You ski racer
You ski so fast you rip the slope in two
You ski with rage
You ski to defeat and conquer
You ski through the gates of total conformity
I am a tele skier
I ski so low to melt into the hills
I ski with joy
I ski to free my soul
I ski through the trees, expressing my love of life
You snow boarder
You are so funny when you tie your feet together
You are pathetic when the slope gets flat
You are goofy with that sideways look
You have sacrificed your freedom for your silly image
my new skis are Karhu Kodiaks in166 with 22Designs Hammerhead bindings. I am using them with Scarpa T2 Thermo boots. This is a solid step towards my goal of going backcountry skiing. The telemark setup is the ultimate in versatility. It provides both a means of skiing uphill and a graceful turn for down hill skiing in addition to regular old parallel techniques.
with this cool new stuff coming in, I am becoming ever more aware that I am taking up more than my fare share of space in the apartment with my gear. A few months ago, I got a pair of full fingered bike gloves for riding in the cold. When I got home, I realized that I actually had 6 pairs of gloves in regular use. Today I decided to take a picture of my gloves.
there is not a really that many gloves. One pair is pretty much trashed and stays in the car in case I need them but didn’t bring any other gloves. A second pair is well on its way to that type of use. The leather gloves where a gift and I like them because they put some style in my life where I tent to only buy functional stuff. But I’m still shopping for a good pair of technical gloves that I like. That might end up as a system of gloves with liners and shells. Eek!
after the gloves I looked up in the closet and decided to photograph my head gear. I have 3 helmets and a few hats for various activities and conditions.
The old black bike helmet spent a few too many days in a hot car so its shell is all droopy and it got dropped a few times. I kept it as a cold weather helmet because I can easily adjust it to fit over a warm hat. Now I have a ski helmet (large black helmet with grey bits) for cold weather biking so this helmet might be on its way out. The blue helmet is the current hot weather bike / skate helmet. It is the same helmet worn by Lance in his 7th tour, just different colors. The black hat is windproof and fits under the black bike helmet. The orange hat is THE famous orange hat my aunt got me close to 10 years ago. There is my big sun hat for long hikes in the sun above the timber line as well as a cap my dad gave my grandfather and my grandfather gave to me. Of course there is something missing, I need a balaclava for really cold activities, looking for a good one of those to add to this picture.
The staple piece of gear for the adventurer is the backpack. It is the piece of gear that allows for all the other gear to come along for the trip. I don’t like emptying gear out of a bag to configure it for something else and I have also piled up various bags for various needs over the years so that by now each bag has settled into its own little job.
the little bag in the corner is a rucksack handed down from my parents, who knows how old it is, it used to carry my bouldering gear until I had too much climbing gear to fit in it. Now it just kind of hangs round, waiting for a job; old dogs never die. The next blue bag next to it is my everyday school bag and is on its third year. The black Lowe Alpine bag was my everyday school back for a few years until a seam blew out on the harness. The pack was sent back for repair and the Gregory (black with silver stripes) was purchased as a substitute for the time being. The Gregory now holds my rock climbing gear and the Lowe Alpine serves biking and skating. There are two Arc-T Bora’s in the picture. The smaller one was my mom’s daypack which she got under my recommendation. She didn’t like it and it is now my ski bag, I love it! The last bag is the Arc-T Bora 95 behemoth on the right. It is my backpacking pack. It can swallow a 15 in camera back in the wide direction for outdoor photo trips and has been above 9000ft elevation more than 10 times. It has been with me for every overnight hiking trip for the past 8 years. I would be lost without it.
Girls tend to have lots of shoes, but so do adventurous boys!
I’m not going to explain this photo because nobody would read it, but I will say that I forgot to put my dress shoes in the picture and my crampons were in the car. My sport sandals, neoprene boots, and scuba fins are all still in Taiwan with my dive gear so they are not shown either. So in addition to what you see here, there are 5 more pairs of footwear not represented.
Hiking before dawn in the winter is like traversing an alien planet. Through the crisp thin air, stars shine so boldly they hardly twinkle. Crystals of snow and ice shimmer like a field of diamonds as a cool swath of light sweeps over the terrain. The clapping of snowshoes, the squeaking of a pack frame, and the crunch of every step all silence at a rest revealing the utter silence of a winter night. The distance ahead is great unknown until dawn breaks through the trees like a symphony. The snowy scene transforms into a billowy cloud strewn with trees and shadows like a musical score. I hike on and the performance continues around me, for me. Exhaustion is irrelevant; cold is irrelevant. As the forest thins and the summit begins to reveal itself for the first time, distance becomes irrelevant. Step by step, the trees get shorter, the trail gets wider, and the sun gets higher and brighter.
Stepping up to a break in the trees reveals a vast clearing. The lake is frozen over and blanketed with snow; a misty cloud blasts across it and dissipates over the adjacent col. A bold white rocky summit rises out of the trees across the flat. The vantage is protected but the clouds above are being shredded on the rocks and over the ridge. They warn of impending hardship and danger. The scene encourages a check of preparations, sanity, and motivation. It is a reminder that the mountains cannot be conquered and peace can be revoked at any time. This is Lake Tear of the Clouds, cried by the anguished defeated and the joyous successful. Here the lonely summit bid begins.
