Bikes and Brutus...

Late fall in the Wasatch means taking whatever weather mother nature throws at you, and making the most of it.  I started this particular story at the Utah Snow & Avalanche Workshop.  The conversations inside where everything snow, but the hot sun outside was in severe contradiction.  So much so that I would be taking out the mountain bikes with my appreciative bike loving wife.  Only a week later though and I would be entertaining rumors of a beastly storm named, Brutus.  Brutus would quickly bring snow back to the topic of my conversations, and the front of my mind.     

^Pictured above is the Telemark Skier booth at the avalanche workshop.  It was good to catch up with a lot of folks I haven't seen in about six months or so.  We were signing up subscriptions all over the show too.  These are good folks to have on our subscriber list also.  They are all true professionals and advocates of our sport and mountains.   

^This is a photo of one women who is very happy to be getting out on her bike.  My wife loves to ride, but I've been itching for snow.  However, in the Wasatch you can be on a mountain bike one day and on skis the next.  Therefore, I was not too upset to be chasing my wife around on a bike under a beautiful blue sky day in the foothills.  All good in my book.  

^Christine ascends the hill on the right-side of this photo.  The scene of fall was just fine and dandy with me.  I was enjoying a nice warm day on the bikes with my lady.  I knew full well that it fall could be over with at anytime.  All it takes is one big storm, and winter moves in for the season to stay for a while.   

^The creeks were running cold with the snowmelt from the early October snow storm that quickly retreated under the hot fall sun.  By the time of this photo, well into the first week of November, only the shadiest slopes at high elevations retained any coverage.  The rest of that October snowpack was trickling into this creek.  

^I hit up the voting polls, and waited for a new president as well as new snow.  A storm was on the forecast, and looked like a promising lineup.  As the electoral votes were being counted the rumors of big snows were also adding up.  By the next day everyone was talking about Obama, but my mind was on Brutus.

^The cold front moved in late Thursday night.  By the time I awoke on Friday morning the seasonal shift was in full swing.  Outside my window was a winter wonderland.  The same pathway that I rolled my bike down to my car a few days prior was hiding under eight inches of snow.  The same kid that was blowing leaves off that sidewalk a week before was now shoveling snow from the same sidewalk. Unfortunately for myself, I was unable to get up into the mountains to check out the storm.  By Saturday my good friend, Ben Geiger, and I had been going back and forth about the snowpack for two days as he sent me photos and correspondence from his solo tours inside of the storm.    

^Brutus finally began to clear out on Saturday.  Ben sent me this photo of his last cautious tracks in the early season snow coming into view with the break up of the storm.  The coverage looked good, but you could still tell that it will be some time before it is a green light.  The avalanche conditions were ripe, especially in the higher elevations.  Ben was treading lightly in fear of the white dragon.  The northern Wasatch was not experiencing as much rotten faceted basal snowpack as the central Wasatch because of the difference in elevation.  The higher central Wasatch was reporting vast and drastic avalanche activity above 9,000 feet.  The northern Wasatch tops out at about 9,700 feet so the basal snowpack actually went isothermic in the heat rather then faceting out.  Most of the activity that was taking place just to south of us was on northerly slopes above 9,500.  Ben reported some natural avalanches in the northern Wasatch's highest peaks due to some windslab formation, but he could not find any evidence of facets in even the highest northerly terrain up in our neck of the woods.

^Murphy and I were watching the storm move out on Saturday night.  As the sun set below the remaining clouds of Brutus, we walked through the brand new winter wonderland.  With my mind fully focused on running through avalanche scenarios for the upcoming week, I paused as I approached a danger I have not had to think about for a while...   

^...which was walking under a pedestrian bridge that was primed for a different kind of avalanche of snow.  This tunnel of hanging snow probably would not hurt me, but it would fill my jacket with an unpleasant surprise.  Murphy was not afraid, but she is covered in fur.  Just like Ben was backing off suspect slopes up high, I backed off from walking under this hanging slab of whitewash.  It might have given some passing drivers a good laugh to see this whole load of snow come down on top of me, but I figured that I would spare them the hilarious distraction.  We turned around. 

