Life Change Time?

I was reading an article in a Mountain Biking magazine (can’t remember which), and it was going over ways that you could turn your passion (biking, in this case) into your career. It listed the various options (professional, industry insider, writer, photographer, guide, etc.) and the pros and cons of each choice. None of them seemed particularly appealing. Or, I guess the better way to say it is: the cons seemed to outweigh the pros in every case (with the possible exception of “professional”, which is a very time limited career with a lot of things that can go wrong). I've said before that the problem with working in an industry is an intricate knowledge of its ugly side. Well, another problem with working in an industry with an enormous potential labor pool is the really, really, really crappy pay. Any job that is desirable can afford to pay their employees poorly. But the ski industry is particularly bad. And it doesn’t seem to be getting any better.

With that in mind, I was thinking of the possible ways that one could go about establishing a life in a mountain town. Obviously, one way to do it is to just do it. Now. Sell the house, sell the stuff (besides the skis and mountain bikes – you’ll need those), cash in the 401k, get in your car (containing only gear and clothes), and start driving in October. Find a cheap apartment, a low end job (preferably night hours), get a dog, grow a beard, and live the laid back life of a ski bum. “Laid back” is a relative term here, because this option seems to lend itself to money problems and health insurance difficulties for the rest of your life (or at least until you turn 65 when the dystopian, socialist hell of Medicare kicks in; thank GOD we don’t have that for everybody [/sarcasm]).

The second option is to wait until retirement. Save up a ton of money, pay off your mortgage, and just buy a small little house or condo in Telluride or Park City with that cash. This idea is not entirely unreasonable – many years of diligent saving can get you some good coin, selling a paid off house in 30 years can net you some more cash, and you can piece together a pretty decent retirement income between social security, a pension (if you have one), and a retirement job (ski instructor or hotel work or whatever). Or, do what some people (people that are richer than I) are doing and buy a 2^nd home that can double as a ski house while you work, and a retirement house when you get older. The downside of this option is that you miss the best years of your life because you’re working some crappy job all day when you could be skiing. Then, when you finally get some free time after retirement, you’re so old that “getting rad” mostly involves cruising the groomers.

There’s got to be a better option. If only there was some happy medium - some way to work long enough so that you could save enough money to just enjoy life and not have to worry about a soul sucking corporate job or injury related bankruptcy. Some way to own a house in a ski town, but not have to leave it every Sunday night to drive back to suburbia, dreading the following day at the office.

I’m trying to think of ways to accomplish this. So far, I’ve come up with two ideas: going back to school for my Master’s degree (at some place near mountains – Northern Arizona, Montana State, University of Utah, etc.), and hypersaving (plowing tons of money into savings and retirements accounts for the next few years by living on beans & rice, depriving myself of luxuries, and driving my car well after I’m done paying it off). The Master’s degree would probably entail taking out student loans (ugh), but the hypersaving idea could be financially smart. If I can save enough money in the next few years, I could move out west with the money from home equity, some pretty good money in retirement accounts, and enough savings to cover a year or two of living while ski instructing and looking for a job in my field. Unfortunately, hypersaving would involve cutting down my spending on frivolous crap (which I don’t really do), and cutting down my spending on going out, drinking and socializing (which I definitely do). Damn.

I guess it’s one of those times in life when you have to decide what is most important; one of those times in life when you have to identify what you want, and formulate a plan for how you want to get it. When I started this blog almost 4 years ago, I wrote a post about how as people get older, they trade security for freedom (buying a house is the financially responsible, secure thing to do, but you lose the freedom to just up and leave whenever you want, etc.). I mentioned that I wanted the blog to reflect a life well lived, not a boring life where I go to work every day and come home every night and watch TV. Well, after 4 years of going to work every day and coming home every night to watch TV, I’m getting pretty freaking sick of it. Not that I haven’t had some good times and some awesome trips, but this sandbox is getting boring and I need a new playground.

Warren Miller says that if you don’t quit your job and move to ski country this year, you’ll be one year older when you do. Every year, his voice gets louder in my head, and I can’t seem to shake it. The other voice in my head is Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption: “Get busy living, or get busy dying”.

Well, I’m not dying anytime soon. There are many years of getting rad to come.

Starting to get Interesting . . .

When you go skiing, what kind of terrain are you looking for? By that, I mean, what kind of stuff do you like to ski?

It seems like a great majority of the skiing public prefers groomed terrain, which I find to be kind of weird. I mean, think of the groomers on your local mountain.  Is there any real difference from one to the next? I mean, sure, maybe the pitch changes, maybe the aspect is different, and maybe the snow quality has some slight variation from one to the next. But, really, is your skiing experience going to be THAT much different if “Groomer A” is closed for the day, so you have to default to “Groomer B”? 

When I ski, I spend a lot of time looking for “Interesting” terrain. Interesting terrain could be anything from icy bumps, to a glade with ridiculously thin cover, to a terrain park, and everything in between. I’d rather the conditions be horrible and difficult, than easy and boring.

I was thinking about this today when I was thinking about my life. When it came time to make decisions in life, I always tried to make the easy and boring decision: go to school, get a job, buy a house, get married, etc. It’s like I was following everybody else, straight down crowded Groomer A. As things fall apart, I’m starting to think that maybe there’s more interesting stuff out there. 

Who says I have to follow the same path that everyone else is following? What if I want to duck into the trees for a while? What if I want to throw myself into the air, knowing that there’s a distinct possibility of a spectacular crash? What if I just want to get away from the freaking people on Groomer A?

The people are the worst! With their boring talk about how this trail is so great, and Groomer B is probably great too, let’s do that next, and then we’ll all reconvene at the end of the day and talk about how great our day was and we go home happy knowing that we all took the safe route, never experienced any risk, and didn’t fall all day.  Sure, there were tough spots, like that patch of ice on Groomer J, but we were proud of the way we handled that, and we all got through it safe and sound, and we all came away better for the experience.

Ugh. No thanks. But what about those people over there? What about those guys poaching that line under the lift? What about those shadows moving through the woods?  What about that dude hurling himself down that mogul field?  Ahhh, now these are the people I can relate to.  People who take chances, people who take risks, people who put themselves out there, knowing that it’s possible that they could fail, but even if they do, at least they’ll have an epic story to tell about it.

This is the kind of person I’m attracted to in life, as well.  Tell me about your crazy schemes, let me know about your harebrained ideas, tell me the story of how you took that chance in your life, and what happened as a result.  Give me your wild, your sure, your untroubled badasses yearning to freeski! People who choose their own path, and have better stories as a result. 

Because I really don’t want to hear another diatribe about how that snowboarder cut you off. I want to hear about that time your buddy almost got caught in that tree well.  I want to reminisce about that crazy cliff huck with the sketchy landing.  I want to relive that face shot, or soft spring corn bump field, or boost out of the pipe.

I know what you’re thinking: “But Matt, not everyone has the ability to do all that stuff you’re saying”. I know. Similarly, I have a job, a mortgage, a car loan, and a house.  I just can’t sell all my crap, and just start biking across the country with the clothes on my back, either. But you can take a chance.

Next time you’re skiing, do one thing that scares you. One thing different. One thing that’s not in your daily routine. Slide a box. Sample some snow in the woods. Hit a kicker. You might find that it leads to a whole new appreciation for life outside of the same old groomer. 

