can properly introduce them to their home for the evening. When he gets back, we both have a hard time containing our excitement, not because there's a celebrity in our building, but because she happens to be drop-dead gorgeous. "She's my future wife," he says. "No way, I saw her first, I'm almost positive she wants to divorce her husband and run away with me."

The next afternoon I am going about my business as usual when who should walk up the path? Exactly. She comes over and I ask her how their day was on the mountain. "Actually, it sucked. It was a total waste of two hundred bucks. We couldn't find any powder! Groomers are alright but I definitely didn't pay to ride on some icy highways between the trees." I understand her pain. "Man, I wish I had my day off today, I could have shown you guys some sweet powder stashes that no one rides. There's this amazing natural halfpipe too, called Canus Lupus, that is insanely fun right now because it's so fast without any fresh snow on it. If you're not afraid to get between the trees, there's so much fun to be had even though we haven't had snow in two weeks."

She laughs and agrees that it would have been a better day had I been guiding them. She heads inside to check out and I go to the truck to talk to her husband and apologize to him for the lack-luster ski-day. "Dude, if you want powder, you should come with us to Powder Mountain. Have you been there? We have this house up there that we're going back to tonight because this place just isn't cutting it." Astonished, I can only reply, "I haven't. I've heard good things though from some of the locals, but it's so far north and there's so many mountains near here that I can board for free that I just haven't had a mind to make the trip." He nods his head, "Well, if you want you can stay with us and we'll show you where to get the best powder. Here, why don't you get my number and you can call me on your day off." I try to keep my excitement buried deep down while I rush to the bell-stand to grab a pen and notepad, keeping my pace as casual as possible. "Cool man, well call me sometime this week because we'll be up there until Friday, after that we're going back to LA for work." I nod as if this is something that happens to me all the time, "No problem, I have Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday off, how does Tuesday sound?"

When I came home to tell Kyle the story he seemed skeptical, but also very interested in joining me if I decided to make it a reality. It turned out, without his help I probably never would have seen them again.

On Monday night I text Dave to see if the offer is still open, thinking that he's probably forgotten all about his hap-hazard invitation of the random valet to his mountain get-away. To my surprise, he immediately responds and says that he's got a couch that is open that night, if I want to drive the two hours to get there right now. I run into the living room, already in my pajamas, "Dude, you want to drive to Powder Mountain?" Kyle looks at me with the same expression he always gets when I ask him to do spur of the moment potentially great or disasterous things and blurts out "Hell. Yes."

And that's how we ended up driving about a hundred miles north at midnight to Powder Mountain to meet up with strangers who I talked to for fifteen minutes so that we could sleep on their couch.

Kyle was almost positive that we were going to be raped, and debated bringing a hunting knife. I told him that it was cool and that it would be bad form to bring a hunting knife to someone's house after they offer you lodging. He reluctantly agreed and brought only clothing and beer, as was necessary.

* * * *

After an eighty mile an hour blast through the black of a Utah winter night, punctuated by glittering points of light in the sky and the occasional high beams coming in the other direction, we arrived. We followed painted wood signs displaying names like Wolf Mountain, Country Store, and Last Stop Express until we pulled into a gas station to grab some supplies: beer, white cheddar popcorn and a gallon of water.

I called Dave to find out if we were getting close. At this point I was still unsure whether he really wanted two strangers at his house and as it was midnight now, I had resigned myself to the belief that he probably wouldn’t answer his phone. I’d hatched the plan in my mind that we would sleep in Kyle’s car for the night, rising in the morning to shred Powder Mountain on our own. However, no more than two rings in Dave answers, to my surprise, informing us that we are actually very close and should be at his home in less than a minute.

Pulling into the neighborhood and finding the landmarks that Dave had explained, we prepared ourselves for the prospect of entering this strange home and greeting whoever might be inside. I had the unfortunate task of finding a snowboard to ride as well, as mine had mysteriously disappeared from the rack outside the Guest Services building at our resort. So now I was not only a dude sleeping on the couch, but a dude who was sleeping on the couch and needed to borrow a snowboard from someone.

All our fears were alleviated the moment we stepped inside. Family Guy playing muted on the television, a coffee table brimming with technological gadgets, packs of Natural Light cigarettes, and various odds and ends associated with shredding the mountain. Dave sat down in the love seat across from the couch and grabbed his Mac, delving into the days events of Heli-skiing and pulling up some helmet cam videos.

