“Work Hard, Play Hard” has been my mantra of late. For now, this means putting in 40-plus hours of work in four days and then taking the next three trying to put in just as much time outdoors. Luckily, I have a few good gal pals around who are more into playing than working these days, so I’ve got some willing (climbing, hiking, cycling) partners. Rocky Mountain National Park has proven to be a good stomping ground, with the new-to-me Lumpy Ridge just outside of Estes Park offering infinite climbing opportunities. Conveniently, a friend of a friend is a ranger in the park, so I somehow got invited to an amazing sushi party over the weekend at one of the ranger houses in Wild Basin. At first glance, I thought that the arrangement of homemade rolls was too artful to eat. But then I reconsidered…and dug in. The next day, we climbed at Lumpy’s The Pear with full bellies (Cece, left; Deb, right):
I’m just learning how to place trad climbing gear, and the progress feels tediously slow at times. But the shared moments with friends seem to counteract my frustrations a bit.
Taking in the summit views and giggling down shady rappels makes the effort worthwhile.
It runs in the family: an affection for beauty that cities AND mountainous places have to offer. But my sister and I are like yin and yang in this regard. She makes NYC her home and travels in high style. I’ve tended to travel on a shoestring budget, been known to stay in the desert or the mountains until I run out of money. Sometimes we come together to travel, and rip-roaring adventures ensue.
A few years ago, for example, we drove Iceland’s ring road together. I had the stopover in Iceland because I’d purchased the cheapest flight to London, and it was included. She, however, had been curious about Reykjavik and bought a ticket to join me. We camped at Eurotrash campsites along the road (my idea) and then stayed in a swanky city hotel and fine dined when we returned to civilization (her idea). After I left, she stayed another day to shop. It worked.
Last weekend, here in Vail, Colorado, we had another sisters’ weekend, this one motivated by my sister’s desire to climb Mont Blanc in August. Mont Blanc is Western Europe’s highest peak, but there is still enough snow up high on Vail mountain to provide a good training ground. So we set out in the morning sleet and walked up Golden Peak to do some ropework practice. Higher up, we strapped on the crampons and got out our ice axes to practice self-arresting in case of a fall on steep (or crevassed) terrain (click YouTube link below to view a brief dramatization).
Overall, it was a long day out that included around 3,000 feet of climbing, a fox sighting, some whimpering, and a big German dinner at Pepi’s when we returned to town.
As soon as it warms up, I keep saying, I will start on all of those projects that have been on hold all winter. Temps have been rising here in Vail, Colorado, but then it went and snowed four inches on Friday night. Will summer ever arrive?
If it does, in fact, stop snowing, my priority project is getting the Old Lady in better road condition. This vehicle, a 1970 VW van, has impressed me over these last few years. It chugs steadily over mountain passes and otherwise just gets me where I need to go. Of course, anything this old is way finicky and constantly threatening to explode, but I guess I’ve committed to it and am not willing to let it go, especially after all I went through in the fall:
I may have mentioned it then, but when I returned to the U.S. after a prolonged absence, the van was full of mice nests, and it basically smelled like crap. I freaked out about Hantavirus and cleaned the entire thing out with bleach.
My summer plan is to gut the interior, put a new floor down and build a sleeping platform with storage underneath. Currently, an unusable sink and some sort of cooler are inside, along with bench seats that fold out into a bed. Those have got to go.
Mechanically, things are looking pretty good. I just put in new air filters, but other than that, I trust most engine issues to real mechanics. Anyhow, now I’ve written down the plan, so it must be put into action. As soon as the snow melts.
It may be over, the winter. This will not surprise a bunch of you who have been out running around in shorts and sandals for a few weeks now, but things are just starting to melt here in Vail, CO. It still snowed a few inches one eve last week, though, and every time I see flurries, I wonder if it will be the last snow. The ski lifts closed two weekends ago now (and just last weekend at Breckenridge). The end of the season went out with a bunch of live music and other activities here in Vail, such as the final Street Beat and a car giveaway (which I was determined to win, but did not). One of my best gal pals (pictured at right) came out to visit from Michigan, and as soon as the music got going, the snow started coming down in big, wet flakes. It was one of those soaking snows, and I was glad for it, as it hopefully gave her an accurate taste of what it is like to live somewhere where it just snowed over 500 inches in one season.
Speaking of tasting things…
There is nothing like catching snowflakes on the tip of your tongue. I may have to wait a few months to do it again. In the meantime, there is a lot of living to do out there, folks. So drop me a comment every now and then to let me know what life is looking like in your neck of the woods.