^Walking back home I stared up at the last clouds of the storm stretching out across the valley.  The mountains were wringing the last flurries out of Brutus as it departed the Wasatch to move across the Great Plains towards the Midwest.  My mind was still going through all of my conversations about the new snow, and how my weekly operations in the high country would play out.  The week of bikes followed by the weekend of Brutus has brought the big shift that will place me at the beginning of another wild and crazy winter.  One that officially kicks off this week.  Here we go!   

Ready or not... here comes snow!

The Northern Wasatch Mountains are in winter bloom.  The season opening storm was a whopper.  The Salt Lake City mountains to the south of my northerly home did not receive nearly as much snow as we did in the north country.  Ogden City was blessed with a what I call an "Ogden Special".  The westerly to southwesterly flows bring storms into the Ogden mountains on a track that favors the region in snowfall totals.  I could get real deep on why that happens, but I will spare the details.  It just does.  Snowbasin and Powder Mountain ski resorts reported totals in the 40 inch range.  It was a wet and heavy snow as well.  Good base.     

^Waking up to a foot of snow in the yard at 4,500 feet in elevation is a treat for Murphy just as much as me.  She was super pumped up.  Get some, Murphy!  A foot here translates well up high.

^However, I was completely unprepared for the storm.  We always get some snow around this time.  Sometimes it is skiable, but often it is not.  I had nothing mounted or ready for early season conditions.  I had to resort to a really old pair of Atomic TeleDaddys that I had stashed away from my Atomic deals way back in the day.  Hilarious.  I mounted them in the morning with an old pair of Voile Switchbacks I had laying around.  Who cares, it is early.

^I decided to go for a backcountry tour at the Snowbasin ski resort.  Snowbasin had not yet taken on any avalanche control work, or opened up for business.  The drive up was inverted as the clouds lingered in the valley floor.  Driving in the thick fog always plays tricks on my emotions that were geared toward sunshine and blue skies.  

^As always the blues break out just as the first sights of Snowbasin come into view.  The vast basin of peaks appeared through the fog like a gift from the universe.  All of the sudden the music in the car sounded a little clearer, and the beat hit home just a little harder.  The coverage looked substantial for this spot on the calendar.  I was pleasantly surprised.  My smile was only matched by that of my buddy Ben's smile that awaited me in the parking lot.

^It took me forever to get my gear dialed in the parking lot, but I eventually made it to the skin track.  Ascending through the man-made snow flurries under blue skies was a bit surreal.  At one point I was inundated with rainbows as multiple snow guns sprayed in intersecting patterns through a swirling wind that created an entire world of prisms.  As we passed through the prismatic whirlwind the light was bending into rainbows all around us like we were in some kind of downtown gay pride parade.  It was so crazy that our quiet ascent was broken by Ben's holler, "Rainbows everywhere!" 

^As usual this time of year, the tour was really all about getting out to walk around in the hills.  It is good to get a read on the snowpack too.  Ben and I spent most of our time talking hypotheticals on what might happen with the snowpack.  There is no crystal ball, but it is a good exercise to talk about it.  We like to try to run through every scenario until I finally end it with, "Yeah, but as always it will be whatever it will be."  Then we laugh and move on poking around with our poles.  Mount Ogden was looking rather glorious so I had to snap the picture above to capture it in time.  

^We did some early prep work with shovels on one of our favorite techy little entrances.  If the entrance can hold up then we can have a really great run at a stash that we love to get into early in the season.  It was filled in just enough for us to get into it and ski too!  We were all smiles at the early season gift.  I was not expecting to make much of any turns at all.  However, the careful powder was more then I could have hoped for.  I was not dropping any freeheel turns deeply into it, but the float was definitely full on.  I think this snowpack is here to stay.  My only hope is that the slight chance of snow we have for later in the week comes through with at least some minor significance so that the snowpack retains some health.  It is still early, and a rotten base would not be an ideal start to the snowpack.  Like my father always says, "It is what it is."  

^"Hey Ben.  Is this really happening?"  I am pretty sure I was asking him something along those lines as we crested the knoll to be warmly greeted by a view of the heavily blanketed peak in the distance.  Not only was I unprepared with my gear, but I was not ready in my head either.  I have been so busy with the operations of Telemark Skier, and the daily life of the fall, that this wintery world completely snuck up on me.  I have barely even started my workout routine to get in shape for winter.  The next few weeks will be interesting to see how it holds on, but I was thankful for the pleasant snowy surprise.  With the heat coming on this week, I will go back to simply getting ready for winter again.  However, maybe I will luck out with more on-snow respites that I don't expect.  There is a slight chance at the end of the week that we could really use.  We'll see... one day at a time.    

striking out in the sand...