I’m going to Alaska this spring. It might be horrible, it might end catastrophically, and it might send me running back to New York with my tail between my legs. But it’s possible that it’ll be the best trip I’ve ever done. I might have the time of my life. This trip could open me up to an entire life that I never even considered before.  And just knowing that makes it worth the risk.

It’s time to choose a new trail.

Early Season Malaise

As a “weekend warrior”, I don’t suffer from the general malaise that seems to be setting in among mountain people across the country (except for Alaska). Here’s the Female Ski Bum:

I am here, stuck in the midst of my "why hasn't the winter season really started yet" depression, and struggling to feel my soul connected to the mountain.

Even the Jaded Local is talking crazy:

It all seems so far away, so impossible… and then all of a sudden you’re considering drastic measures like getting a job or buying telemark gear.

Now that's just insane. Don’t get me wrong. I ask the same questions, look at the same weather reports, and wish for the same powder. I just have other stuff to do: gym climbing Tuesday at The Edge-Halfmoon, office Christmas parties, last minute shopping, dicking around on the internet, work, etc. I’m keeping myself busy, confident that the snow will be there (as it always is) in February and March, when my ski instructing duties slow down and I can get to ripping.

I do have to say, though, that once I get to that point, I’m not thinking about work, shopping, or internet dicking. Apparently someone is, though, because the newest thing to be introduced in Vail is the Wi-Fi enabled gondola. I see more and more people whipping out their phones and texting, facebooking, and playing angry birds on the way up the mountain. God forbid they actually hold a conversation with the people around them – maybe make some new friends, discuss the snow conditions, laugh at a spectacular crash below. Nope. Instead of engaging with other people and actually being present, they choose to completely remove themselves from the situation and zone out everything that’s going in their vicinity. Ugh. They might as well be at home staring at a glowing box.

In a related story, there’s a new app available for iPhones that uses the GPS to identify the mountain peaks around you in the Adirondacks. Now this is the kind of thing I’d like to see more of. This app uses technology in a way that actually allows you to be more tuned in to what you’re doing. Part of the reason I like Photography and Video is that they force you to find creative ways to view your surroundings. Year End photo journal-style blog posts, like this and this, wouldn’t be possible if the authors were not paying attention to everything going on around them. Even a walk in the woods can be an amazing experience if you just stop and look around once in a while. These are the kinds of things that inspire me to get out there, have more adventures, take more pictures, and be more imaginative in my photography.

I don’t really know what I’m trying to say here (it’s probably another one of my pleas to live in the moment), but I guess I’ll finish with a story about the rock gym. First, let it be known that I am not a good rock climber. Well, I guess I’m good enough to know that I’m not good. I’m not a Gumby, but I’m definitely not flashing 5.9s, and I constantly find myself pumped out and hang dogging the last few climbs of the night (I’ve been reviewing the glossary of climbing terms because people have entire conversations in that gym that sound completely foreign to me).

Anyway, when I’m in the gym and I’m belaying or resting, I’m looking around like crazy. I always find it interesting how many different ways there are to climb the same route. And there are so many different styles (mostly corresponding to body type). I’m starting to learn what constitutes good technique (using the skeleton as much as possible to rest the muscles), and trying to be more smooth in my climbing (funny how that’s the goal in so many sports). I’m so caught up in everything I’m doing, that I’m not thinking about work or relationships or anything else. And I’m definitely not thinking about taking out my phone to see what other people are doing on Facebook. Maybe that’s why I’m happy.

Gift Guides = Garbage

Around this time of year, ski sites start coming out with “gift guides”, which are really just a bunch of kickbacks to their sponsors. Everything is overpriced, everything is gimmicky, and it’s almost a guarantee that everything you get will make you look stupid (also, the time has come for me to officially come out against Transpack backpacks. They are the Ski-Tote of the new millennium and as easy as they might make things to carry, you generally look like a complete and total gaper when you have one – exceptions can be made for kids, but that’s the only group with immunity). Gift guides as a general concept are so beholden to the “consumer culture”, it’s hard to think of any way that they make people’s lives better. Many years from now, when historians write the book on the decline of the American empire as a result of capitalistic greed, rampant egoism, and uncaring selfishness, the “Holiday Gift Guide” will have its own chapter. It’s so much better to think about gifts like this guy:

The best gift for an adventurer is a great plan in a brand new place and a way to get there (gas $$, plane tickets, whatever).

He goes on to do the kind of gift guide that I’m really interested in: the best adventure spots in a variety of states (for New York, he recommends tagging a bunch of peaks in the ADKs on a long hike from Keene Valley to Marcy). That’s the kind of thing I want to know about. Don’t tell me what to buy, tell me what to do. Tell me what to see. Show me a cool place that I’ve never visited. Introduce me to an activity that I’ve never done before. Better yet, come with me! If you’re passionate about Stand Up Paddleboarding, or Canyoneering, or Snowmobiling, or whatever you’re into, show me why you like it. Tell me why it’s awesome, and take me on your favorite trip.

I was recently reading an article about donations to food banks being the most economically inefficient way to deal with feeding the hungry. There are many problems with the “food drive” model: charitable organizations can get cans of food for much less money than you can, handling that many cans are a logistical nightmare, and a lot of food ends up getting wasted (because they’ve received too many cans of beans and not enough cans of tomatoes, for instance). So should we stop giving cans of food? What’s the solution?

In-kind donations still help, of course, and nobody’s turning away boxes of food. But a fundamental issue is that many organizations feel that asking for money—like requesting cash as a gift—seems somewhat gauche. So, let me be rude on their behalf: Find well-managed charities in your community and trust them to know how to do their job. They have access to food at a fraction of the price. They know their clients, and they have better things to do than to sort through your canned goods.

Exactly. When it comes to food banks, the best strategy is to let them handle it. And maybe this is the best strategy for gift giving, too. I can get pretty good discounts on Outdoor equipment. I know a couple of trips next year that I REALLY want to go on. And I don’t really need that 8th pair of ski socks.

I know that this is antithetical to the whole capitalist system (or “spirit of giving” if you please), but the money that people are going to spend on Christmas gifts would do a lot more good if it were in the hands of the people who are in line to receive the gifts. I’m in favor of stipulations (“you have to spend this on something fun and not on bills”), but I’m just not in favor of filling my house with more crap. I’m not about to go minimalist, I just feel like I’ve gotten to the point where I already have enough stuff (besides that avalanche gear I need . . . and that rock climbing equipment . . . Damn. This anti-capitalism thing is harder than I thought).

I really just need to get out and start using the stuff I have.

Come on, Snow.

More Adventure, Less Ennui

I spend a lot of time reading people’s stories. Trip reports, race summaries, adventure journals. The internet is an incredible thing. I wanted to talk a little bit about why I fill my hours examining other people’s stuff.

Every once in a while, I come across a great blog post. The kind of post that makes me want to be a better person. When I read this post the other day, I definitely felt inspired. I mean, how could you not be affected by sections like this:

I joked yesterday about what I’ve learned on the bike. Well, the single greatest thing I have truly learned on the bike is what Ken Chlouber from Leadville preaches every year.

You are better than you think you are. You can do more than you think you can.

