Storm a-Brewing

Looks like winter’s coming back to these here Rocky Mountains. Kicking it in the Mummy’s.

The Great Dividing Range; or Halfbaked Plans Can Be Sketch

Yeah so this one’s from a while back; late June it was. I worked a lot last Summer, ten day stretches, fifteen stretches were not unheard of. I was trying to stack cash (I took a long expensive field course last July).

Anyways, I finally got a day off, just one though. I’d been shredding some of the classic Independence Pass glisse alpinism routes earlier in the Summer and their was still a snow hanging up above twelve-five.

I wasn’t really sure what I was going to do, but before I headed to work the day before my off day, I threw every last piece of camping supplies I could come up with in my car. I told my Mom I was camping, but I had no idea where I was going.

I got off work around four, bought a can of beans an got my ass out of an over crowded Aspen and up the pass. I hit a trailhead just below the top of the pass on the west side. It seemed good enough for me and I pulled over. My car was a mess of outdoor related equipment.

I cracked a brew. It’s beautiful up on the divide that time of year.

I started throwing shit in my pack. Tent? Yes. Sleeping bag? Yes. Stove? Eh, fuck it. Skis? I see some snow. Beer? Oh, fuck yes.

The pack was fucking heavy. I’d never carried skis, ski boots, and an summer overnight kit before. Shit was heavy. Snow line was still higher.

I wish I had a picture of that pack, but some of the people I passed on the way up do. The first couple coming down the trail stop me.

“I gotta get a picture of this. This is what my son want to do.”

“Go head” I said, smiling. I rather like being an oddity.

“What are you planning to ski?”

I paused a moment. I hadn’t really put too much thought into it. I couldn’t quite see what was feasible yet, but I saw a nice line on the horizon that looked fun.

“Maybe that.” I pointed. I think they figured I’d have something more concrete.

We exchanged the good luck pleasantries, and I headed out.

“Wait” the man said “Is that a guitar you got?”

“Naw, its a ukulele, I like a pack light”

And that was it. From then I was alone.

Mountain Porn

I headed up towards the peaks, eventually leaving the trail, and fording a few streams before finding a nice flat spot just below snowline to pitch my tent. I began drinking (aggressively), watching a storm move in and playing the ukulele.

Supplies for the long haul

Then the storm came in, and she came in hard. Their I was alone in my tent wrapped up in my sleeping bag, hail hammering the fly, thundering cracking, strumming my ukulele. Fucking hammered.

I’ve been on quite a few solo backpacking trips, ranging from a week to overnights. Sometimes I can hold it together and seem like a normal kid, but eventually, I lose mind and become my alone in the woods self.

My alone in the woods self is a maniac. Drugs and alcohol have been known to speed up this process.

I became my alone in the woods self.

The hail came down. I strummed my ukulele, eventually settling on a favorite Lucksmith’s tune, “The Great Dividing Range.” Its funny, there I was singing;

“Turn the page if these mountains make you miserable                                                                   The Great Dividing Range merely proves were indivisible”

A Maniac Alone

Well, I’ll tell you something, the storm cleared, I passed out in my good old sleeping bag and in the morning it was glorious.

And after six IPA’s at 12,500 feet, I felt like shit. But hell, I shouldered my pack, strapped on my skins and headed up a likely couloir. I like hiking when I feel like shit, it builds character.

An hour later, I was clinging to a ski pole stabbed into the side of the coulior, puking my guts out. “How the fuck you gonna get yourself outta this one Giulio?” It was a no fall zone, a fall would have sent off into space and then onto scree, miles from help, and months from someone finding my body.

Shit got real.

I was stoked.

I couldn’t quite focus my eyes, but I made it a ten or so metres further up to a ledge to rest on. I ate a handful of granola, had a swig of water and clicked into my skis.

Then I sent the bitch.

“The Great Dividing Range merely proves were indivisible.”

Yeah, its was a little fuct, but I had a grand time. I worked double shift the next day.

Last Summer

Last summer.

I should really stop right there.

Last Summer.

Those two words sum up everything worth thinking of this time of year. I don’t know what you did last summer, but if those magic words “Last Summer” don’t bring a smile to your face, it’s time to get up to some mischief, you’re doing it wrong.

Last Summer I worked on a trail crew in Kachemak Bay State Park, on the far end of the Kenai Peninsula, Alaska, just past the western terminus of the North American highway system. It was a summer spent just past the end of the road.

The crew was quite the bunch; we were a hard working, hard drinking, chain sawing, chain smoking lot. We didn’t get paid much, basically just food and shelter, but we was all exactly where they wanted to be.

It wasn’t really intentional, but everyone took on nicknames up there. We were; Yeti, Buck, Maximus, Ali G, D-Nasty (AKA D-248), Big Daddy Price, Gilligan, and these three kids from Indiana, who we called the Indians.

For those months I lived the simple life, I’d crawl out of my tent in the morning, shoulder a good old STIHL 362, hike up the mountain to where we left off the evening before and spend the day pushing deeper into the wilderness, cutting trees, bucking logs and doing battle with devils club, pushki and poison ivy. I’d stop at noon for a lunch of peanuts, peanut butter, tortillas and instant coffee: all a part of well balanced diet.

The sun stayed up late into the nights, so I had lots of time for activities. When the working day was done, I’d climb mountains, fish for salmon, swim in the sea, collect berries, kill a flask of cheap whiskey and watch the summer pass by; whatever popped into my head that day.

Each day was a new adventure, plans were vague, it didn’t matter. The day just passed.

The song of the summer for my crew was (of course) Popcaan’s “Where We Come From” we adopted a motto from the hook. After days of rain when every last stitch of our clothes were wet, our food stocks low, the fuel for the stove burned and we were reduced to eating dry ramen, all it took was one person to call out, “real thugs never worry about pagans” to rally the crew.