I am always trying to stay above the negativity.  I try to control my emotions to keep my head in the right place all the time.  However, even this cool cucumber looses the cool sometimes.  It is the nature of the human existence.  We are emotional beings.  I am no different.  Christine and I cruised back down to Moab again to rip the mountain bikes on some slickrock.  Everything was going smoothly until it wasn't, and then I started to unravel.  A series of mishaps started to add up, and I could not fight the mind control that the downward spiral of our first day had me in.  

^The drive down was littered with scattered thunderstorms.  No big deal.  Made the drive a little more gnarly on Utah's deadly Highway 6, but relatively smooth sailing.  No problems...yet.

^This rainbow over the slickrock landscape gave us a rather warm welcome, which was quickly followed by the let down of the "Campsites Full" sign.  We rallied on to the next spot to look for a campsite.  The sun was setting so we were running out of daylight to see what we were doing.  Still not a too much of a problem, but the scales are starting to tip.

^We found a site and were in a hurry to get our setup rolling when the first real kick in the pants came.  Christine locked the keys in the Jeep.  We had nothing out of the vehicle yet.  Also, we were in the middle of the desert with nothing to even try to break in with except rocks.  Christine walked to a neighboring site, and managed to get a coat hanger.  After much struggle I managed to break into our Jeep.  We were saved.  The two of us quietly worked through our campsite setup with frustration lingering just inside our ability to speak cordially.  A campfire burned off all of our locked door anger, and the rest of the night rolled out like the starlight sky.   

^Morning brought a whole new barrage of setbacks that brought me to this pouty face photo.  A slow morning gave way to a few annoying trailhead parking lot experiences.  Then the shove off on our first ride attempt resulted in my realization that my bike was totally incapable of making it through the ride in the first 100 yards of the trail.  My chain was jumping off the gears like rats off a sinking ship.  We called off the ride, and descended back down to Moab along with my descending attitude.  The $250 bill at the shop was an additional slap in the mouth.  By now my attitude was so bad that my wife was walking around me on eggshells.  We had a while to wait as the techs solved my bike problems, so we took advantage of the time to get on a Wi-fi signal at a local restaurant.  I needed to correct a bonehead move I made in forgetting to submit some ads to Cody Smith, the Telemark Skier magazine designer.  So we ordered the worst pulled pork sandwich either of us have ever tasted, and struggled through a bad internet connection.  My poor frame of mind made the lingering "sending" message and dry pork so annoying to me that I could barely stand myself.  I was boiling over.  Poor Christine was just trying to hold me together.        

^It was like trying to push this boulder.  My head was in a downward spiral.  We finally made it to a point where we could get out on a short ride after the whole day was pretty much gone.  We chose a short out and back as a result of time.  I was starting to emerge from my spiraling attitude when I snapped this metaphor of my wife struggling to push me up and out of my terrible mindset.   

^It would actually be this wrong turn that would start to break me.  Obviously we didn't know it at the time, but I snapped this photo right about the time we were making a wrong turn that would take us off our route.  When we realized our mistake we were too deep.  We had to roll with the mistake and cut our ride short.  Something snapped in my brain.  All I could do was descend into hysterical laughter at the realization that nothing had gone right all day.  I had just officially chalked the whole day up to a proper baseball analogy of just flat out striking out.  We would get another chance at the plate tomorrow, and the acceptance of the strike out actually calmed me down.

^The riding was shot.  Now we had to find a campsite again.  However, we totally lucked out by founding this killer spot among some slickrock.  The tide had turned along with my attitude.  We could only laugh at the experiences we just had as the sun set on our dismal day. 

^Dinner brought some more baseball analogies as we discussed how we needed to fuel up for another at bat with the next day.  We were happy with our great campsite, warm full belles, and the promise of a full night sleep of ahead of us.

^Rise...

^...and shine.