I have not ridden Leadville. I could not. Yet. I have done nothing like it. A lot of you have not, and could not. But…

We can all DIG DEEP. We are all better than we think we are, we can all do more than we think we can.

This is an absolute truth. I have not ridden Leadville, but I have experienced exactly what Ken preaches – I have learned from the past year and a half on the bike that I can do WAY more than I thought I could. I am WAY better than I thought I was.

And so are you.

I want to be better. I want to do more. Sometimes, especially when it rains for 3 straight days, I feel like I’m not living my life to its fullest potential. I’m making more excuses than memories. It’s raining. My rear rotor on my car needs to be replaced. My bank account is down to the single digits again.

I need to develop a more positive attitude. This is a better example of how I should be thinking, from the South County Cyclista blog:

A few weeks ago on a Friday night I was trying to figure out where I was going to ride the next morning. My friends all had to ride later in the day or were out of town. Then it hit me. Why not finally make it up to the radio tower? I pulled up the map I had studied many times looking at the dirt road switch backs climbing up the steep contours of the land. This would indeed be a solo adventure.

Usually adventures like this need to be done solo or you risk ending friendships if the adventure turns sour.

I remember one time this past summer when Ace was away, it was a beautiful sunny day, and I wasted it inside watching golf on TV. Ugh. To be fair, we did a 20 mile road ride in the morning so it wasn’t a complete waste. But I still felt like I could have done more. Wasn’t there a little part of my area that I hadn’t explored yet? Wasn’t there someplace to go?

That’s why this idea from the Adventure Journal really intrigued me:

I once spent four years cycling more than 40,000 miles round the world. It was a heck of an adventure. But one of the things I learned during that trip was that you don’t need to spend four years cycling more than 40,000 miles round the world to have an adventure.

Adventure is only a state of mind. 
Adventure is stretching yourself; mentally, physically or culturally. It is about doing what you don’t normally do, pushing yourself hard and doing it to the best of your ability. And if that’s true then adventure is all around us, at all times. Even during hard financial times such as these. Times, I believe, when getting away from it all and out into the wild are more invigorating and important than ever.

That is why I began a series of ‘expeditions’ that are close to home, affordable, easy to organize, and designed to encourage other people to get out there and do stuff! I call them microadventures.

Right. I didn’t need to sit at home watching golf. There were all sorts of other things I could have been doing – new places to explore, new things to try, and new experiences to be had.

I think my real problem is that I wasn’t thinking outside of the box. I really did want to go somewhere, but for some reason, I was only thinking of places that I had been before. I wasn’t really into repeating something I had done hundreds of times (see my post on Adventures vs. Sessions), so I had a hard time motivating to get off my couch and do anything at all.

Ridiculous. Some of the best adventures are the ones that are unplanned, spontaneous, and completely improvised. Thinking only of the places I had been before made my decision really uninteresting, unexciting, and uninspiring. It’s no wonder I chose to sit at home. Because really, to take one more snippet from the South County Cyclista blog:

"It is only an adventure the first time."
- Dan Z.

Exactly. Time to start racking up some first times.

Change

I've been feeling really down lately. I don't know if it's the Month of August, some personal problems, a pay cut at work, or just the soul crushing ennui of suburban, middle class life. I can't help but feel like I'm just frittering time away, waiting for something to happen to me. Which is really the wrong attitude to take. The better approach is more like this (from holstee.com):

I'm trying to get past the "If you don't like something, change it" part of the slogan.  I know something isn't right, I know I want to change it, but I have no idea what it is or how to change it.  Besides, "change" isn't really always the easiest thing to pull off. Ask Barack Obama. Or Tupac. Or the millions of people who want to change their employment status. 

I feel like I want to go somewhere, or do something, or make something happen.  I'm not depressed, but I'm not happy either.  Maybe I just need a long walk to clear my head. Or maybe I need to start making plans for the winter. 

"Do what you love, and do it often."

Okay, maybe I'll try that for a while.  

The Secret of Golf

My grandfather had two rules for golf. The first rule was “miss ‘em straight”; meaning, if you hit a bad shot, at least make sure the bad shot was in the general direction of the target. The second rule was “learn how to listen to the grass grow”. That one was a little bit more complicated. I guess I could have chalked it up to general weirdness (he also suggested washing your hands with “hot soap and water”), but I really think it was meant as more of a statement of grand philosophy.

I’m not someone you would call “relaxed.” I’m always thinking, fidgeting, or thinking about fidgeting. I like to be constantly bombarded with stuff – information, music, pictures, stories, etc. It’s not that I can’t relax (I relax with the best of them). I just seem to do a lot of stuff while I’m relaxing. Last night, after I got done mowing my lawn, I decided to just lay out on the couch. Before I knew it, I was drinking a beer, watching the Tour de France on TV, flipping back and forth to the Mets game, facebooking, texting Ace, and browsing internet message boards. Not exactly the tranquility that I had in mind. Since golf is a lot like life (but more complicated), I really have to teach myself to listen to the grass grow when I’m not on the golf course (since I seem to have learned to do it on the course – 37,38,38,38 for my last four 9’s).

One of the things that helped me this year is not dwelling on my last shot. It’s awful easy to screw up your next shot because you’re thinking about how horrible the previous shot was. In golf, your mind works better when it has a short memory: logical forgetfulness. The way I got there was a bit of a mental shift. Instead of thinking “I’m in this damn bunker because my last shot was so shitty”, I’ve started thinking: “Here I am in this bunker, how can I get this shot close?” It’s not a very drastic change, and it can easily be applied to other areas in life. Instead of thinking, “Damn, my relationship sucks because of this shitty thing I did”, it’s better to think: “Okay, here’s the situation I’m in now, how can I make it better?” The quicker you can make the transition from reflection to preparation, the easier it is to move on.

Another thing that has helped me this year is that I always make sure that I’m well fed (usually a sandwich before the round). And I always have a beer around the 4th hole. Somehow it’s easier to listen to the grass grow when I’m not starving and sober. Ace will tell you, when I’m hungry, it’s like a Snickers commercial. Also, it has been found that heavy drinking is more healthy than totally abstaining from drinking, possibly because of social reasons. So who’s up for a margarita!?!?

Finally, right before I swing, I think to myself: “It’s perfect”. I don’t know if this actually does anything, but I generally find that if I have a bad thought – “I’m going to slice it into the trees”, “I’m going to chunk this chip 2 feet in front of me”, “I’m going to hit it in that pond” – it almost always comes true. So, I figured that the opposite couldn’t hurt. I think this seems to work for me off the course as well. When I have a bad feeling walking into a casino, I generally lose money. But when I expect to win, I seem to do pretty well. I think this is one of the reasons that people accepted “The Force” as a possibility in Star Wars. The mind is pretty powerful, and it doesn’t seem too far fetched to believe that an enormous intergalactic planet-sized space station can be destroyed because some teenage kid trusted his “feelings” on the final shot.

I don’t really think that these steps are what my grandfather had in mind to improve your golf game. Otherwise, he would have just said that the secret is a short memory, food, confidence and alcohol. Wait a minute . . . Maybe that is the secret to a great golf game!! And a great date! For that matter, it might be the secret to a great business meeting, wedding, bowling tournament, poker game, bachelor party, sporting event, or parole board hearing! I mean, sure, this type of lifestyle might turn us into a nation of fat, forgetful, overoptimistic drunks, but some people would say that we’re already there. Which brings me back to the Grandpa’s first rule: As long as we’re going in the general direction we want to go in, it’s okay to miss every once in a while. Just make sure your next move is perfect.