One of the things I most wanted to see in Alaska was the great Ursus arctos horribilis, the griz; and you know what, never saw one. As it turns out, Kachemak Bay State Park is not home to any grizzlies, however it does have the highest density of black bears on the planet earth. Now, I grew up with black bears in my dumpster, but it’s a whole different story up there. Bears were ubiquitous, and they were mean. Slipping on bear shit was an occupational hazard. Once, I’d hiked a few hours to get to a stretch of trail that needed to be worked on when I got there, I ran into a mama bear, she had two cubs up on in a tree and bluff charged me, I high tailed it back to my tent for a sleepless night.

But I still kept food in my tent; sometimes you get hungry at night.

I’m a landlocked boy. Before last summer, I’d never seen ocean before. Boat is the only option for accessing the park. We had this janky 18 foot landing craft with an open deck we called the Kite or Kommeta. We weren’t supposed to take it out if the seas were over five feet high. But one day, we took her out in ten foot seas, with a ATV strapped to her deck. Now, I’ve never been a terribly strong swimmer, and I thought that was it for me.

But, I was fascinated and terrified by the sea. The turning of the tides, the sea otter that tried to bite my finger off, massive halibut I saw down at the harbor, the porpoise that almost tipped my sea kayak.

When I wasn’t working, I stayed at the State Parks bunkhouse in Homer. Homer is an end of the road town. Literally, it’s as far west as the roads go in North America, but also, the people there followed the road until it ended and settled down. The bars were chock full of interesting characters like, English John, who knew Sid Vicious and Hobo Jim, Alaska’s official state balladeer.

Mostly though, when I wasn’t working, I throw my gear in my pack and stick my thumb out to explore the highways and byways of the great state of Alaska. Meeting people and finding out about lives I’d never known existed, from meth heads and mountain guides to tourist in R.V’s and Russian orthodox priests.

I felt like I went everywhere, Anchorage, Seward, Talkeetna, Cooper Landing, Whittier, Girdwood, Soldotna, and even weird places, like Seldovia, Bear Creek, Happy Valley, Funny River, Halibut Cove and the old believer villages of Kachemak Selo, Voznesenka and Razdolna.

But at the end of the summer, I took a look at a map and found I’d barley brushed the surface of the last frontier.

The end of last summer snuck up on me, the days slipped by in a long progression of rain storms, sweat soaked Carhartts, bug bites, beer cans and campfires until they became months and I bought a plane ticket south, signed a lease, enrolled in classes, paid tuition.

It was one of those summers where at the end of it, you come to realize you’ll never get it back. I got to live a dream, Alaska spread out before me. Every day was a choose-your-own-adventure. Now it’s winter, and last summer is a blur of chainsaws, bonfires on beaches, glaciers, mountains, rivers and roadsides; a northland summer fading into sepia tones.

That’s what Last Summer means to me. But this piece is really about the ideal of Last Summer. I want you to think back on that Last Summer, and smile.

Get psyched for next summer.

My Crew

Triumph

Triumph for a Glisse Alpinist.

A Turkey Vulture

A Turkey Vulture and a Butte.

A Mountain

On my summer list.

Another high 13er.

Two Bears

Today I saw two bears and they didn’t see me.

Beautiful Blonde phase black bear. He grazed away while I watched him through the Aspens.

This Big Old Black Bear was grazing across the creek. Spotted him from the road.

Blarney&Bullshit

Skiing’s third season is upon us; Summer. Until today I hadn’t yet had a chance to sample this year’s corn harvest. I’ve been angsting to do some Summer skiing. I missed out on Summer skiing last year (I was is Alaska) and it’s tough to be sure when I’ll be in Colorado for Summer again.

Unfortunately, I’m in the midst of eleven straight days of work.

I pulled out my trusty TI-83 and did some calculations. I could head to the top of Independence Pass and do a quick run up to the top of Blarney Peak and still make it to work.

Blarney Peak This Morning

I was expecting to reap the corn harvest this morning, but instead I found it had snowed a good couple inches above Ten Grand last night.

May on Indy Pass

There’s Peace in The Valley-The Town if Independence

Expecting corn snow and getting Powder is one of the greatest gift Jah can give a man. It was cold and blowing hard when I arrived at the summit. One group started out ahead of me, but they detoured around Blarney to hit Blue Peak. So I had the mountain to myself as I’d imagined it.

The wind was blowing hard and the new snow was wind loaded in places and scrapped off in others. I tried to stick to the wind loaded bits. A hour and a thousand feet above the pass, I reached the summit.

The top of Blarney Peak, the top of the Divide, the Top of the Continent. Thank God for the Water(s).

WATER More Important than the GOLD

The storm was closing in again, and I wasn’t looking to ski that run in bad light. So off I went heading into the Blarney Bowl. A short hour before I needed to hit the clock and start making some roll-ups.

Heuristic Trap God

It was some of the best snow I’ve ever skied on Indy Pass, light wind loaded snow, very little crust had formed. You can’t ask for snow like this at the end of May.

I let out a couple a Powder Hollers, couldn’t help it.

                                                  Fat GS turns=GOOD SHIT

I wished I could of stayed and made another lap, but I had to get to work.

Forty Five minutes later I was on the clock and serving waiting on tables as the Breakfast crowd came in for the day. I didn’t mention my crack-of-dawn adventure to any of my co-workers. Things you do alone are hard to really talk about (but now I’m putting them online…I hate me). It’s all Blarney&Bullshit if no one was there to see it. I’m all for Blarney&Bullshit. My whole morning took place in the vast expanse of the Sawatch Range and the Fucked up corners of my head.

It was the best of mornings.