Soon the wet snap of beers being opened filled the room and we talked into the night about what the plan was for the next day. Particularly, whose board I would be using and what the rest of the crew would look like in the morning. In the house were two brothers, one residing in New York and the other LA, a beautiful woman named Aja (pronounced Asia) and Dave’s wife Joy who had accompanied him to the Canyons. Everyone in the house, barring Joy, worked as stuntmen and had every intention of using their physical capabilities to the fullest the next morning. Kyle and I were lulled to sleep by the comforts of central heating and the satisfaction of making something out of nothing. We slept well and awoke to the sound of women's voices in the morning.

* * *

The sun came up and revealed to us a fresh dusting of snow, with more falling every minute. The house came alive as people lumbered through the hallways, grabbing glasses of orange juice and greeting the two strangers sleeping in the living room. No one seemed the least bothered by the fact that two guys showed up in the middle of the night and would be joining them on the mountain all day. One of the brothers offered me a spare snowboard, a 162 Head Intelligence board which changed my entire opinion on board length and helped me procure some bindings to fit to it. There was a buzz in the room about the snow coming down outside and we were all itching to get on the mountain as soon as possible. We loaded up Dave’s truck with our gear and when everyone was positive they were not leaving anything important behind, we struck out for the summit.

Powder Mountain is what places like Vail, Aspen and Sun Valley traded in years ago to cater to the jet-set crowd in the mid seventies and eighties. It’s a relaxed, family operated simple mountain with a handful of chairlifts servicing seven peaks and ample in bounds back-country style terrain. The great thing about the setup here is that one chairlift can accommodate a vast territory due to well placed and graded cat tracks which are nearly impossible to miss. While winding through endless forests of untracked powder, without an out-of-bounds rope in sight, one can find themselves comfortably whisked back down to the chair on a groomed path that seems to spring up exactly when you look for it.

One area which struck me completely breaking the traditions of any resort I have been to is the Powder Country section. Here you are free to roam a tract of patchwork forest which is intersected by the winding main road of the mountain. At any point you can come to the roadways edge and walk across, continuing your untouched snow lines all the way to the bottom of the canyon where a converted school bus picks you up to ferry you back to the top. The bus is packed with skiers and snowboarders with a common lust for untouched snow- and everyone is finding it.

At the end of the day Kyle and I were wholly satisfied and completely energy depleted. We rendezvoused back at the house as planned and said our goodbyes. We all shared a blissful moment where we recapped the best moments of our day and left with big hugs and plenty of smiles. The drive home was passed by playing a simple word game which involves pairing two words by overlapping their structure. It produced a few gems, such as: Gasassination. We were home before we even realized it and immediately crawled into our beds for a sound night’s sleep.

The friends made and experience had was of a unique hue of beauty which I have not often found, blossoming in the context of utter faith in others. We dove into the abyss.

Our leap was measured in laughter and the knowledge that not every jump in life has a soft landing.

Good Snow or Bad, We Ride

The month of December blessed our pocket of peaks with several feet of snow and the gods of commerce blessed me with tips-a-plenty. All in all, I've made enough cash to pay for rent and essentials without ever using a paycheck. This has led to the inevitable conclusion of buying a brand new Nikon D90 which is on it's way into my arms as we speak.

The past few weeks have found me in many different situations that I couldn't have imaged a month ago and I mean that in the best possible way. Whether it's going to a house party with only a handful of people, including some friendly Brazilian girls who taught me to dance on New Years (if you can call the shuffling I came up with as dancing), walking three miles at three in the morning with temperatures in the negatives under a blanket of stars and a monochrome rise of hills covered in patchwork with fluffy snow, or conquering my first double black diamond runs with belly-button deep powder.

My job has become largely automatic as I weave in between conversations with guests, radio checks and getting to know the cool people that I work with every day. It's become second nature to engage everyone that comes within ten feet of me in pleasantries, to ask them about their day or find out their plans. I've become much more open to polite conversation with strangers and have picked the brains of many who come through the archway of my hotel about their line of work or the sensation of heli-skiing in the untouched back country. In between I've found the time to chat up Hillary Swank about Taiwan and practice my Chinese on the astonished guests from our neighbor to the West.

