Skiing Isn’t Epic: a discourse on discourse

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 3 Comments

“Oh, I think I get it,” my dad said. “They’re like cold surfers.”

It was the morning after Thanksgiving. The family had trickled down to the living room, each filled a cup of coffee, and filed in one by one behind me to partake in my favorite Thanksgiving tradition: drinking coffee and watching ski movies on YouTube.

“Cold surfers” he said. The implications were damning. Surfing is a helluva sport. It’s as challenging as it’s beautiful, and, in a lot of ways, shares an aesthetic with backcountry skiing. In each sport the putative reward occupies a small fraction of the time spent pursuing it; hours on the skintrack yield minutes of powder turns the way hours of paddling yield moments in the curl. In each case the purpose of the sport far transcends that fleeting rush, and happiness comes from the calm of the day.

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Of course this isn’t at all what my dad was talking about. He was talking about this:

We sound like idiots.

Without detracting from some of the passionate conversations that we all have about skiing, there are a few words I’d like to expunge from the skier’s lexicon, so that we all might be taken a little bit more seriously in the future. Remember, you might have to talk about this at a cocktail party.

Epic – This one is a no brainer. The pow yesterday was not epic. The traffic on I-70 on Saturday is not epic. The 11k vert you hiked one day last winter was not epic, even though it was windy and your buddy was hungover and you had to break trail, like, the whole time. The word “epic” refers to stories of heros and gods that span decades and govern the fates of nations. Nothing you have ever done is epic. I’m sorry you had to hear it from me.

Awesome – This one isn’t just misused by skiers, but I think we should carry the banner for relegating the word “awesome” to the fringes of discourse. To be in awe is to be agape with reverence and fear. To be struck dumb by wonder. Boot warmers are not awesome. Your new $500 hardshell is not awesome. The water cycle that makes it snow every year is actually pretty awesome, though, if you sit down and think about it.

Bro – Bro had a good run. I almost didn’t hate it for a while. It evoked the kinship of fraternité in the rhetoric of our time. One for all, all for one, bro. And then I spent a little time on the beach and guys I just met, otherwise intelligent, successful, articulate guys, kept calling me bro without a hint of irony. It was wrong. A cartoon. A caricature of solidarity. It’s time for bro to go. Also if you keep using it you’re just going to wind up getting ridiculed on Jezebel or something.

Sick – I never understood this one. When has sick been good? Is this supposed to be ironic? If so we should look past the work of Alanis Morisette for that definition, because it’s also wrong. The only way “sick” is a good thing is if you lie about being it to go skiing. Otherwise you’re just putting yourself in the same camp as these guys.

Fireball – I’d like to think that we’re all on the same page by now, but apparently that’s not the case. This word turns up most frequently as your jerk roommate is clamoring for a place at the bar après. Fireball? Really? What the hell, do you not watch Fox News? This shit is antifreeze. Stop drinking it.

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I think I’ve covered the most egregious affronts to the skier’s image here, but if I’ve missed any, please don’t hesitate to chime in.

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What do you do?

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 1 Comment

The scene is a familiar one. You’re in a room full of people you don’t know, and your friend who brought you there has disappeared. You’re standing just far enough away from the buffet table to keep from looking like you’re hovering, but still close enough that you’re plausibly browsing the options rather than just standing in the corner comparing shoe laces. You’re clutching a Manhattan.

You’re doing a good job keeping your head low and not making any unnecessary eye contact until you reach for the last bacon wrapped date at exactly the same time as the fat man to your right. Now you’ve done it. You each go through the ceremony of offering the vittle to the other, and before you know it you’re stuck exchanging small talk with a stranger.

You’re doomed.

The conversation starts with how you got to that room, whom it is you know in common, and how much colder fifty degrees feels in the fall than in the spring. You touch on how daylight savings time always catches you off guard and maybe you exchange names. Then he asks, “and what do you do?”

What do you do for a living? What do you do for fun? How do you spend your free time? Or is this bacon-date sniping man mostly interested in how, in a single breath, you can convey to him your identity? The question is unclear.