^A new sunrise was another chance to us to knock one out of the park this time.  Yesterday's strike out was behind us now.  We were ready for any curveballs that the universe could throw at us.  

^Just like in baseball, being able to swing and whiff at a few pitches allowed us to get a read on things to come back better prepared.  Hardened from the disappointments of the day before we were calloused to anything that would try to hold us down.  We even went back to the same restaurant that gave us the dogpile pulled pork.  They totally redeemed themselves with a stellar breakfast burrito.  The beginning of our ride began just as smooth as the red slickrock we were riding on.  The tide had turned.

^Christine's smile shows it.

^The Shrimp Rock trail marker came and went with ease and speed.  We were ripping.  I had overcome myself and my salty emotions.  It was not easy or pretty, but the downward spiral had turned upward toward the bright blue sky.   

^All the while ascending big slickrock spines.

^On the bright side.

^By this time I was only going downhill on the bike.  My attitude was on the up and up.  Christine and I took our swings with our second chance at bat, and we hit one out of the park.  Striking out only sucks if you don't get back up to the plate to take another swing.  No one can hit a home run every time at bat in baseball.  You can't even expect to get a base hit every time.  Even the best hitters strike out sometimes.  These human lives we lead are no different.  Sometimes we blow it, get beat, strike out,  and totally fail.  The difference comes with what you do with your next chance.  How do you fight back and emerge with resilience.  

^We drove out of Moab with tired legs, dusty red sand smiles, and a soundtrack of the bluegrass angel, Allison Krauss, singing some vastly appropriate lyrics from her song, "The Lucky One".  The insightful lyric goes like this; "To you the next best thing to playing and winning is playing and losing."  I have always tried to live by ideas like that, but it can be hard.  Sometimes when your losing you can also lose the perspective that you are still playing the same great game.  A game far greater then America's great baseball pastime, but with many parallel lessons to be learned.  This is the game of life, and it is a wild and crazy game with all the twists and turns of any legendary World Series game seven.  There are heros and goats, home runs and strike outs, winners and losers, and we all get our turn at all of it.  However, the key lesson to take from it all in both baseball and life is that it is not always about the wins and loses, but how you choose to play the game each and every day.  Swing... batter, batter, batter... swing!  

Swedish rip ride...

Telemark Skier is out on the road touring the new movie and digital magazine to the country.  Owner, Josh Madsen is going town-by-town in the Telemark Skier Van to show folks the new duds.  After a few weeks of driving Josh was due to swing back through the hometown in SLC.  Our new Swedish skier, Andreas Sjobeck, flew into town to join Josh on the road for a few weeks, and take the perfect chance to see the great American west.  A couple days after Andreas landed I stole him for a day to bring him up north to my stomping grounds.  I rallied my long-time buddy, Ben Geiger, and we set up a downhill shuttle to take our young Swedish friend on a Wasatch rip ride. 

^I threw flat pedals on some bikes, and we hit the trail.  I put together a shuttled downhill in and around Snowbasin for us to roll that would take us through the resort and down to Pineview Reservoir.  I made him climb a little at the beginning, but not too much.  For the most part we were all downhill.

^Of course except for the multitude of times I made him stop so I could take his picture.  Come on this one is a classic with the Snowbasin gondolas in the background of a sick Wasatch fall scene.  "Hold on, one more!"

^Swedish ripping...

^Shuttled back around and stoked, Ben and Andreas are making plans for later.  The ride was a really great time.  We rolled a good 10 miles or so of terrain with about 4,000 feet of vertical drop to a dusty teeth smile at Pineview dam.  Now they were making a party plan for the downtown SLC showing of the new Telmark Skier movie, Let's Go!.     

^So we cruised back to my house and got cleaned up.  I took a chance to get my pup, Murphy, out for a little run around while Andreas got a shower.  She was as stoked to meet a new friend as I was.  I was also stoked to be bringing him back to Josh now all in one piece and cleaned up nice for the show.  I wouldn't want to steal him for the day, and then go and get him all broken up on a bike.  He ripped it though, and we had a blast.  Therefore, I am all good.   

^We made it down to the show, and the ice cold beers felt good in our downhill sore hands.  I am really excited to see Andreas coming into our team very well.  He is a good addition to our diverse cast of characters, and I am looking forward to having him come back again this winter.  Then it will be go time!