In Need of More Silence

A couple of weeks ago, I hauled a sled with camping gear into the Jewel Basin for a little over night ski trip. The weather was supposed to be good, I had a weekend free, the snow was supposed to be great, and I needed to train for Denali. I was by myself because I had difficulty convincing anyone else to go in with me. The snow was great, so it must have been another reason...I swear I shower and use deodorant! I had a great weekend running around and skiing in the mountains by myself. After hauling in the sled 6 1/2 miles up the road to Camp Misery, the parking lot/trailhead of the Jewel, I set up a camp and prepared some delicious tuna-mac for dinner. I was all wrapped up and ready for some shut-eye when I realized the full moon was rising. So I had my own little "Moonlight Dine and Ski." I took a lap up to the ridge above my tent and skied amazing snow, face-shots included, via light from the moon. The next day I toured around the area, skiing cool north-facing shots before breaking camp and wrangling my sled back to my pickup. Here's a little taste of the trip in video form:


Winter Camping in the Jewel Basin from Colter Lane on Vimeo.

I find that I definitely enjoy skiing, climbing, hiking, biking, and any other number of things much more when I'm with other people. You can feed off each other's enjoyment, laugh at each other's mistakes, share in the glory of the scenery and amazing-ness of the the experience, and share in the decision making. Even pictures are better with other people in them. However, I do enjoy getting out by myself. I can go my own pace, do what I want to do, and not have to worry about anyone else. One other nice thing is that it's quiet. At one point on the Saturday I was in the Jewel it was snowing and if I stopped all I could hear, or more appropriately "sense," was the falling snow around me. There are very few times in my life where I feel as though I have been in a quieter place. Absolutely no distractions from other people, technology, machinery, media, etc. It was as if my world was on pause and I was getting to experience a single moment in time repeated indefinitely. The snow was beautiful in its silence; I was enthralled.

Reflecting on that time in the woods, I have to wonder how many occasions do we have to really experience quiet? We have so many media influences bombarding us every day. I've seen people of all ages who seem to be addicted to music, needing to be "plugged-in" to their mp3 players. While substitute teaching recently, the class was watching 180 Degrees South. In it the filmmaker takes off on a journey to reach Patagonia, following in the footsteps of Yvon Chouinard and Doug Tompkins. The class was being taught about media influence in their lives; being asked if they could go 6 months without video games or music players. But there were kids in the class that we (me and a co-teacher) couldn't even get to un-plug and watch the movie!

Through all of this we miss out on two things: 1) Interaction with the people around us, and 2) Time for reflection on what's going on in our lives, both of which I feel are extremely important. My challenge for anyone who reads this is to become aware of how much media influences your life, how much you willingly expose yourself to the bombardment of technology and information. I won't encourage you to give it up completely: I think that would be rash and selfish in its own way (if I threw away my cell phone, it limits the ability of others to contact/coordinate with me). Find ways though, to take breaks and seek to engage actual human beings more and give your life some reflection.

Ski Week in Review

Last week was pretty remarkable: three days of slackcountry and powder schralping at Big Mountain and a weekend warrior dash in the backcountry of the Middle Fork corridor.

Two stoked friends and one happy dog on top of a third lap of perfect snow.

With new snow all week long, skiing at the resort was fantastic. Monday saw several new inches of fresh, creamy snow. The visibility was not very good and skiing the upper mountain was often like skiing in a ping pong ball. But no one was up there and the you could find places to absolutely charge in between the layers of fog. I spent some time in the beacon park as well, rooting around in the snow trying to find buried transceivers. There is so much snow on top of them that I was unable to find the boxes with my probe pole, just get as close as possible with my locator beacon. It makes me that much more aware of the danger of avalanches and the difficulty of finding someone who is buried.

Thursday dawned clear and sunny, and the mountain was spectacular. I got to the mountain and ripped off a couple of technical laps riding the chair. My first line was down East Rim and I nailed my favorite line, airing a small drop, and linked the apron below into the trees. The biggest thing that I’m working on recently is skiing technical lines from top to bottom with pausing or hesitating. Needless to say, my fists were pumping the sky when I hit Momentum at the bottom.

A couple more loops in bounds and I started ducking the rope. First on the agenda was the rapidly warming (due to sun exposure) face of Hellroaring Peak. I hustled up the boot-pack trail up to the summit and skied down into steeper terrain. I then dug a pit, which was a ton of work due to all the wind blasted/compacted layers. Strength tests were fairly good, but I still stuck close to the trees as I worked my way down the ridge. Great snow, and almost spring-like conditions near the bottom. Eating lunch on the lift was inevitable on such a gorgeous day and I found myself at top of the resort again with hunger satiated and thirst quenched.