What do you do? If you’re anything like me, then mostly you sleep. That’s an unsatisfying answer for a cocktail party. What do I do for work? Paperwork, I guess, reams of it. And wade through a latticework of bureaucratic absurdity that sits somewhere between the Orwellian and the Kafkaesque. That’s also an unsatisfying answer, apparently. The question is one that I struggle with.

“I like to ski,” I said once at a cocktail party to a small audience, and was greeted with raised eyebrows.”I try to ski a lot,” I insisted. I think they meant to ask what I did for work. But I don’t necessarily identify with what I do for work, and that’s common.

We face a social pressure to label ourselves with our professions, rather than our passions. Partially, this is because our passions are intimate, and strangers at a party haven’t earned the right to know us that well. Identifying with our LinkedIn Profiles is an easy defense mechanism. In doing it, though, we sell ourselves short.

By simplifying our existence to how we occupy the hours between 9 and 5, we fail to legitimize our other talents and interests; we fail to acknowledge the traits that make us individuals.

I’ve told strangers that I’m a geologist. That I do paperwork, or ski, or work in water rights. I’ve lied and said I’m a hunting guide, just to make the conversation more interesting. I’ve told people I’ll never see again that I promote bicycle races, or that I’m a hydrologist, or that I do environmental restoration work, which is all true. I’ve never said I’m a writer and I’m not sure why.

It’s certainly easier to give flippant response over gin drinks and crab cakes than it is to have a real conversation, and there’s a place for lighthearted small talk. But the tendency to disavow the way we like to spend our time in favor of talking about the way we pay our bills is a dangerous standard to set.

If we’re not careful, we might just start to believe that how we make our money is who we really are.

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My Favorite Thing

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 1 Comment

I like the way puddles freeze at night. Ice grows on the surface and the water leaks out through the ground and an opaque shell stays behind that breaks when I step on it. I like to be awake early in the morning and to have that time alone. I like snow. I like when it’s cold outside and coming into a warm house. I like that my glasses fog when I walk through the door. I like woodsmoke.

I like going to the mountains alone and not saying a word for days. I like the way a pistol jumps in my hand when I pull the trigger and the way a motorcycle pulls away between my legs when I roll on the throttle. I like the way ski boots feel when I put them on in the morning, and the way they feel when I slide them off in the evening.

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I like to cook slowly. I like to lie in bed next to a sleeping girl and a sleeping dog, and to just stare at the ceiling and think about whatever comes to mind. I like the first cup of coffee in the morning to be black.

I like the way water runs through a drain after it’s been cleaned. The way marrow melts in a stockpot over low flame. I like to watch TV on the internet. I like to leave home, and I like to come back.

I like seeing my breath fog in cold air. I like the first half hour in a pool, the first five minutes in a hot tub, and the first thirty seconds in a sauna. I like a fried egg that flips with only the flick of a wrist and when a snowball makes a perfect sphere. I like dogs.

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I like leaving work to read a new book. I like the whiny zipping sound that climbing skins make as they slide across the snow. I like to look at maps of places I haven’t been, but even more I like to look at maps of places I know. Familiarity with a place brings the contours to life. I like that the lights turn on when I flip the switch, although I don’t think about it as often as I should. I like the sound a rock makes when I throw it in a lake.

I like the way a skintrack takes a new shape each time it snows.

I like when grouse erupt from the snow by my feet and we exchange some kind of primal fear, although I don’t like it until much later. I like the quiet that settles in again after the bird has flown away and the only sound I hear is my heart beating in my chest. I like that the longer nights get, the brighter the stars shine.

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I like how wildflowers chase the snowline into the alpine in spring. I like summer rainstorms that are better explained by gods than science. I like when the larch turn golden and line the trails with pillowsoft needles, but my favorite thing is winter.

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Never Pay Retail

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 4 Comments

So I went to patronize one of my fine local sporting goods shops this week to buy a menial thing. I won’t say which store because this is going to be very embarrassing for them. I found the thing I was looking for on a shelf, and then brought it to the checkout lectern.

Behind the lectern stood a pimplefaced kid of about 22. He wore a flatbrim hat and a chain wallet. I tossed the thing onto the counter. He looked at it, scanned it, and then (and this is where it gets really embarrassing) he charged me retail. Full retail! For a thing at a store!

