Category: vermont

April is the cruellest month

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Look at this beautiful view!

March tree skiing with Craig

Two weekends ago, Craig (the snowboarder) met me at the mountain for a few Easter runs. We found still other friends and rode the gondola swapping stories and comments on the overcast sky.

The woods that day were certainly a happy surprise – untracked, empty, heavy with the best snowpack Vermont’s seen all season. After the first run, we were so hot and sweating that we both shed layers and got back out at it, our snowpant vents zipped open.

March is a funny month. Just as people gear up for spring, cabin fever driving them mad, winter delivers. Mid-week snow storms that make me dizzy with envy as I watch from work. Long days on the slopes with smaller crowds. Or even short romps – a few hours, a few runs to justify sitting in the parking lot with a beer and a portable grill.

Now, April. April plays tricks with hearts. Snowing one day, hot sun the next, rain yet another. Sometimes, two or three seasons in a single day. I think I agree with T.S. Eliot:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

But last weekend, riding to Massachusetts for my nephew’s baptism, I saw the earth and just the earth. If nothing else, April in Vermont rubs the world down to its body. It reveals the contours – the rolling hills, the glacial-worn cliffs, the geography – that all other seasons hide. And that’s a beautiful view, too.

Country vacation

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How many licks does it take to get to the center of a peanut butter jar?All of them.
How many licks does it take to get to the center of a peanut butter jar?
All of them.

I’m in the country this weekend, dogsitting for a friend.

Springtime is  more noticeable here. There are songbirds at the feeder and a hawk circling the field, the buzzing of the clusterflies rising from the earth – creatio ex nihilo. But down the hill where the sun doesn’t shine, a layer of snow holds on to the ground like a lover.

My first act when I arrived this morning was to lay on the wood floors with my arms wrapped around the dog. Then, after stirring the fire, I sat outside in the air with the dog at my feet, her hounddog eyes tracking everything that moved. It was too cold this morning to sit like I was, on a bench in the front yard with only a t-shirt on, but my skin craved the light.

Then a hike up Mt Philo, a dog and a friend in tow. (Mostly for the fresh air, but also to check in on my knee. This is a test. If I can hike, then I can hike Mt Washington. If I can ski, than I can ski Tuckerman Ravine.)

All in all, the country day my spirit craved. The dirt road, the wood-fueled furnace, the cat asleep by the fire, the dog chasing squirrels across the yard. A few words on a page. That’s all.

My two-inch view

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Sunset over Lake ChamplainIt’s so important for me to feel connected to the world. To the earth and air and sun and stars and water. I spend so much time tapped in to other things – the internet, books, music, the presence of others – sometimes it’s nice to just feel the sun.

I desperately want a porch. Somewhere I can hang my hammock. Somewhere I can just sit and breathe.

Right now, what I have is this two-inch view if I stand with my back to the mailbox. Good enough.

 

Friends on powder days

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Skiing at Smuggler's Notch
Slacking on my home turf.

“Joy is the response of a lover receiving what he loves. This is the joy we feel when skiing powder… This overflowing gratitude is what produces the absolutely stupid, silly grins that we always flash at one another at the bottom of a powder run. We all agree that we never see these grins anywhere else in life”

Dolores LaChapelle

I said goodbye too soon – turns out, winter’s not done with us here in Vermont.

On Smuggler’s Notch yesterday, four inches of light, fluffy powder felt like six. Wind scoured some of the upper trails to frozen spring ice, but deposited it lovingly in the precious, sheltered woods. My first run, I hit a pillow and stepped out of my skis, face-first into a wind-pushed drift a foot deep.

New friends on powder days
The smile says it all.

After that, I met up with a friend-of-a-friend, but by the second run we were real friends. Nothing helps you get to know someone like a long, windy ride on a double chair. Except for maybe the winding way down, ducking in and out of the woods. Turns out, contrary to popular belief, you make the best friends on powder days.

The day was perfect from start to finish – powder turns  on the trails, powder turns in the glades, and powder turns in the slackcountry. I relaxed into the rhythm of bumps beneath my skis, flying through the woods empty but for the two of us… Exactly what my spirit needed.

Smuggler’s Notch was my mountain when I first moved to Vermont. Pulling into the parking lot at 7:45 in the morning, it felt like coming home.