Passion

I’ve been thinking a lot about “passion.” What is it that makes someone passionate? How do we increase passion? Why do we lose our passion? Who are the most passionate people we know? What are they passionate about, and why are they so passionate about it?

Some of the most passionate skiers I’ve met are people who came to the sport later in life. I don’t know if it’s about “making up for lost time”, or just trying to get better at a new sport, but a lot of people who started skiing in their 30s, 40s, or 50s are out there every time I’m at the mountain – learning, evolving, progressing. When they feel like they’ve gone as far as they can go, they take a lesson to try to move up to the next level. When they have an injury or a setback, they come back from it even stronger than before. They start out as non skiers, move on to become gapers, progress further to become average weekend warriors, and then start touching the higher echelons of the sport.

I feel like I’m going through this evolution with mountain biking. The first time we went, Ace and I looked at each other and said “Is this what mountain biking is like?” “It’s so hard!” “Why are we so bruised and broken?” But, for some reason, we kept at it. Now, I feel like I have really developed a "passion" for it. When I see a tough section, instead of looking at it with dread and despair, I see it as a challenge. I want to be good enough to ride it. I want to be stronger, too. Road bike rides have gone from a way to get exercise to mountain bike-specific muscle training. I’ve been reading books and watching instructional videos trying to refine technique.

But WHY? Why do some people develop a passion for something, and other people find it to be just another enjoyable activity? After our first ride, Ace and I could’ve just said “That was fun”, and relaxed for a couple of months – similar to the people who ski once or twice a year, put the skis away, and move on to other things. But we didn’t do that. We rode again later that week. And twice the next week. And three times the week after that. Now, we ride our mountain bikes every weekend and a couple of times during the week – just like skiing.

I was thinking about this when I read an article on the Independent Fabrication Custom Bicycles blog. After recounting a harrowing crash during a 214 km “Gentleman’s Race”, the author (“G.”) spends some time in a hospital and reflects on why people push themselves the way they do. What is it that drives people (especially those in the industry)?

In my career in the outdoor and bike industries I've observed two types of folks: those that are in the space, and those that are of the space. Those that are in the space are there because at one point they may have been active participants in the sport, or they may have just been intrigued by the equipment or allure of the sport overall, but for these folks it is just the way that they make their living, not the way that they live their life.

Those that are truly of the space are a different breed, and I would argue more successful for it. They are there because it is the way they choose to live their life, and the making a living part is a gift with purchase... the marriage of passion with purpose.

I may have reached the point where more often than not I am going to be the slow man, but I refuse to give up and just be in the space. If I don't actively participate, meaning if I don't actually ride, and try to ride as hard as I can, then I am not truly of the space. My purpose will lack passion, and I might as well go do something more lucrative.

And so, I will get back on the bike as soon as I can, albeit with a new helmet, and still unwilling to accept my role as the slow man.

To truly be “of the space”, you have to have passion. Drive. Desire. After 25 years of skiing, I still have that passion. I still pore over trip reports and watch ski movies (I even put one on the other day after I couldn’t find anything on television). I still get a rush on the first skiing day of the season. I still want to get better, go bigger, and push harder. When I get to a ski area, I not only want to be “of the space”, I want to start expanding to fill the space.

I was at Sugarloaf one day in 1999 or so and Jonny Moseley showed up, fresh from his gold in the 1998 Olympics. By the end of the day, almost every kid at the mountain from age 6-16 was skiing with him. Moseley in front, huge pack of kids behind him, huge group of parents behind them. It was great! Glen Plake gets the same kind of posse when he goes on his Down Home Tours. When you are truly “of the space”, it’s not only about personal growth and personal development; it’s about inspiring others to live the dream, too (whether through instruction, blogging, or just general radness).

Passion is a strange thing. It launches careers. It fuels relationships. It drives Mother Theresa, and it drives suicide bombers. It’s not a little flicker of interest. It’s not even a fire inside. It’s a full blown inferno that can’t be extinguished. But sometimes, it does get extinguished. How do we keep it up? If we have to be “of the space”, what happens when we no longer like the space we’re in? When we want to move on to a different space?

I guess I don’t have all the answers. I just know that if I ever had to quit skiing, I’d have a hard time figuring out what do with myself through the winter. There are certain feelings that you get when you’re skiing that you can’t get anywhere else. It makes me want to do whatever it takes to repeat those feelings. I don’t think the passion could ever just go away. I haven’t really developed that sense from mountain biking yet, so I guess I’m not as ultra-passionate about that.

I mean, seriously. It’s June and I’m already watching ski movies . . . It’s going to be a long summer.

Choice

I have over 500 channels on my cable TV. Actually, I have over 1800, but a bunch of those are sports package channels, music channels, and HD duplicate channels. I'm not picky, so I watch everything from ESPN to the Style Network, The History Channel to E!. I get HBO. I have Netflix movies delivered to my house. I can get movies and television shows through my cable box, my Xbox, and my laptop. And what do I do every night? I flip through each channel, browse each movie source, and decide that there is absolutely nothing that I want to watch. I usually settle on the Mets game (which is invariably disappointing).

I only mention this because I've been thinking about choice. More specifically, I've been asking myself why, when I have so many options in my life (TV options, movie theater options, weekend vacation options), why I still feel like I need more. When I scroll by the Showtime (a channel I don't get), sometimes I see a movie that I'd like to watch, and I briefly contemplate purchasing Showtime. Today, while watching the Tour of California, I contemplated trying to hook up an antenna so I could get the Universal Sports feed of the Giro d'Italia. Every week, Ace and I try to use a pair of free movie tickets that we have, and every week we decide that there's nothing in the theaters that's worth watching. Every time I try to decide what to do on the weekend, I look at some options and decide that I want to do other things. I wish that I lived in Colorado so that I could mountain bike Fruita, or ski A-basin.

All of this leads to the "Paradox of Choice", which is really nicely described in this Youtube video (but it is long, so I summarize the main points below):



The Professor at Swarthmore College explains that there are four ways that more choices actually make us less happy:

1. It produces paralysis, rather than liberation. With so many options to choose from, people find it very difficult to choose at all.

2. Even if we manage to overcome the paralysis and make a choice, we end up less satisfied with the result of the choice than we would be if we had fewer options to choose from.

3. Escalation of Expectations

4. When people make decisions, and even though the results of the decisions are good, they feel disappointed about them - They blame themselves.

The reason that I've been looking at this sort of stuff is this: I'm thinking of buying another bike. And I'm getting paralyzed by the decision. I don't even know what type of bike I want. Some friends want to do a lot of downhill biking this summer (at Whiteface, Plattekill, etc.), so I was thinking of getting a cheap craigslist dh bike that I can throw on the back of a lift, in the bottom of a shuttle bus, or off a rock drop, and not care about it.

Other times, like today on my short little bike ride around the neighborhood (just trying to get something in before I got rained on again), I want something more along the lines of a "Gravel Grinder". I came upon this path:

Whenever I'm on my road bike, and I see a path like that, I always want to take it to see where it goes. But my skinny little road bike tires can't handle it. I'd also like to get into "bikepacking", and a gravel grinder that could fit 29x2.0 tires would be perfect for something like the GDMBR. I keep on looking at the Origin 8 CX700, a cross frame built for touring, durability, and 29x2.1 tires.

