Sweet Grass County
This story is proof of the mantra–which I don’t actually think is a mantra, perhaps more just an imagined adage–that nothing will happen to you if you don’t leave the house. In any case, leaving the Fraser Valley, the greater Denver area, and the generally-great state of Colorado simply could not come soon enough. When...
Brief Interlude
We’ve now entered, and nearly completed, the awkward, precarious, sometimes-seemingly-infinite time that extends from the arbitrary end of one season to the likewise arbitrary beginning of another. At least solstices and equinoxes make sense, based on astronomical phenomena, as they are. Now we bide our time, consider our bank accounts, travel or contemplate traveling, catch...
Midsummer Blues
I realize this is an uncommon sentiment, as more often than not we hear about midwinter blues, a yearning for the warmth and longer days of summer sun. But it’s July, almost August, and I have had three months of perfect weather, daily summer lightning storms, swimming, hiking, splashing, frolicking, and general states of relative...
Strawberries
To be completely honest — I’ll make no bones about it (where does that expression come from, anyway?) — this winter has been lousy snow-wise. Some say it’s the worst in thirty years, some say longer. What’s certainly true is we’ve had less snow this year than any in recent memory, and somewhere around half...
Cliffs
I just returned from a three-day whirlwind trip to a few new ski areas in the south of Colorado. It was three days of extreme skiing, mostly for free (thank goodness for that Colorado Real Deal!), and quite a bit of mountain driving. As it turns out, the San Juans, which include most if not...
Obligatory Ski-Life Metaphor
You either have so many choices—such a wide expanse of space, a million lines and a million options—or you have none: a death-defying, boulder-scraping drop off the end, a last minute bail to avoid a tree-trunk, one wrong step and it’s over. You choose your path, the wide frolic or the narrow chute. It’s harder,...
A Ski Video: March 2010
Ski videos are as integral to the ski bum way of life as half-price pints of beer, dollar tacos, and hitchhiking. Please pardon the abominable, er, skiing.
Powder.
Powder days are what ski bums live for. Four, five, six, seven, eight, ten, twelve inches of fresh, fluffy, soft and forgiving sparkling dust from the gods. Powder days are a reason to call in sick, play hooky, get up early, stay out late, rock hard, dance hard, party hard, and pray hard for ever...