It’s true: I dream about living in a yurt. Yes, a yurt: a portable circular tent-type structure of Mongolian design. Yurts were once used by nomadic people in Central Asia, but today they’re being sold and set up on mountain property by companies such as Pacific Yurts. Since I’m now living in Vail, Colorado, and real estate prices are ridiculous (hundreds of thousands of dollars for a wimpy studio apartment), the idea of living in a yurt has become more attractive. It would work, I think, to have some land and live in a yurt. I know two people who do this (one in Idaho and another in Colorado), and I’m sure that there are some challenges with this idea, such as where to put the outhouse and how to manhaul in your supplies, but there are plenty of people out there who are making it happen. When The Sister recently visited, we showshoed into the Tennessee Pass Cookhouse, located about a mile away from the base of the Cooper ski area, near Leadville, Colorado.
The Cookhouse is a yurt that has been set up as a nice restaurant—I would definitely recommend it for anyone coming to visit the area (and go for the elk tenderloin; it was good). Visitors can choose to either strap on showshoes or cross-country ski in through the forest.
I thought that they did the outhouse quite nicely (above, back right). It was built near the yurt, and they had decorated the inner walls with vintage ski posters and had candles burning inside so that you could see what you were doing.
The inside of the yurt was warmed by a wood stove, and the windows allowed for some good natural lighting. I think that this yurt was 34- or 36-feet in diameter, which would allow for a crowd of up to 30 diners. I couldn’t help but sit there and sip wine while thinking about what it would be like to have a yurt of my own…
With nearly 20 inches of new snow here last week in the Vail Valley, it’s hard to believe that spring is starting to happen out there. But a recent getaway to Moab/Indian Creek confirmed it. Yep, there are places—right now—where people are wearing flip-flops and climbing outside in the afternoon sun. My motorcycle-diva friend Karen (waking up in tent, at right) provided the impetus for the journey. Her friend was running in a race in Moab, so we decided to rally there for some adventures. This fall, she took a three-month Pacific Northwest motorcycle trip (trying to stay on backroads as much as possible), so I trusted her in the driver’s seat for the afternoon. We cruised out of Moab on Spanish Valley and then headed up into the hills. There was still some snow up there, and a few places where I had to dismount so that she could navigate through patches of ice, but the view of Castle Valley from above was well worth the bits of walking that were required.
Good coffee stops aside, Moab isn’t one of my favorite places in the world. But I dream about everything that surrounds it. Deep red rock canyons, crack climbing, coyote songs, and spacious desert vistas: these are the things I crave, and a night camping at the Bridger Jack Mesa gave me enough of a fix…for a little while. Of course, I’m already planning a return.
The climbing the next day at Indian Creek’s Pistol Whipped was painful and as humbling as ever. I went out with two guys who seemed to float up that stuff effortlessly, as if a 5.12 finger crack were a warm-up. Struggle: I suppose that enough of it is important to keep life fresh, and climbing in the desert will probably always put me back in my place.
“We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” –John Steinbeck, in Travels with Charley
Just as I’d been itching for a little roadtrip, some of my gal pals from Boulder planned a girls-only getaway to Devil’s Thumb Ranch in Tabernash, Colorado. The stats: 7 women, 3 dogs, 2 hotel rooms, and a Nordic center with 125km of trails and 5,000 acres of terrain. Whoa. And to relax, an evening spent soaking it up in the naturally steamy mineral pools located nearby in Hot Sulphur Springs (aptly named, eh?). Devil’s Thumb Ranch is this amazing place that seems to be out in the middle of nowhere, a posh lodge and spa. But we were there to Nordic ski, so we set out in the afternoon and had a blissfully sunny time cruising over trails that wandered through aspen groves and offered wide-open views of the mountains all around.
Definitely some of those I-love-Colorado moments cropped up. I’ve been having a lot of those moments lately, but it was good to share them with these sassy ladies.
Over a Mexican dinner, the life-stories started coming out. One of the women had just spent six months in Guatemala and was plotting a return. Another had fixed up a crumbling cabin in Leadville. Another was getting up early the next morning to help out with a Special Olympics event at Copper Mountain. Collectively, this was a group of skiers, climbers, hikers, runners, ambitious travelers, women who did multiple sets of one-armed pull-ups and were generally doing things to Save the World (a slight exaggeration, but you see what I’m saying). The weekend’s reminders: it’s good to live fully. And it’s good to be around other people who are out there doing that, too.
It’s official. I have signed a lease on an apartment here in Vail, Colorado. My little one-bedroom feels huge, maybe because it’s the first time in over five years that I’ve had my own place, complete with a permanent mailing address. Is this the end of the road? Could be. Even though I’m sure I’ll start getting restless at some point, I currently have no complaints about the new backyard: Vail Mountain, ski heaven. During the seven days surrounding my arrival, it snowed 42 inches. I’m not lying. Long-time locals are saying that this is the best season in a decade. Naturally, friends from other places (like Cathy, pictured above right) are excited that I’m living here, and I welcome them to come visit—even though I’m still eating off of my camping cookware, and my couch isn’t big enough to sleep on. The walls are bare, and I don’t have anything as luxurious as a spatula or a vacuum cleaner or a TV. But, hey. Who wants to be inside anyway, when right outside the door stuff like this (below) awaits?
