Jason and jenn

Well, it’s sunny and “nice” outside today, though just 30 or so degrees. I climbed in Sinks Canyon on Thursday and it was 60 and sunny. Friday was nice too, and Saturday in Pinedale was 55 degrees and I rode my scooter to work. Sunday morning there was snow on the ground… and again on Monday.  The rest of the state got hammered by a spring storm.  The snow is melting quickly in town, but they’re calling for a good dumping tomorrow.  Ah, Wyoming weather. Two weeks till we head to Escalante. And counting….

I added a new page (link up above) that shows a map of some of our favorite spots we’ve visited on our adventures. We seem to be missing much of the Pacific Northwest! Must remedy that soon!

Kicking backward, like a horse, I get forward momentum and glide along the snow. Using the opposite leg now and also sticking my poles into the snow, I kick again. I ski up the rise. I’m tired. I have been at this for hours. I am also sunburned, thirsty, and hungry. The snow makes sounds beneath me, a crunchy melt freeze crust beneath a layer of new downy powder reminds me that spring is coming, but not yet.

I stop for a break. The snow is softening in the warmth and is sticking to the bases of my skis. I add a layer, then drink half a bottle of water and eat some dried fruit. I apply a coat of paste wax to the bottom of my skis. The day has warmed from 0 to about 30. The sky is hues of blue to my eyes, deep blue overhead blending into a brighter blue where it meets the mountains and trees.

I sit on my pack in the sun. Gloriously warm. There are rabbit tracks in the snow, everywhere, and birds flit in and out of pines. I saw tracks from a fox earlier. The moose from my last visit to the area are nowhere to be seen. It’s March now and they are beginning to migrate once again.

Being from Kentucky, March is supposed to be warm and turning to spring. Trees bud and leaf out, flowers lend color to the otherwise drab brown earth. There are hints of green. Not here in Wyoming. Winter still has us firmly in her grasp by all appearances and yet the streets are no longer snow covered. There is bare ground and grass in the park, and everywhere the sound of water. Dripping from eaves, running down the street, and the creeks and rivers are opening. Soon the lakes will open as well, and the melt will commence in earnest. Late April and May will be muddy. The locals say there’s no spring season, just mud season and then summer.

At the top of a rise I drop over the lip and sink into a telemark turn, lose a little speed and then face down the hill before dropping into a turn the other way. Then the steepness abates and I am just sliding down hill, no need to turn, just enjoy the break for my legs. I still have a couple hours of skiing back to the van and the sun is still high. Kick… glide… enjoy the sun and blue.

I skate down the road for the last hundred yards to the van and crawl into the bed. Solar. I’m warm and content and flirt with a nap, but I know Jenn has to be back to work at 5:30, and I’d like to see her before then. I slide into the drivers seat and start home. I turn on the ipod. Feist is singing a happy song about dirt roads and knee deep snow. Seems about right.

Next week I may be climbing in Lander in a T-shirt, and there’s a trip to the desert coming in less than a month. On the drive home I look at the snowy landscape, the Wind River Range buried under feet of snow and the sagebrush plain a vast whiteness. It sure still looks like winter, but my soul says spring is near.

I haven’t updated lately… maybe some kind of mid-winter slump… but we’ve also been quite busy. Big surprise there huh?

Jenn is back from a trip to visit family and friends. She got to meet the Keelings baby, visit with Bryan and Christy, my parents, and spent some quality time with her folks.  I wasn’t a big fan of her being gone, but was glad she got to go. She’s done working at the Rock Rabbit and is currently helping out part time at the Aquatic Center. She’s applying for jobs with the Forest Service, BLM, and the local conservation district! I’m sure she’ll get something great!

I climbed in Sinks Canyon last week in 50 degree temps. It was windy, but the climbing was good. Pushed myself on some harder stuff and felt good.  We had our climbing competition last week at the Aquatic Center and it went really well. Better than expected for our first one! Josh Davis won. He’s a great kid that works at the wall. When I first got here 9 months ago he was able to do 5.9 in his tennis shoes. Now he’s gotten into climbing fully and at 17 his confidence is soaring and he is really climbing hard. Last night he flashed his first 5.11, and is super excited and eager to learn.

Winter is still here, even as spring starts to come to the south. It was 6 below this morning and it’s crisp and clear and maybe 22 out now.  While we love skiing, we starting to get a bit excited about climbing season coming up, with Wild Iris and some local areas, and we’re going to head to the desert around jenn’s birthday (Easter Sunday this year). So we’re definitely craving spring. Still, we’re making the most of winter while it’s here. Going on a ski tour today.

I am playing music with some local guys, fiddle and mandolin mostly. We played out at the Place in Cora last week, and had a blast. We call ourselves the “Science Rockets”, a phrase John heard an oil rig worker used on one of their engineers… “That guy’s real smart… he’s one of them science rockets”. Obviously!

So life is good. Pinedale is more charming in winter than summer, and work is going well.  We’re still planning for the future, always scheming and coming up with the next step in the adventure. The whole goal is to never settle for less than all we dream. Right now, we have the desert on our mind, especially a place where Everett Reuss disappeared back in the 1930s. Here’s a good quote:

“I have always been unsatisfied with life as most people live it. Always I want to live more intensely and richly. Why muck and conceal one’s true longings and loves, when by speaking of them one might find someone to understand them, and by acting on them one might discover oneself?”Everett Ruess 1934

Telemark skiing. It is a free-heel ski technique used to turn by genuflecting, sliding one ski back, keeping weight on both skis. It is also an art and one it takes a long time to master. The standard alpine turn has your heel locked down. This is great at the resort, where a lift takes you up. But in the backcountry, away from the crowds, you can’t move unless your heel is free to kick and glide (or plod) along like a cross-country ski can. Thus todays telemark skiing is a combination of cross-country and downhill. We use free heel techniques to access, climb up, and ski down. We started all this last year in Colorado, and now, in our second season, skiing is more like fun than it is about learning something new.

A couple weeks ago jenn got a lesson from a friend of ours, and a day or two later I went to Grand Targhee resort on the west side of the Teton range for a lesson.  We keep practicing, trying to get the muscle memory down. Our little ski hill in Pinedale is great for this, as is some fun backcountry areas we have easy access to.

But last week I went to the Jackson Hole Mountain Resort om the east side of the Tetons, and my first run there was from the top of their new tram, which deposited us at the top of the mountain, 4000 feet above the base, in 9 minutes. We and 100 of our now very close friends all piled out of the Tram, strapped in, and down we went, skiing the powdery “expert only” Rendezvous bowl. It was survival turning for me, but it was skiing. The first 500 feet is the worst, then it eases back to “blue” terrain and I finally took a breath and had fun linking turns, taking a break for my legs, and then heading down some more, repeating that cycle till I reached the bottom in order to go up again. It was a great day at the Village, but likely my last. I like the backcountry, the untracked snow, the quiet. The resorts have little of that. Plus at $70 a day (and that’s with $17 off), I don’t have the funds.

We aren’t experts at the turn yet, but we’re getting better, and it’s starting to look more graceful than awkward. At the end of last season on Berthoud Pass, I told jenn I thought I just needed 5 more days to get the turn down.  Now it’s my running joke. I’ve said it every time out this season. I figure I’ll still be saying it 5 years from now too. And that’s just fine.