East vs. West

My experience as a New England skier is filled with memories that are mostly Spartan in nature. It was not a question of IF it was icy ... the question was HOW icy was it? And even what color is the ice ... is it blue yet? The cold was a wet cold that would permeate every layer of clothing you owned, and on days when it was clear and dry it was also guaranteed to be windy ... seriously windy.

But here in the West ...well it is another story. When you hear people talk about ice what they MEAN is crust. And the weather? "seldom is heard a discouraging word and the skies are not cloudy all day" about sums it up. In fact most of your day is conducted out of doors. You put your boots on outside ... you eat lunch outside ... and at the end of the day, you take your boots off outside. When you take a break in New England, you are headed INside. You move your frostbitten self, a bit like a slow moving robot, toward WARMTH.

And so that brings me to the question, why does all the snow STAY here? I mean really ... in New England it is MISERABLE all the time and still the snow melts. But not here ... it has not snowed an inch since we arrived and still I see no degradation on the slopes. How can this be?

And I guess the answer is altitude. They don't call this Summit County for nothing. Daily life is conducted at 9,000 feet (2,740 m) and the skiing happens as high as 12,000 feet. (3,657 m)

But before I dump totally on my homeland, there is a custom we have in New England that does not exist here and I miss it. It is the custom of changing your boots in the lodge before you go out skiing for the day. A typical New England ski lodge has a series of wooden pegs on the walls on which you hang your backpack full of sandwiches and little wooden cubbies into which you put your footwear while you ski. Not so here. Everyone arrives in their boots ... there is no base lodge ... there ARE some pay lockers which nobody uses ...it is all a bit strange.

So we were pleasantly surprised yesterday when we went to Arapaho Basin for the first time to find a little A-framed base lodge and to see wooden pegs on the walls and many folks putting on their boots in the lodge. I don't think it would be inaccurate to say that A-Basin is the Mad River of the West. It relies on a loyal local clientele who wouldn't be caught dead in those boutique ski areas to the west. Nestled up against the wall of the continental divide, A- Basin sits in a cirque of mountains and is generously supplied with snow by virtue of her altitude. We took 2 runs off the top 12, 472 feet ( 3, 801 m) amid some serious wind.More to come on Arapaho Basin ... we return there Tuesday for a lesson.

Epic Proportions

Now THIS entry is not at all about being in the moment ... not at all about enjoying each moment for what it has to offer. Instead, THIS entry is about the crass economics of skiing.

Let me say that skiing is an expensive sport. It is especially expensive when you do it as most of us do, one week at a time. But this month's residence in Colorado has given us the chance to take advantage of the coveted Epic Ski Pass (which we purchased before 11/15/08). This pass gives you unlimited access to 5 nearby ski areas. Vail, Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Arapaho Basin and Keystone.

So we have been keeping a little tally of our daily skiing and dividing it into the price of our Epic Pass. The more we ski, the more value we gain from our little ski pass.

Here is our total at the end of week #1

	DAYS	RUNS	Cost per day	Cost per run
Hunter	5	36	$ 115.80	$ 16.08
Leslie	5	22	$ 115.80	$ 26.32

Belly Button - Breathe

The weather here has been brilliant ...warm enough to sit outdoors and eat a picnic lunch at the base and cool enough to want to zip up your down parka at the top of the lift. The altitude is a factor in these early days. Summit County is high even in your HOUSE. Frisco, where we arer staying is at 9,000 feet. And at the top of the mountain you are at 10,000 feet plus. So Hunter has come up with a new skiing mantra. Those of you who remember the book "The Inner Game of Tennis" from the 70's will recall the mantra "bounce hit" designed to take you out of an analytical mode about your game and put you in a "flow" mode. Well we have one called "belly button-breathe." You imagine a little cord from your belly button to the tip of your skis. You stay focused on THAT while you make your turns and in between you breathe deeply. Belly button - breathe .... belly button - breathe.

And you need all the oxygen you can muster to feed these screaming thigh muscles. First run is always a nice one. Second run is hard ... muscles tighten up ... breathing is harder. Then third run is a charm. Make it to the third run and you are enjoying things. Then it is just a matter of how long your legs will last. Today promises to be another warm and sunny one. Then the clouds and snow will visit for a stretch.

Lost and Found

All over the mountain there are hospitality people here to answer your every question. It is almost a little invasive sometimes. Such was the case when Hunter was walking by the Lost and Found Hut the other day and wondered "Have I lost anything?" At that moment a uniformed gentleman asked "May I help you sir?" And Hunter replied, "Yeah, I think I lost my Mojo."

Frisco

You know how you have a dream in your thirties … a dream about having more freedom to do the things you love … well one of OUR dreams has always been to live in ski country for a season. We would be free to only go out on sunny days .. rest when we were tired ... and really get GOOD as a skier.

Well IF that dream is to be fulfilled, then it better begin this season. So that is why I am writing this from Summit County Colorado. We have rented a condo in Frisco for the month of February and are in the beginning stages of the 2009 ski-a-thon.

In trying to think of an angle for this journal I realized that one thing that I do LOTS in life and maybe even more on ski trips is look ahead to the NEXT day … the NEXT run … instead of being in the moment . So I thought it might be good to take as my focus the Zen of such an experience. Perhaps this will be as boring as slush. But I think by reflecting on the times when it is easy and the times when it is hard to be in the moment, I might … well do just that reflect on that and what it teaches. William Least Heat Moon on skis?