Lately, it has seemed to be sunny during the day and snowy at night. In the mornings, fresh powder is dusting the slopes, and trees are sagging under the weight of the snow:
I did move here to work, so for four days a week, I’m sitting inside wondering what the conditions are like. But on those other three days, it’s nice to hop on a shuttle into town to find out.
The Mountaintop Inn and Resort in Chittenden served as the location for a final two days of family adventures in Vermont. This place was only 11 miles from Killington, and it had its own Nordic center. Horse-drawn carriage rides, dogsledding, skate skiing, snowmobiling—these were only a few of the available activities. What to do? The Sister and I got excited about the idea of going dogsledding, as neither of us had been before. We showed up to find a young man and a woman tending to a pack of howling huskies by headlamp. They welcomed us to come pet them while they picked the team, and it was quickly evident that each dog had its own personality. One would want to cuddle up, and another would bark and back away.
The dogs yelped and howled, and once they were all harnessed and ready to run, The Sister and I tucked ourselves comfortably onto the sled. “Let’s go. GO!” The musher shouted, and we were off, sliding over the snow behind a dozen or so dogs.
I wondered if it were unkind to the dogs to have them pull our weight around, and when I asked the musher, he seemed taken aback by my question. “These dogs were born to run,” he said. “Didn’t you hear how excited they were to get picked?” Oh. Yeah. I felt like a total touron, not having been around dogs like that before, but it seemed funny to think that they were enjoying pulling as much as we were enjoying just sitting there.
The ride turned out to be a beautiful new way to experience the outdoors, complete with a new set of sounds (crunching snow, a scraping sled), sights (a forest, lit by the musher’s LED headlamp, the wagging tails of happy dogs), and sensations (a smooth-moving sled, rolling around corners, up and down hills).
Vermont is real, at least this part of it: Killington, Chittenden, Woodstock, Quechee, etc. I’m currently on a quickie roadtrip with my parents and The Sister (pictured right). We all met up in NYC on Thursday afternoon and drove a rental car up here on Thursday eve. We’ve been staying at a lodge in Killington and fully enjoying what this nice state has to offer. There’s more than maple syrup in these parts, I’ll have you know. Impressively good snow at Killington on Friday made for a good day downhill skiing with The Sister. And Saturday’s trip to Woodstock was way down-home. Places not to miss in this little town include the F.H. Gillingham & Sons General Store, established in 1886:
Gillingham’s sells local cheeses and jams, and it has a nice wine section right next to the kids toys and books. Gillingham’s also stocks birdseed, facial products, garden tools, kitchen appliances, and—of course—a wide selection of maple syrup. The impressive thing about Gillingham’s, though, is that it doesn’t have that mass-produced/made-in-a-foreign-country feel, and as I’m writing this, I’m feeling a bit sad that it’s the exception rather than the norm now in this country to go somewhere that still has local character. Gillingham’s would be that kind of place, evidenced here in the rows of homemade jams with little cloth cozies covering the lids:
Woodstock also has this amazing chocolate shop, the W.M. Winand Chocolatier. We took a break from our leisurely walk through Woodstock to sip Winand’s gourmet dark hot chocolate (extra thick). Cheers, from the family:
When I get together with my family, I’m reminded that the adventurous spirit runs deep in this clan. The Momster and Dad were out on a four-hour snowshoeing excursion while we skied, and everyone has been keen to try at least something new. From seared brussel sprouts to cross-country skiing, dogsledding, and snowmobiling, the family adventures here in Vermont have been nonstop.
“Work Hard, Play Hard” has been my mantra of late. For now, this means putting in 40-plus hours of work in four days and then taking the next three trying to put in just as much time outdoors. Luckily, I have a few good gal pals around who are more into playing than working these days, so I’ve got some willing (climbing, hiking, cycling) partners. Rocky Mountain National Park has proven to be a good stomping ground, with the new-to-me Lumpy Ridge just outside of Estes Park offering infinite climbing opportunities. Conveniently, a friend of a friend is a ranger in the park, so I somehow got invited to an amazing sushi party over the weekend at one of the ranger houses in Wild Basin. At first glance, I thought that the arrangement of homemade rolls was too artful to eat. But then I reconsidered…and dug in. The next day, we climbed at Lumpy’s The Pear with full bellies (Cece, left; Deb, right):