I've come to be acquainted with a vast array of new accents from places dotting the length of the American continents all the way to the very tip. They have renewed my vigor for exploring the land below our happy village of the United States and have implanted many new avenues of thought for the way my future will play out in the coming months and years. It's interesting trying to recall my ancient Spanish language abilities fostered through consecutive C-'s in high school which has become mixed up with the grab bag of Chinese floating through my mind. Sometimes, I reach in to find one word in Spanish, and come up with Chinese, and others I astonish even myself with an ear for understanding either. The international community that springs up each winter in this ski town, and many more, conjures images of an ancient port city on the spice trade lines; but with all the hippest snowboard gear.

The fashion associated with mountain communities has long been a curiosity of mine, from the lean gray foxes with their immaculate one piece ski suits to their bejeweled wives carving lines with stylish pony tails wrapped in lengths of white fur from some indiscriminate animal which was too cute for it's own good. Combine these aging retirees with their flashy offspring and you find yourself not at all surprised to come across a Lil' Wayne lookalike, pants sagging to the point of complete disuse and tall tees fluttering somewhere around their shins, hopping off a gondola with parents who ripped their entire outfit off of a mannequin at L.L. Bean. It's an eclectic group that is sure to find a home for any genre of couture.

My new camera will be coming next week, so the site should be getting some shiny new eye candy soon by way of brilliant sunshine and gloriously white slopes. I hope you're looking forward to it as much as I am.

The Inaugural Post

Utah by way of Taiwan.

After a year away, one week home just wasn't enough. Many happy moments were shared with friends and family but there wasn't enough time to really settle into my old stomping grounds and rehash some of the more secretive stories with my best friends. Though a party was had, and it was indeed wonderful, I wasn't able to spend the quality time with my friends that I would have hoped. In due time.

One fine Monday morning I set off on the familiar Interstate 90, beginning the long and wearisome crawl towards eastern Washington. This same drive used to have me in fits of rage as I found myself staring out at a vast empty plain, a solitary strip of pavement in front of me like a long zipper that wouldn't budge. This trip was different however, I swung south after heading through the beauty of Snoqualmie pass and made towards the Oregon border.

I merged onto Interstate 82 and hardly noticed the change in pace or scenery as it was much the same as I was used to after four years of driving back and forth between eastern and western Washington. Where the 82 becomes the 84 marks the beginning of Oregon, and as I crossed the bridge in Umatilla where a large sign welcomes you to the state, the sun was beginning to throw a golden light over the verdant wheat fields. The shimmering light bounced off the flowing stalks and cast a pleasant hue over the otherwise plain highway. I rode along, listening to various new radio stations as one would fade out and the next would crackle to life, enjoying the solitude and independence of the classic American combination of automobile and open road. On my right, resplendent fields awash in sunny glow, on the left, towering jagged peaks capped with snow and stretching as far as the highway would take me.

Darkness began to set in around the time I was coming to the far edge of Oregon, hugging the snake river as it winds down into the heart of southern Idaho. When the sun went down, the moon came up, obscured as it was by great thickets of fog.

While passing through the aptly named Deadman Pass, I encountered a fog bank so thick that coming upon it felt akin to slamming through a cement barrier. My visibility crunched down to about eight feet from the wind shield to the roadway. I hit the brakes and slowed down to thirty, despite it being a sixty mile an hour zone. The only way to indicate any direction was to follow the meager hash marks between lanes, which came out of the fog like lethargic snakes in front of my tires, only two or three marks visible at a time in the heavily saturated air. Despite this obvious hazard, I was continually passed by eighteen wheelers in the left lane sending buckets of spray in front of me as they did so, further destroying any semblance of view that I was clinging to. After twenty minutes of this pace, sitting stock straight, both arms crooked and ready for any movement necessary, eyes swiveling from hash mark to hash mark, I suddenly burst through the fog without a trace of evidence to the contrary. It became a scepter in my rear view as though nothing had ever occurred at all; a completely clear and starry night found me on the other side.

I spent the night at a friend of my sisters in Boise, a couple who welcomed me, a veritable stranger, as well as anyone could hope: a bed, three thick blankets, a hot shower and a warm meal. We chatted about my drive and came to my future plans. I mentioned wanting to work on a forest fire crew somewhere in the northwest, as it turned out, Steve was just the man to see about such work. He works for the Bureau of Land Management in Idaho and has a successful career in smoke jumping, the granddaddy of forest fire fighting work. These are the guys who are rappelling out of helicopters into the middle of blazes, fighting them from the inside-- a very serious business. With his help, I came away with a list of people to call and a step-by-step of how to apply online for the position I was interested in. I thanked him for this advantageous information and went to enjoy the comforts of the spare bedroom that they'd set up for me.