So let’s place us in time and space … we are in a little one bedroom condo about 8 blocks from Main Street in Frisco. We have a season’s pass to 5 areas Breckenridge, A-Basin, Keystone, Vail and Beaver Creek. We started out yesterday at Breck which has a reputation as an intermediate mountain … good place to warm up on. It was on the way to the parking lot that I first caught myself thinking “God, we have been on the move since 7:45 yesterday morning and I STILL haven’t taken a run … can’t we hurry up and get there?”

Then I looked out at the peaks that make the Breckenridge ridge and realized THAT was something I should be savoring. It was then that I came up with this way of thinking about the trip. And since I am only a beginner at such things … since not EVERY moment is one I live in fully… here is a rundown of the few things I really did savor as they were happening yesterday.

#1 the first run … it was sunny ... the snow was perfect … the pitch of the slope allowed me to get right into my rhythm … and my K2 Apache demo skis … were making me look LOTS better than I am.

#2 the conversation on the lift with a woman from Annapolis who was a gardener and a painter … my age … and only 4 months out of knee replacement surgery.

#3 taking a hot shower when I got home and just feeling the HOT seep into my bones

#4 my first sip of “medicinal” scotch before dinner

Sadly the rest of the day was about tired legs, losing my breath because of the altitude and thinking NOT about this moment but rather about how much better this will all feel in 2 weeks.

Random photos from the trip

Haarlem

Zuiderzee Museum

Delft

Bruges

Lille

Biggleswad

So we are driving through the Belgian countryside from Brussels to Bruges when I start vocalizing a litany of New England town names I can see on the map of England. Peterborough, Boston, Scituate, Ipswitch, Yarmouth, Bourne, Middleborough and Mansfield ... when I stumble over the town of Biggleswad.

Boy, did we luck out onTHAT one. Who would want to play for the Biggleswad Bruins I ask you?

Munstertal

They tell us (they being the locals) that this area im Breisgau is the warmest part of Germany, but today’s weather did not convince us. We snow was falling as we headed up the Munstertal toward the mountains of the Schwartzwald. Just outside of the town of Munstertal we saw the glorious former Benedictine Abbey built on the site of the grave of Saint Trudpert.

SAINT TRUDPERT … now that one had me scratching my head. Not since my encounter with St. Charles Borommee in Paris last year had I been stumped by a Saint’s name. Well it turns out Trudpert’s story is a little foggy, but it seems he was a Celtic monk who ran a mission here in near Munstertal in the seventh century. But we are not sure WHEN he lived here, or WHAT his mission was or IF it was successful. We do know that he died on April 26 and that date is commemorated in a local celebration.

“Der Freidhof musst erweitert warden.”

The coffee in Germany is REALLY good. After drinking at least 5 cups of it this morning we were ready to explore our new village. Lots of history here in Staufen. Apparently it was here, in our very hotel actually, that Dr. Faustus had come in the Middle Ages to apply his “knowledge” of alchemy on behalf of the citizens of Staufen who had fallen into debt. This “deal with the devil” went on to appear at least 25 times in German literature, the most famous of which was the Goethe tale.

As we strolled around the village, we came upon historic markers with photographs from WWII. Here is a picture from around the corner of where we are staying.

February 8, 1945

April 6, 2008

It felt a bit like making the Stations of the Cross as we read story after story of the dark days in early February 1945 as the Allies rained bombs on this town. The living would emerge in the night time and gather in the cemeteries to bury the dead. Soon the cemeteries had to be enlarged.

But all was festive this afternoon during the afternoon street fair. There was a full band set up in front of the Rathaus.

Hunter treated me to my first Curry Wurst which he remembers fondly from years ago. (Quite frankly, it is basically a hot dog in ketchup with curry sprinkled on top … a little strange, but I played along) The fountains in town had not been turned on for the summer season yet, so they set up bars in the middle of the fountains and you would just belly up to the edge of the fountain for your taste of local wine. (Now this IS a good idea …)

The Hotel That Was Not There.

Several things put us off or schedule yesterday afternoon. We had hoped to make the drive from Charles de Gaulle to Freiburg im Breisgau in about 4 hours arriving no later than 5. BUT, but, but … we had to learn how to use the GPS ( a total mystery ) …. How to start our keyless entry rental car (unexpected total mystery) … AND we had to leave the A4 in Rheims to do a drive by of the cathedral (which was unexpectedly HUGE) und so weiter, und so weiter, und so weiter. So that when we arrived in Freiburg, it was pitch dark and raining steadily. BUT we had our trusty GPS and once we entered the address “8 Rathausgasse” we landed in our location in the pedestrian zone of the Altstadt. But WHERE was the hotel? Not there.

I had only slept two hours on the flight over and by the time we arrived in front of the hotel that was not there, I had been up for 34 hours straight. Many thanks to the German woman who looked at our paper work and informed us that in fact we were at the right address, but in the wrong town. We had a hotel in the town of Staufen im Breisgau NOT Freiburg im Breisgau. I was only getting the loose gist of this conversation between her and Hunter most of which was being communicated to me by the deep disappointment on Hunter’s face. He knew he had a sleepless time bomb on his hands. I could not wait for his translation. In desperation I heard myself say to the woman, “wieviel kilometer, bitte?”

So back into the dark and stormy night we went, and a half hour later landed in the charming village of Staufen im Breisgau. We found our way into the hotel restaurant hungry and exhausted at 10 pm and found the crowd was just warming up to the evening. I lifted a dry Reisling to Hunter’s local draft Furstenberg and we settled in to a delicious meal . After dinner, as the clock approached midnight we wandered out into the square to sounds of a private party singing “Wundabar” through the open window of the restaurant. Alles gemutlich !!