So I dove into the Canyon, a region descriptively named due to in part to the corridor that is drops into and also because the drainage funnels into Canyon Creek. At the bottom there is a Forest Service road that is groomed for snowmobiles in the winter. This makes for an easy hike back to the resort’s lift service and can even mean a tow out of the Canyon with either a rope or your poles on the back of a sled (snowmobile). The snow was incredible! So much so that I had to jump in again; unfortunately I forgot my snorkel both times… To finish the day I rode the chair until closing time, running through the terrain park several times since I was in the area, and then waited for the rest of my team for the race league that evening.

Drop that knee! Amazing snow!

While running around the “slack country” of Big Mountain, alone and among my scheming thoughts, I began to surmise a challenge for myself. Very often on Sunday afternoons, Dad and I get out of church and head up to the Mountain. The last several times we have done this we’ve taken two laps in the Canyon and then went home. According to my calculations, one could conceivably do 3 laps in the Canyon and then a climb and ski of Hellroaring Peak before all the lifts were closed. It would be pushing it, with no room for chit-chat or dawdling, but totally doable. I’m dubbing it the Sunday Slackcountry Scramble, and I’d like to do it before the end of the season.

At the end of the week, my buddy Caleb and I toured into the backcountry of the Middle Fork of the Flathead. Leaving town fairly early we arrived to see the parking lot full of vehicles and jammed with people. This is slightly an exaggeration, but 6 other skiers were all gunning to find freshies in the same area that day. Fortunately for us they headed in the opposite direction we did and we never saw them until we came back to our rig. Think about that: six other skiers and we never saw sign of other people nor heard voices the whole day. Amazing! I love getting into the backcountry! We gained the ridge without too much trouble, skied down the slope a ways, and dug a snow pit. Finding the conditions super stable and with ski penetration into “Four Finger” (a measure of resistance to penetration) all the way to 40-50 cm down we went nuts.

Self-portrait trying out my new tripod on the top a high point on the ridge we hung out on all day. The sun had just come out making the views incredible and my altimeter just topped out at 7000 feet.

According to our calculations we skied up and down about 7000 feet that day over the course of three climbs. My legs were tired but definitely in very good shape; I felt strong and was able to ski hard. At the top of the second climb, Caleb expressed doubts that he could do another one, both with time and energy concerned. What did I do? I pulled out my Bag-O-Commitment and shared some fig newtons. Among quotations of a beloved comedian, we decided to push for another 2000 feet or so of skiing on the next lap. Needless to say, the level of stoke was high due to great snow, good visibility, and good companionship. Thanks for the awesome day Caleb!

Bag of Commitment

I’ve started carrying a personal “Bag-O-Commitment” when I go out backcountry skiing. I got the idea from Greg Hill, a professional skier in Canada. He set a goal to climb and ski 2 million vertical feet over the course of one year and succeeded just last December. He had to average about 5500 feet of elevation everyday, which meant that he was doing over 10,000 feet some days since he couldn’t ski every single day. To put that in perspective, the highest peak in Glacier National Park is just over 10 thousand. Big Mountain is just about 2400 feet from the parking lot to the summit. You can do the math yourself but I’m thinking that 4 Big Mountains equals 1 average day for Greg.

As might happen when you do something crazy like this, it’s hard to find partners to ski with you. So he came up with a plan: whenever he went out he had a bag full of snacks that he would share with his ski partners. He gladly shared the food but it was given on a condition: they would have to commit to a huge day of hiking and skiing. The deeper they dug into that bag, the more vertical they would have to climb that day. But the cool thing is that everyone was excited about it! Greg was stoked to hand it out to get partners to ski big days and they were pumped to get the goodies since they were going big, skiing hard, and getting really good snow.

I think a lot of people look at having a relationship with Jesus as following this list of rules and regulations, like stepping into a box that traps us and takes all the fun out of life. For me, following Jesus is more like reaching into a Bag of Commitment. He’s not this figure that’s out there in space somewhere commanding us to do things, demanding that we go to church or read the bible or help old ladies across the street. Christianity is a journey that he invites us on and goes with us. Jesus keeps on knocking on my door, asking me to reach into his Bag. What I get out of the Bag is love and joy and peace. But the cool thing is I’m never expected to give anything back. I’m just invited to follow Jesus…but I am stoked to continue on this journey.

Peter is a good example from the Bible of someone struggling to accept Jesus’ Bag of Commitment. He was a pretty fiery follower and he put his foot in mouth a lot. One of his most shining moments really wasn’t: he tries to step out of a boat and walk over to Jesus who has been sauntering around the middle of the lake. But Peter just barely sticks his finger tips into the Bag and tried to pull something out. It just doesn’t work that way and he almost sank. Then when Jesus was killed by a mob later, Peter disowned him three times, claiming that he didn’t know him. But then something clicked about a month and a halk later and he went “shoulder deep” into the Bag. He spoke to thousands of people in Jerusalem about how they had killed Jesus and they needed to change their lives in order to ask for forgiveness.

Jesus is always here, holding out his Bag of Commitment, inviting us all to join him on a his journey, asking us to “Go for it!” Like climbing 10 thousand feet in a day, it’s not always going to be easy, but it can always be exciting.