Still other times, I want a sweet 29er singlespeed that I can convert to a geared bike for races and bikepacking. I was thinking about this when I was in Ellicottville for work last week (from what I hear, PRIME mountain bike territory). I couldn't jam my enormous full suspension 29er into my little office car, so I didn't get to ride while I was out there. But if I had a nice, simple singlespeed like a Niner SIR 9, especially one like this with S&S couplers, I could fit it into my work vehicle, or into a plane to go visit my bother and ride Sedona, or into a train for a European bike adventure, etc.

And the worst part of all of this is: I don't need a bike. I have a perfectly good road bike, and a perfectly good mountain bike. And here, the paradox of choice will work twice:

First, I will become paralyzed with all of these bike choices. When I finally choose my bike, I will inevitably be disappointed when I can't do all the things that I could've had I made a different choice (if I get the singlespeed, I won't be able to use it at Whiteface, so I'll have to rent). Then I'll blame myself for having to pay the $80 for renting.

Then, if I do end up getting a bike, I'll have to go through a stupid choice every time I ride. Should I go road biking or mountain biking? What about a mix? Maybe I'll take the gravel grinder out for some doubletrack. But when I get on to some trails, and I start having all sorts of fun, I'll wish I brought the mountain bike so I could hit more technical trails, and I'll blame myself for making the wrong decision.

Ugh.

So, after thinking about it for a little while, I bought . . . One new tire for my mountain bike. Now should I put it on the front wheel or the back? Hmmmmm . . . .

The Secret to Happiness (May not be Transferable)

Every once in a while I like to take a step back and look at where I am in my life, what I’m doing, where I want to be in my life, and what I want to do. I was saying last night that, ultimately, the only person responsible for your happiness is you. So you have to take whatever steps are necessary to get yourself in a happy place. And I’m in a pretty happy place right now.

Sure, there are some problems: my house is looking a little haggard, my car still needs $1000 worth of repairs to fix some wheel sensors, my bank account is depressingly lacking in funds. But I am feeling pretty optimistic about the next few years. I’m not a religious guy, but I think I’ve stumbled onto a pretty good life fulfillment strategy. It may not work for everyone, but it works for me. Here’s how it goes:

1. Do cool things with cool people
2. Remember the good times
3. Plan the next adventure

That’s it. If you’re lucky (like I am), your family is a composed of a group of cool people that you like doing things with - especially your kick ass wife. If you’re REALLY lucky, your job consists of doing cool things with cool people (I’m pretty damn close, but not completely there). But it’s definitely acceptable to do your cool things in your free time, too (and use the work days to recover). And I recognize that life isn’t always rainbows and lollipops, but there’s no harm in trying to put more of that good stuff in your life. Some guy known as “Uncle Dan”, whose blog is here, talks about when he started mountain biking:

I started meeting some great people on the trails, in the bike shops and mainly at the trailheads. About 90% of them had this crazy gleam in their eyes and all shared a passion for life that I was not used to. Its kind of like hanging out at a ski resort . . . where everyone is there to have a good time, nobody is lazy, and for the most part everyone is in a good mood and getting along with everyone else - yea, that.

I truly believe that’s how life should feel all the time (or at least most of the time). As for #2, I believe that it logically follows #1: If you’re going to do all this cool stuff, at least remember all the stuff you did. I, for one, have a terrible memory. So photography, blogging, and late night drunken story telling are great ways to relive the awesome times I had. Even though Bruce Springsteen sings that he hopes he doesn’t sit around talking about his “Glory Days”, he admits that he probably will. And that’s okay. Check out this post about Alaska on Adventure Journal:

The land is alive with history — my history. Visiting one island, I still see the 25-year-old kid I used to be, running down a deer trail and arriving breathless on a beach, just in time to see my first breaching whale. Near one of the glaciers, I recall when collapsing ice sent out unusually big waves that nearly stripped me from the shore as I clung to a rocky ledge. There’s the ice-peppered bay where my wife and I were married on a boat among our closest friends and family. With so much history here, I feel like the place owns me.

That’s why I’m enjoying photography so much. As I look back on my pictures, I want to feel the feelings I had when they were taken (whatever those feelings were): Happiness, Relaxation, Exhaustion, Elation, Gratitude, etc. As for #3, that’s just to keep me from being sedate. It’s so easy in this world to fall into a routine: Get up, work, go back to bed, repeat. I want new experiences. I want to go places I’ve never been, taste things I’ve never tried, do things I’ve never done. #3 is about looking towards the horizon, putting your toes in the surf, and then diving in (no matter how much of a shock the cold water is). It’s about getting off the couch, getting outside, and doing something. Here’s some inspiration from Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.

These blog posts are my footprints. Enjoy the walk.

Never Stop Exploring?

I really enjoyed this post from Heidi Swift about bicycle touring.  Tidbit:

Riding a loaded touring bike seems valiant or poetic, but it’s a voluntary act made (oftentimes) by privileged people who are searching for something that they can’t find at home: simplicity, detachment, clarity. You leave everything you own behind and pack a small selection of essentials into a few bags. Then you tow them and, somehow, the weight yields an internal lightness. It’s a startling inversion. It’s a trick of the mind.  

The real work of touring starts when you come home and stand in front of your kingdom and try to figure out what it means and why you left it.

It seems like a battle is constantly waging with outdoorsy people who live in the city (or in my case, suburbs).  It doesn’t need to evolve over a multiday bike tour either.  Every weekend, we drive hundreds of miles and spend hundreds of dollars to escape the “drudgery” of everyday life.  For a few fleeting moments, we forget about mortgages, bills, and responsibilities.  We’re focused on skiing (or biking, or ice climbing, etc.).  We’re into the moment, and we celebrate afterwards.  Then when we get back home, we slip back into the same routines.  Wake up, go to work, come home, make dinner, watch TV, go to bed, repeat.  Boredom. Monotony. Stasis. 

But if “routine” is the worst of all possible worlds, then what is the best?  Is it a non-stop bicycle tour with your entire family from the northern tip of Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina ? Is it an “all-in” non stop trek of the Appalachian Trail, North Country Trail, Great Divide Route, and Pacific Coast Trails? Is it a sail around the world on an old sailboat (looks pretty good to me)?  Is the key to enlightenment actually a clothing company tagline (“Never Stop Exploring”)?

Personally, I don’t think I was ever cut out to be a nomad.  I like to have a home, and a sense of place.  I like to go out to bars, watch baseball games, and grill meat on my back porch.  I like warm showers and down comforters and cold beer.  In fact, I always find that the best meal of a multiday camping trip is the one you have when you return to civilization.  While I might never stop exploring, I’m okay with taking a break every once in a while.  Heidi, who seems to have somehow turned this “blogging” thing into a career, comes to the same conclusion:

In my case, I try to figure out why I always want to leave it again and again. At the same time, cradled in the expanse of a soft king bed, flanked by cats that have become temporarily affectionate due to their perceived near-abandonment, I know with exacting clarity how my home can be both shifting and static.

