Alas, the ski season has ended but, as these things go, there will be another one next year. I had a good season overall, pushing myself far beyond where I ever thought I’d get as a skier (and probably further than I should have gone given my bad habits and poor form- I tend to crouch too much), I enjoyed the hell out of every minute, and I lived to tell about it. The weather was weird this year (I mean really weird) giving us several warming/thawing periods, and I skied by myself almost exclusively (save a handful of times that Al skied with me; what a great guy and a phenomenal skier), but all in all it was a great season.    

I scared myself silly a few times and, as I have found to be the case in the past, those were the best experiences I had all season-  want to go back next year and do them  again…only bigger. Last Monday (April 13, 2009) I had what I am now referring to as simultaneously the single dumbest and most extremely exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life. Out on Vasquez Cirque (I’ve written about it before here) the farthest ski able terrain is known as the Alphabet Chutes (though I’ve never seen them named as A, B, C, D…). Off the chute named Destiny are a handful of gnomon-like rocks that protrude up from the snow and cast their shadows across the face of the main chute. I had already hiked out and skied Destiny once, and wanted something a bit more steep and challenging, so on the second trip I took a look around and noticed that a person could fit between the rocks if there happened to be snow on the ground and the person in question had, say, some wood that they could polish up with some wax or some-such and strap to their feet to slide across said snow. Well, since I just happened to be a person of considerable question, and I just happened to have some polished wood that could be strapped to my feet, and their just happened to be snow on the ground, I decided “What the heck? Why not?”

So, I shimmied my way over, tried to look over the edge (it was too steep, so I had to reach my camera out as far as I could and take a picture), and decided I would give it a try. Okay, so here’s what you should do. Go  over to your wall- not yet, not yet. When I say “go”, then go over to your wall, stand facing along the wall with your feet together about the length of your foot away from it. Now, keeping your feet and hips facing forward (as you look down the wall), twist your shoulders to face toward the room (away from the wall), and then fall into the wall (you should be resting on it with your shoulder blade). Comfortable? Oh, it’s not over yet. Lift your inside knee (the one closest to the wall) as close to your chest as you can get it. Now imagine that your feet and shoulder blade are actually contacting the face of what amounts to little more than an ice caked cliff. Okay, now "go". Oh yeah, almost forgot. You are now stuck with only one way out; you have to slide across this frozen water (remember the waxed wood strapped to your feet) at an angle across the face of this thing between two huge rocks or, quite literally, you’re done. It was freakin’ awesome!!!!! I was so scared… 

It hit me after I had gotten myself down onto the face of what I am now sure is a cliff when there's no snow around that I couldn’t get back out the way I had come, that I had arrived to this point late in the day by myself,  that nobody had come up behind me, and that the Ski Patrol wouldn’t be coming out to close the Cirque down for the day unless someone had come out closer to closing- I was on my lonesome (I know some folks right now who might chuckle at that particular thought). If I bit it, I wouldn’t be found until the following morning sometime. Oops. Simultaneously the single dumbest and most extremely exciting thing I’ve ever done in my life. I‘d have to say though, even if I’d been with somebody it still would have been the dumbest thing I’ve ever done, just not quite as dumb. I really do need to get better at this skiing thing before I get myself hurt.

It struck me that, behind the rock I was about to have to navigate around in order to avoid an untimely end, I could see the cornice to the avalanche chute I had skied earlier that day. I thought to myself “Three short months ago I never would have imagined I would even dare to ski that, and now it suddenly looks like it would be a pleasant little stroll compared to this” ahh what it was to be young and innocent back then- simpler times three months ago...simpler times. It didn’t help that it has been warm so there really wasn’t any snow to speak of (I’ve seen video footage from people who’ve skied the same route and I couldn’t tell it was the same one at first because of the powder- that changes the nature of the ride considerably) and when the slope is that severe it doesn’t really hold the snow so much as the snow and ice cling to it.

The season was full of rides like that one- I must have skied the avalanche chutes of the Cirque six times in the eighteen days I skied, and other avalanche chutes on the Jane and Pine Cliffs another handful of times each. Every one was scarier than the last, and every one made me want more of the same, pushing myself harder. By this point in the season it doesn't seem so scary, but the thrill is there just the same. The first true avalanche chute I ever skied after dropping a decent sized cornice scared the living crap out of me. The picture top right on this posting just doesn't quite do it justice- it's much harder to look at when you're standing on the edge of it contemplating jumping off.