Too soon.

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It’s always to soon to leave the mountains and the cold behind – the white coating that erases the pressures and stress of life in the valleys.

Last week was the last ski race of the season, and with an old knee injury aggravated, I’m afraid it might just be the end of my winter. But it’s too soon. (It’s always too soon.)

I can feel my knee healing by increments as some combination of ice, ibuprofen, elevation, and gentle exercise combine. Minutes on my bicycle add up to a stronger joint, but the going is slow and I am impatient. I’m worried it won’t be strong enough in time  the long hike up to Tuckerman Ravine, my favorite part of spring.

The knee problem has happened before. The last time, my knee gave out on Tuckerman Ravine, which gave me my first ever, albeit mild, concussion. I won’t be making that mistake again, but I want to be on that mountain. There is no better way to say hello to spring than standing on the ridge of Mt Washington, looking down on the green world emerging.

I couldn't see anything. It was awesome.
I couldn’t see anything. It was awesome.

It’s cold again. I even biked through a Friday snow squall with flakes as large as quarters blurring my vision. But soon it will be warm. It won’t be long before I’m running outside, floating in Lake Champlain, and (if I conquer my fear) mountain biking.

I know plenty of people who say their favorite time to ski is in the spring, when powder days are interspersed with warm sunshine and soft snow. Smiles on faces and barbecues in parking lots. But I hate it. I hate watching the snow melt away. I hate emerging from hibernation, shedding layers in the heat until it’s me that’s melting.

For everything there is a season. But winter will always be mine.

Will you be missing winter, too? Or is there something special about spring that you can’t wait for?

Grateful. Just grateful.

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I’m practicing being grateful – for sunshine and gray days, for wet roads and dry eyes. For laughter that goes on for hours. For the thankfulness of near-strangers. For kind hotel employees on telephones. But mostly for adventures, whether they lead you into the slackcountry (I still haven’t looked at my bases. After last weekend’s semi-accidental adventures, I seriously don’t want to know.) or to a new job (!!!).

Turns out, It’s really easy to be grateful, and it’s only getting easier.

My bike and I
Cruising through Burlington to welcome Budnitz Bicycles into town.

(Better yet, there’s snow in the forecast. It’s easy to feel buoyed up by optimism.)

Photo by Greg Comollo.

Processing moments

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slackcountrying in Vermont's green mountains

So much has happened in the past two weeks. My mind-space is taken up by processing it, leaving little room for stringing meaningful syllables together.

Changes at my current job which sent me for an emotional roller coaster of disappointment, adrenalin, creativity, and hope.

Accepted a new job, which I’ll start in a week. (I’ll probably tell you about it come summer, because it fits quite well into my warm-weather slackcountry training plans. Suffice to say, I am: excited, elated, elevated.)

rough draft one
20 pages of moments

Started in on the second draft of #muse. (You know, that novella I mentioned before I realized that I’d rather talk about skiing?) Draft one is an enormous outline of scenes. Draft two is daunting, as it’ll have to be more of a… y’know… draft and less a collage of moments.

Not to mention weekends in the mountains, balancing delight with frustration. There’s nothing I love more than skiing, but at the same time I know there’s so much I can do better. I’m hyper-aware of my mistakes – especially my unending struggle with falling too far back on my skis. It’s becoming more and more apparent that I need a new pair of boots. And AT bindings, AT boots, and a bright headlamp.

I leave you with the promise of more posts to come and this moment from yesterday’s adventure.

slackcountrying in Vermont's green mountains
Not all who wander are lost. But some are. We weren’t. I swear.

Mountain Purist

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The hardest part about writing this blog is remembering to take photos.

Sometimes when I remember, my phone’s already dead from searching for reception. Sometimes I remember, but it’s too cold to pull my hands out of my mittens. Most of the time, though, I don’t think of it. I’m too busy skiing.

But, then again, I’m a bit of a purist when it comes to my days on the slopes. I don’t listen to music. Until this year, my phone was turned off in the parking lot and only carried along in case of emergencies.

While I prefer my mountain days to be vacations from the rest of the world, there’s something to be said for snapping a few shots along the way… and capturing the beautiful days, perfect lines, and brilliant people with whom I share the mountain.

sunny day at Stowe
Crazy, cold, beautiful sky.