In the morning I had a hot shower and cooked up some blueberry oatmeal on the range top before packing up my things. I took a moment to fill my water bottle at the sink. The simplicity of cold, drinkable water flowing from every tap in the house did not go unnoticed by me, as I recalled the various tactics I'd engaged on a daily basis in Taiwan for the same luxury.

On the road again, I hopped onto Interstate 84 which wound all the way down into northern Utah. Along the way I was treated to views which compelled me to pull over and stop on the side of the road, hazard lights blinking and fellow road warriors passing by without a second glance. I stood at the guardrail of a particularly entrancing view and soaked in the majesty of a serene valley filled with a thick blanket of fog encircled by a range of gently sloping mountains. I was overcome by the notion that I should immortalize the moment on film, which I did, thanks to my trusty old film camera.

I never did notice a state sign for Utah. But I realized without a doubt that I'd entered the state when I saw a billboard standing gloriously above the highway with the immediately recognizable evolution of man image with a large red circle and "X" through it. Next to that, in a beautiful and wistful font were the words "And then God created... (Genesis 1:1)"

As I climbed the canyon leading from Salt Lake City to Kimball Junction and finally Park City, I called Kyle, my soon-to-be roommate to confirm the location of our apartment. He assured me that I was close and that I should turn onto the road for The Canyons Resort, our employer for the season, explaining that our house was located along the main drive. This was exciting news, as up until that moment I had no idea where I would be living, and up until a few days prior, neither did Kyle. He had been in Salt Lake for a week, living out of his car and on the couches of friends from his previous season at The Canyons, frantically scrounging together leads on a suitable place to live. He put in long hours on his tireless search, and came away with a gold nugget to show for it.

As I pulled into the resort's main drive, I was struck by the beauty of the deep snow covering the hills around my new home. Though the terrain is very different than the mountains I have grown accustomed to in Washington, jagged peaks standing solitary among great evergreen forests, it held it's own appeal in sheer range. They may not stand alone, but the mountains here sprawl out into a ski paradise of over 150 trails covering eight total peaks; and that's just this one resort. I called Kyle again, not sure of the directions he'd given me, and turned down an icy street lined with small buildings containing two to three apartments a piece. He answered with a frantic "Dude!" before continuing, "I see you! Just keep going forward, do you see me in the window?" I didn't, but if he could see me then I was fine with that.

He ran down the steps of our second floor apartment and met me in the parking spaces outside our door. It was good to see him, as it had been over a year since we'd last met, and I was happy to find that he was just as goofy and gangling as ever, decked out in an over-sized puffy down jacket and unkempt hair. Like a couple of happy puppies, we hugged.

He couldn't wait to show me inside, and we decided to leave the truck bed full of belongings alone for a moment, so that I could enjoy my first glimpse of my new home unencumbered. When I stepped inside, it was far more than I could have hoped for.

The foyer consists of a narrow hallway lined with shelves on the right side for boots, shoes and snow gear. Hooks on the wall provide ample storage for coats, gloves, helmets and ski pants. Behind the door is a space for skis and snowboards. The hallway leads into the living room with it's rough-hewn wood walls and high pitched ceiling. Across the ceiling, halfway between the floor and the eave of the roof are two beams of solid wood which give the lofty room a cozy, cabin feel. On the left wall is the fireplace and mantle, which is now adorned with equal parts books, knick-knacks, and photos. Along the right wall is a steep ladder leading to the loft, where Kyle has set up shop and is now sleeping comfortably, nights. Beneath this loft is the single bedroom, which is so small that should we house chickens in it, PETA will be on our ass for setting up a factory farm. Through this bedroom is the entrance to the bathroom and shower, both adequate and functional. In the living room, the far wall sets back into a recess creating space for a dining table and a corner of windows facing towards the mountain and accompanying resort, to the right of this is the simple but spacious kitchen.

We hauled in all the new furniture and gear, taking time to build our dining table as we had a beer and some oven baked pizza, served in bowls as is customary when moving into a new home and you can't find all the dishes.

Enjoying our meal, sitting on the floor in our apartment which was and is so cold that you can see your breath, we clinked beers and toasted ourselves on a job well done. He we are, two wanderers who made a life possible in a ski town from two countries thousands of miles away. Drinking our beer and finishing our greasy dinner, we laughed as we caught each other up on a years worth of stories beginning with, as ever: "Dude, I wish you could have been there..."