I made the drop after mentally cursing the hell out of some pilgrims who were prodding me to go while themselves hesitating to proceed down a "duckslide" side entrance to the same chute- pilgrims, now they can tell all their friends back in Des Moines that they skied the Cirque! Wrong guys; now you can tell your friends that you went skiing around the Cirque- and made these three beautiful slalom carves down the face of the chute until my right binding decided it wanted to spend some time and hang out in the powder some more. Right there. Yep, my binding released out of nowhere (the ski was still perfectly in place where I had been making my carve when all was said and done) and I got about a foot on one ski before I was sliding head-first on my back down the face of an avalanche chute and there's enough powder that I can't see anything because I was completely under the snow. I got about a hundred feet down the face of this thing before I actually came to a stop and let out a Whoop! What a ride!! When all was said and done, I had a hard time finding the ski because I was looking for something closer that might be sticking up in the air. Instead, it was waaaaaay up there and only the binding was visible in the powder- it sat perfectly in place as though someone were still standing on it. The binding was even engaged still because it was a toe release. I wasn't too concerned for avalanche danger on my little head-first ride because the Patrol had been blasting with their cannons that morning and the powder wasn't too fluid, nor was there very much of it. There were also about eight people right nearby to dig me out if nead be, so after the first few seconds passed it was more fun than scary. My biggest concern was the ski that was still attached and the knee that could be blown out if I wasn't careful with it.

I learned something that day: I got these skis at a great price brand-spankin' new last year (they were actually two years back-stock). Same with the boots, and the bindings were thrown in for cheap because I got the whole thing at once. Well, I was noticing the skis are extremely flexible and don't respond as quickly as I need them to all the time (pretty much anytime I'm off the groomers- most of my skiing day), and the bindings are maybe one up from the cheapest I could have purchased. I should have known. I now know, thanks to Al (more about him later), that I have a canting problem- I'm "pronated" which means that I naturally ski with all my weight on the inside edges of the ski. This means that I can't carve very well and cannot control my speed without compensating because one ski is on an edge, the other one is riding flat (he calls it an "A-Frame") which increases my surface area and zoom away I go. So I'm skiing on beginner/intermediate skis with a narrow waist on base model boots (I found out are used by almost all rental shops) that I cannot adjust cant or camber on, and my bindings, while cranked down as tight as they'll go to prevent just such an incident as a release while skiing in an avalanche chute, won't hold under extreme torque. I still had a great season and went back to the Cirque on those same skis wiht the same bindings and crappy boots and did okay (let's not get out of hand here, Bubba Miller- Warren Miller's half-brother from Arkansas- isn't even going to be calling me).

 This season I also got to ski with a friend of mine, Al Stoncius (he was also in that other story) several times, and he was able to show me some secret places on the mountain like the Secret Stash (that's him posing just above The Stash) and some hallowed ground like Topher’s Trees. Al and I have an ongoing dialogue about how we work with people who have lived here in Colorado, the place people from all over the world come to ski, there entire lives and have never once been skiing. It is like a secret hideaway that nobody knows about when you're up there; beautiful, fantastic, and therapeutic- something everyone should do once; especially if you live in a place like Colorado. Al is a good friend, a great skier, and an excellent teacher; he was helpful and had patience with me in my frustrations not being able to ski moguls worth a damn, and tried his best to help me.  I’ve gotten better, and would still be avoiding them if he hadn’t been there to help. He says that I brought his level of skiing up, and while I’m not sure how it would be possible for me to bring his level up any, he certainly did bring mine up- thanks Al, I had a great season skiing with you. By the way, I’m not a Pilgrim so stop calling me one; I just like to ski the steep stuff…

Al introduced me to a friend of his named Mark, and I got to ski with him too. Al and Mark are something of an anomaly. They’re both from Chicago and they both ended up skiers at Winter Park Colorado with their families; for some odd reason it just doesn’t seem to make sense but it doesn’t matter either. While Al is a former ski instructor with impeccable form and technique, Mark is a powerful skier who looks like he can ski anything. Don’t get me wrong, by no means does he look like he’s got poor form or technique, that’s my role in the group, but as Al puts it, “he’s just powerful”. Mark’s a Tax attorney and tries to get in about 100 days of skiing a year, of which I had the pleasure of skiing with him a few times and he showed me some tree skiing that was really nice. Mark has it made- he owns a house about 15 minutes drive from Winter Park, or there’s a back trail by which he can simply ski to his yard. Napoleon Dynamite would say lucky! Two great guys with whom I hope to ski again next year. 

Al said that he and Mark have been working out how to get to a specific back-country run off the traverse to the Cirque. He thinks he has it worked out, and it would be about a 2.5 hour hike, but that we could do it. We need some avalanche beacons but could have a really nice day if we get to the place he’s looking at. Ah, next season.

I’ve been working on a little video chronicling my ski adventures through the season and I finally got the footage I had been waiting for, so when it’s completed I’ll leave a posting and if you’re interested, have some spare time, or just plain have nothing better to do for about three and a half minutes, check it out. When you watch it, in the beginning you’ll see a brief shot of the lift ride and as the camera pans to the right you’ll see a huge cornice drop into and avalanche zone (not a chute on this one, a zone); that’s the place Al’s talking about…

Al and I on the last day of the ski season at the Jane base (Super Gauge Express lift in the background)