I guess it’s about balance. Unfortunately, I feel like my balance has shifted too far towards the safe, boring, routine side of things. It’s time to set sail.

2011 Goals

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, but I’ve been having a rough time.  The holiday period is always super busy for a ski instructor, and I put in a bunch of days at the mountain.  Plus, I never do my Christmas shopping early, so the run up to Christmas is always packed with trips to crowded malls and stress about what to buy.  Then there are the family obligations, the friend obligations, and the work obligations mixed in.

And it’s not just the “to-do” list that’s got me down, it’s the weather.  On Monday, December 27^th, I woke up to 11 inches of snow at my house in suburban Albany, NY.  As I shoveled my car out, I noticed that the snow was light, fluffy, and fantastic.  I knew the drive would be rough, but I took my time, drove slowly, and avoided becoming one of the many cars that had found their way into ditches.  As I drove, I listened to relaxed, adult-alternative oriented music to calm my mood, and keep me from wanting to go too fast. I actually started enjoying the trip.  Sure, it was taking forever (and I was going to miss my 8:30 ski instructing sign in time), but I love new snow, and the feeling of anticipation was building as the dulcet melodies of Jack Johnson soothed my nerves.

Until I started looking at the snow depth.  The road conditions were still bad, but the snowfall amounts were deteriorating as I moved north.  7 inches in Saratoga.  4 Inches in Glens Falls.  2 inches in Warrensburg.  By the time I got to North Creek, there was no snow on the ground at all.  The only weather that greeted me was a blistering wind when I stepped out of the car.  Ugh.

On top of that, I went to 3 lineups and didn’t get one lesson.  So I drove all that way, used all that gas money, avoided all those ditches, and listened to all that Colbie Caillat for nothing!!!!  The skiing wasn’t even that good! The wind and cold associated with the storm made being outside feel miserable (although the snowmakers have done a great job keeping the snowpack skiable on a lot of my favorite trails).  So we got all of the bad parts of a winter storm (wind and cold), but none of the good parts (epic snowfall).  What a waste.

After this past week, I look back on that day and I still think it’s a bit of a waste.  But there was a moment during that day that I was actually very content.  I was relaxed, alert, and giddy with anticipation about skiing fresh snow, teaching great lessons, and celebrating afterwards.  With that idea in mind, I decided that my New Years Resolutions for this year should contain a bunch of chances for these types of moments.  While I might not be able to complete all of my resolutions, I still want to have chances to look around and say “Right here, in this moment, I’m happy.”  A second thing I wanted to do for this year was try to make more progress on the goals that I have.  My list from last year didn’t go very well, and I need to start making things happen.  Here’s an idea from a website:

Do a little every day. Take small steps towards your big goals every day, even if it means spending 60 seconds checking out a relevant website before bed.

Ha! So I can help achieve my resolutions by browsing the internet?   These are going to be easier than I thought:

1. Film, Edit, and Finish a quality ski movie for the year
2. Backcountry ski at least 5 times
3. Bike Commute 50 times this year
4. Explore at least 5 new-to-me mountain bike areas in the Northeast
5. Learn more about bicycle repair, acquire some tools and start wrenching my bikes
6. Make at least one blog post every month that makes people want to be where I am

 That last one is tricky, because I haven’t really focused the blog in that way before.  It’s more of a “thoughts and musings” blog, instead of a “here are my adventures” blog.  But those are the kind of things that I like reading, so I’m going to try to put up some cool content up (even if it’s just a short video of a powder shot or rock drop on a bike).  As for the first few on the list, I tried to attach some numbers to some previous goals that had gone unfulfilled.  I figure if I set a concrete number, it’s easier to track my progress towards the goal.

But maybe I’m thinking too much.  According to this article, the best way to get that happy/content feeling is to just get in a hot tub:

Hot tubs improve nervous system health. One of the reasons hot tubs feel so relaxing is because they actually balance the opposing functions within the nervous system – the sympathetic and parasympathetic systems. Hot water therapy reduces the effect of the sympathetic nervous system, which is the major cause of harmful stress. The positive effects of hot water therapy on the nervous system have actually been observed long after the individual actually leaves the water, showing that hot tubs help produce long term benefits that include lowered stress, relaxation, and a sense of well being. 

 Nice . . . Now I just need to find one with speakers for my Jack Johnson CDs . . .

Inspiration

In keeping with my new philosophy of living in the moment, I’m trying to stop and look around a little more in my regular life. It’s amazing what you miss when you’re so focused on “other stuff” (responsibilities, relationships, random tasks, etc.). I’m trying to dial back the “stuff” and dial up the surroundings – not just at the ski area, but everywhere. It’s weird, too. I guess that snowboarder texting on his cell phone (while completely oblivious to everything else around him) is pretty representative of the whole world. A respectable news source reported that Americans spend 90% of their time staring at glowing rectangles. And it’s true. This just about perfectly sums up my life these days:

According to the report, staring blankly at luminescent rectangles is an increasingly central part of modern life. At work, special information rectangles help men and women silently complete any number of business-related tasks, while entertainment rectangles—larger and louder and often placed inside the home—allow Americans to enter a relaxing trance-like state after a long day of rectangle-gazing.

So really, am I any better than the guy on the snowboard? He’s just doing what I’m doing in a different place (a place that I’ve decided to keep rectangle free).

I think that a lot of it has to do with personality. Certain people have to be connected at all times. Even when they’re not connected, they’re keeping careful tabs on their activities so that when they do connect again, they can quantify their achievements and claim their comeuppance. This is not to say that I don’t enjoy reading about their accomplishments. This dude, who skied 2557 days in a row at the time of this article, probably has some great stories to tell. And 2,000,000 vertical foot skier Greg Hill, who’s described in his bio as a "numbers guy", has some stellar trip reports from his past year’s worth of “work”.

But I’ve never been a numbers guy. I don’t keep track of vertical feet, number of runs, or even number of days. I’m out for the pure enjoyment. A good day is a day that I have a smile on my face. One of my favorite blogs lately is Volks on Bikes. It’s about a pair of brothers and their dad who are riding their bikes from Prudhoe Bay, Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina. They only post about once a week because they are out having adventures that most people could only dream about. The posts are short on information and long on pictures. Short on numbers and long on experiences.

That’s the kind of life I want to lead. I don’t need to see how many miles I rode, I need to see what I saw when I was riding.

 
I don’t need to remember how many vertical feet I skied, I need to remember the look on Ace's face when we drop into the trees for the first time of the year.

I don’t need to know how many days I was in New Zealand, I just need to know how it felt to cliff jump into the ocean.

So instead of staring at glowing boxes, I want to be out doing things. Instead of being connected, I want to be disconnected. Instead of posting numbers, I want to post life.  I don’t have to look far for inspiration either. On my blogroll on the right, Jill Outside, who has completed the Great Divide Race and the Iditarod Trail Invitational on her bike, continues biking and trail running through the winter months (impressive). And the Vanessa Aadland (the hot skier chick that I posted about earlier) has this post that consists entirely of photos of her conquering mountain peaks (sick).

If I want to create blog posts that inspire others the way these posts inspire me, then I’m going to need to pull myself away from the glowing rectangles, get outside and have some freaking adventures.

Game On.

In The Moment

As the first few trip reports of the season float in, I want to try and reset a little bit.  I’ve been feeling a little down lately.  It’s nothing particular, but November (for some reason), always inspires a general feeling of sadness and self doubt.  Am I doing the right things with my life?  Am I where I want to be with my career, my family, and my goals?  Am I happy?  Every other time of year, the answer to these questions is almost always a resounding “Yes”.  But for some reason, November is different.  Maybe it’s the Squaw Valley trip reports that I read, maybe it’s the financial crush of the holidays, or maybe it’s the dreary gray days, but I always question whether I live in the “right” place, have the “right” job, or feel the “right” way.  It’s not that I plunge myself into a deep depression, I just start to question myself.  And whenever questions are asked, I feel compelled to come up with a definitive answer (even if a lot of things have no correct “answer”).  Sometimes, this gets me into trouble.  Because I’m always questioning and researching and generating future scenarios in my mind, I lose the ability to back up, relax, take a deep breath, and just be content with the present.     

But this all changes with the first ski day.  Skiing, more than any other sport, puts me in a perfect, zen like state of mind.  When I’m riding my road bike, I still think of bills I have to pay, people I have to talk to, or meetings I have to attend.  On skis it’s different.  I’m paying attention, I'm alert, and I'm focused on the task at hand.  I’m not thinking about my job, thinking about my life, or thinking about other places that I could be.  I’m centered.

I don’t know too much about Buddhism (or any religion, for that matter), but I found a list of quotes relating to the concept of living in the present.  This one stuck out:

Miss the present and you live in boredom. BE in the present and you will be surprised that there is no boredom at all. Start by looking around a little more like a child. Be a child again! That’s what meditation is all about: being a child again — a rebirth, being innocent again, not-knowing.

Maybe that’s why skiing is so great for me.  It really allows me to be a child again.  I do the same things now that I always did on skis.  I find fun lines, I go fast, I jump, I fall down, I get back up, and I do it again.  I look around, I explore new terrain, I follow tracks into the trees, and I try new things.  And I am happy.

Obviously, the concept of living in the present is nothing new.  But this article from the Guardian (UK) is.  Money quote:

Psychologists at Harvard University collected information on the daily activities, thoughts and feelings of 2,250 volunteers to find out how often they were focused on what they were doing, and what made them most happy.

They found that people were happiest when having sex, exercising or in conversation, and least happy when working, resting or using a home computer. And although subjects' minds were wandering nearly half of the time, this consistently made them less happy.

The team conclude[d] that reminiscing, thinking ahead or daydreaming tends to make people more miserable, even when they are thinking about something pleasant.

Even the most engaging tasks failed to hold people's full attention. Volunteers admitted to thinking about something else at least 30% of the time while performing these tasks, except when they were having sex, when people typically had their mind on the job around 90% of the time

So skiing, for me, is like sex.  I’m totally focused and into it, I’m completely involved in the moment, and afterwards, I’m ready for a beer.  But seriously, living in the moment, no matter what you’re doing, seems to make you happier.

I was thinking about this today, and I was also thinking about a guy on a snowboard that I saw on Sunday.  He was coming down Sunway, right under the Gondola, carrying both gloves in one hand and staring into his phone.  He was actually text messaging while he was riding!  We joked about it for a little while, that this guy was so important, and that message was so critical that he couldn’t possibly wait until he got to the bottom (or at least stopped on the side of the trail).  But I guess that isn’t really the most important point.

The guy was taking himself out of the moment.  He could have been enjoying the rush of snowboarding, looking around for a fun feature to play with, or working on a skill to improve his riding.  But he wasn’t doing any of that.  He was staring at a little glowing box with words on it, and occasionally looking up to make sure he didn’t hit anyone.  It was ridiculous!

I guess everyone is free to enjoy the mountain as they see fit.  And maybe that guy had an awesome time and I’m just making a big deal out of something that seems to be an increasingly common sight on the slopes.  But for me, I’m happiest when I’m not connected to the outside world.  I’m happiest when the only things in my vision are trees and powder.  I’m happiest when I’m skiing. 

Grinding

The 2010 World Series of Poker ends tomorrow with the final table.  I'll be rooting for Mike "The Grinder" Mizrachi.  He chose the nickname himself because it typifies his style of play - sometimes up, sometimes down, but always moving on to the next hand, the next pot, and the next table.  He goes into every tournament with that mentality: There's going to be good days and bad days, but at the end, I'll still be sticking around.

I think this is a good philosophy to have, not just for poker, but for life.  Last night, Ace and I went to see Race Across the Sky, the movie about the 2010 Leadville 100, a grueling 100 mile mountain bike race over punishing terrain, won this year by Levi Leipheimer, Tour de France competitor and three-time Tour of California winner.  All of the athletes talked about how it was mostly a mental game.  You had to push yourself to do more than you thought you could.  The motto of the event, reflecting on the mining roots of the town, was "dig deep".

But it could just as well have been "keep going" (or, if you prefer, Niner Bikes' "pedal damn it").  The movie was filled with a hard rock/rap soundtrack to keep everyone pumped up, but I thought that the best scene of the movie was one with no music.  A nameless competitor was slogging his way up the Power Line climb, 80 miles into the race and completely exhausted.  He had long since abandoned pedaling his bike and was walking beside it, pushing it up the hill next to him, hunched over the handlebars, back parallel to the ground.  Finally, when he couldn't take it anymore, he dropped his bike and collapsed in a pile next to the trail.  Ten seconds later, he sat up, draped his arms over his knees and just looked at the ground.  He sat like that, in silence, for about 45 seconds (which seems like an eternity in a movie).  Then, he got up, dusted himself off, and resumed pushing his bike up the hill.

I don't think they ever identified him, showed his time, or let us know if he even finished, but that moment stuck out to me.  This guy was physically exhausted and thoroughly beat down.  He must have felt like total shit.  But he was able to sit down, collect his thoughts, get himself into the right frame of mind, and get back to the grind.

I'm going to make an attempt to incorporate that mentality into my life.  Sometimes it seems like life is completely shitty.  Like everything is going against you, and you don't even care anymore.  It would be easy to just give up.  To throw up your hands and say, "I'm done", and completely extricate yourself from a situation.  But that's not what you want to do.  You want to keep going.  You want to grind it out.

Because some things are worth fighting for.     

Great Enthusiasms

There’s something to be said for doing something.  It’s easy to read Trip Reports, watch movies, pore over guidebooks, and get into animated discussions on internet forums, but it’s hard to actually get out there and do it.  There are obligations to attend to and other people to consider.  Plus you have to get all of your gear ready, wake up early, pack your lunch, drive all the way there and, once you’re finally set to go, it may or may not be good.  You might do horribly.  Your equipment might fail, the weather might not cooperate, and you might get incredibly frustrated, not only because the trip has been a bomb, but because you’ve sacrificed so much just to take the trip, and now it looks like all the sacrifice wasn’t worth it.

For those instances, I am going to try to remember this quote I found by Teddy Roosevelt:

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

 Exactly.  It’s easy to sit at home, never risking anything.  It’s hard to go out and do something.  But the people who go out and do it, even if they fail, are deserving of our admiration.

Unfortunately, that’s not how things work.  Football players are lambasted every Monday by people who sit at home and watch the game on TV.  “He should have thrown to that guy.” “He should have run through that hole.” Thanks for the input guys.  Your insights are really helping the guy on the field.  Next time you see him, instead of telling him how much you respect his athleticism, make sure you mention how he cost you your Fantasy Game in Week 3.

But at least football is mostly objective.  What about the sports that are determined by judging?  In those sports (Ice Skating, Snowboard Halfpipe, etc.), it is someone’s job to decide if “the doer of deeds could have done them better.”  And it’s not easy, especially when everyone is doing their deeds pretty damn good.  Like at the recent London Relentless Freeze Festival (video behind a subscription wall here).     

Instead of knocking Jon Olsson for “only” coming in second with a 1080 double corked truckdriver, we should be celebrating everyone there for putting on a terrific show, in the middle of a city, at a time when the masses are just starting to get stoked on the upcoming season.  Regardless of what you’re doing on the weekends (soon it’ll be leaf removal for me), we should respect the people who are out there ripping sweet lines and riding sweet singletrack.

And when you’re trying to decide if you’re going to go skiing on some frigid February day, ask yourself if you’d rather have a cold body and timid line choice, or a “cold and timid soul” that never even dared to leave the house.

S.T.O.K.E.

Here’s something I’ve always wondered:  Why do things lose their luster?  I’m not just talking about precious metals (I guess there’s a pretty scientific explanation for that).  I’m talking about people, things, and activities. 

Have you ever met someone that you like every once in a while?  Or you’ve said “I can hang out with him for a weekend or so, but any longer and I get kind of sick of him.”  But if you go a couple of months without seeing the guy, you wonder what he’s up to, and you want to connect with him again (but not for too long . . .).

Or you buy a new toy that is supposed to be awesome, you use it for a couple of months, and then it starts collecting dust.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve seen someone’s Nintendo Wii pushed to a dark corner of an entertainment cabinet, not even plugged in.  I don’t remember the last time I used mine.

And even activities are like that.  I want to go skiing so much right now, I’m actually thinking about driving the 4.5 hours to Sunday River to fight 200 other people on a run covered in snowguns blasting my face off.  I’m not going to do it, but the fact that I’m even considering it is ridiculous.  But by the spring, I can’t be bothered to ski on a day that isn’t springerific (a word I just made up to describe a perfect spring day – which may encompass anything from soft corn to 3 feet of cold powder).  If it’s icy, rainy, or cold, I find something else to do.

I recognize the Law of Diminishing Marginal Utility (which basically says that you get less and less benefit from each additional plate of food you get at a buffet), but I don’t understand why some things seem immune to the rule.  I mean, my Wii doesn’t get used anymore, but my mountain bike definitely does (finally back from the shop – nice).  And my previous skiing trip doesn’t make me want to ski less; it makes me want to ski more.  With that in mind, I’ve developed the Skiing To Orbiting Knobby Equations, or S.T.O.K.E. for short.  Taking a variety of factors into account, I constructed the following Formulas:

Skiing Stoke = log₁₀(0.7s + 0.17A^1.5 + 0.1E² + ln[0.4d_b] - 0.1t)

MTB Stoke = log₁₀(0.17A^1.5 + 0.1E² + ln[0.4d_b])

Where s is the amount of snow on the ground, A is anticipation, E is probability of an epic day, d_b is the likelihood of a beautiful day (when you go out skiing or riding), and t is the probability that I might have to teach when I go to the mountain. Each of these variables is a value from one to ten depending on the month.  For example, October has a 10 anticipation factor for skiing, but only 1 for mountain biking.  February has an 8 for amount of snow on the ground, but only a 4 for beautiful days.  For skiing, March gets a 6.5 for epic days because I figure there’s a 65% chance of an epic day when I go skiing in March (counting days that I miss work to ski a Powder day). 

Using these data, it is possible to graph my Stoke for skiing and MTB over the course of the year:

As you can see, there is a noticeable dip in the Ski Stoke from December through February.  This drop in stoke is almost completely attributable to the likelihood that during those months, whenever I’m at the mountain, I’ll probably be teaching lessons instead of freeskiing.  Also of note is that in March and April, while my skiing stoke is at its peak, my mountain bike stoke is pretty high.  This is probably due to the fact that it’s possible that I’ll get a day or two of riding in during those months.  As high as my anticipation for the ski season is in August and September, I’m (most likely) not going to be getting any ski days in.  Therefore, my stoke for skiing doesn’t rise as quickly as my stoke for MTB.

Additionally, this graph proves one more thing about my skiing and mountain bike riding:  with the increasingly short days, I have way too much free time on my hands.  Maybe I’ll go play some Wii. 

Adventures vs. Sessions

A lot of my trips are sessions.  Every ride at SMBA, every trip to Gore, every hike up Cascade is something I've done before, and I'm doing again.  Sure, I might do some interesting new stuff when I get to the mountain (ski a new line, try a new trail, etc.), but the general routine is the same - get up at the familiar time, make the familiar drive, get on the familiar lift.  I call them sessions because it's kind of like when someone in the terrain park is sessioning a kicker (or a rail, or whatever).  Basically, he's doing the same thing over and over again, practicing, dialing in new stuff, and getting better.  Certain attempts are extremely sick (or even epic), but it doesn't change the fact that he's just going up and down a familiar feature.

Because most of my trips are sessions, my trip reports will all be pretty similar.  I generally like to hit the same trails, with a similar group of people, and do similar things afterwords (i.e. drinking heavily).  That's not to say it's not absolutely fun (because it is), but it doesn't lend itself well to the blog format.  There's only so many times I can post a video of skiing on Rumor (or mountain biking Bee at SMBA, etc.) without it getting boring.

With that in mind, I resolve to have more adventures this year. Times when I don't get up and drive to the same mountain.  Times when I might camp overnight, or see a line from a backwoods road and attempt to ski it, or do a new activity that I don't normally do (snowshoeing? ice climbing?).  Besides, adventures are more fun to read about - even when they happen on your home mountain.

And speaking of adventures, the new Powder Magazine apparently has some photos from an adventure that was ummm . . . less than fully legal:

Inside the magazine, you'll find a two-page photo (by a photographer who's used a penname and an unnamed skier) and a story written by Peter Kray on skiing in Bryce Canyon National Park, a feat that's rare for two reasons: One, it rarely snows enough in southern Utah for the skiing to be any good and two, it's actually against the law to downhill ski or snowboard off the rim in Bryce Canyon National Park

Ha.  I find it a little silly that this particular national park does not allow skiing (the official reason is "Our cliffs are very steep here"), so I can kind of see the appeal of an adventure that skirts the law, especially with photos like the one on the cover:

 
The best part of the article seems to be the bit about some skiers who got nabbed:

Kray's story talks about how a photographer and some skiers got approached by a ranger in Bryce Canyon. "They did get caught, but they didn't get a ticket," Powder editor Derek Taylor told ESPN. "They apparently told the ranger that they didn't see any signage indicating they couldn't ski there."

Excellent.  The old "I didn't see any sign" defense (sorry officer, I didn't see any sign that said I couldn't BASE jump off the Statue of Liberty, so I just assumed it'd be okay).  This, of course, is second only to Dave Chappelle's "I didn't know I couldn't do that" Defense.  But regardless of how you get out of the mess you've gotten yourself into, at least you'll have a good story to tell.

And really, isn't that the whole point of an adventure?