Here’s a picture of some things that I bought. Not at retail, of course. That’s for other people.

I was mortified. “Do you even know who I am, bro?” I was forced to ask. He stammered for a moment before answering that he did not. That left the messy business of explaining to him how rad I am, and that paying retail is for people who vacation in Aspen (and who use ‘vacation’ as a verb).

Didn’t he know that I always get deals on gear there? That I once didn’t get lapped in a competitive local cyclocross race? That I sometimes go skiing on weekends? That I maintain this very blog which has as many as dozens of occasional readers?

Now, I understand that these local businesses are, like, businesses. But I bring real value to their brand. When I ride my mountain bike at inappropriate speeds on walking trails and blow through red lights, I do it with their jersey on my back. When people ask me where I got my sweet new merino underthings, I tell them. I’m a brand ambassador. An advertising contractor.

I’ve got their sticker on my Rocket Box, for chrissake, and people around town see it.

Well, so I’ll tell you I let that pimplefaced kid have it. “I paid for a shirt with this store’s logo in it,” I told him, “and occasionally I wear it!” He was unmoved.

“Sometimes,” I went on, “when I need my bike tuned for Saturday, I have the courtesy to even bring it in Friday afternoon! I don’t even wait until Saturday morning to drop it off!” He remained unmoved.

It wasn’t until I was really huffing and puffing and a line started to form behind me that the young man behind the lectern applied my God given 10% discount and I was able to leave with my menial thing. All was right with the world again.

And so the moral of the story is here is not, of course, that you should ever pay retail at a local business (obviously). Especially not one who supports the local communities you value with partnerships and sponsorship. That would be insane! You just need to be more clear about how rad you are. Because if they’ve never heard of me, they’ve almost certainly never heard of you.

The Months of the Year, Ranked

~ TheGentlemanAtLarge ~ 13 Comments

“I like seasons,” the cliche goes. “I wouldn’t want everything to be the same all the time. It’s why I don’t live in Miami.”

I guess I can agree with the sentiment, or at least understand it. But to say that all seasons are created equal is categorically untrue. In order to help with the confusion, I’ve ranked the months of the year from best to worst.

October – When we say that we love the changing of the seasons, we’re not talking about sixteen daily hours of darkness in the beginning of winter. We’re not talking about freezing rain and icy roads in the spring; and we’re definitely not talking about sweltering, smokey afternoons  in July. We’re talking about the first nips of freezing air, of warm days and cold nights. Of golden larch and and anxious energy that comes with headlines like this. We’re talking about October. So throw on a sweater, grab a pumpkin spice latte, and go ride your mountain bike for a while. This is the best damn time of the year.

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Good ‘ol October. There’s a tent in there somewhere.

March – March was a close #2. The days are long, the weather is pleasant, and the snow keeps piling up. Everyone who’s not paying attention is chomping at the bit to go ride bikes, and the backcountry seems emptier than it ought to for having the best skiing of the year.

February – February is when ski season turns on. And really, skiing is one of, like, three or four things in life that are actually worth doing. February gets a minor demerits for hosting the worst holiday, but it makes up for it with the three day ski extravaganza known as Presidents’ Day.

Sweet, sweet February.

November – In November the short days are still novel and the cold mornings are invigorating. Thanksgiving kicks off the winter holiday season, and if we’re honest, beats the hell out of Christmas (I can’t speak to Hanukkah). If you’re lucky you might get a day or two of skiing in, and if you’re not you can still usually ride bikes. If you’re burned out on being outside, that’s fine too; November is a great time for catching up on your reading, dialing in the SEO for your website, or just drinking alone in the dark.

May – Boom! It’s couloir season. The sun’s out again, you can kind of go for mountain bike rides, and the steep snow is staying put. Also it’s my birthday, so . . .

Buddy Steve and Buddy Pagel working out the enigma of May couloir season.

September – September has a lot going for it. Historically I bet it was right up there with October. But frankly, that ship has sailed. September’s spending more time looking like August, and, well, we’ll talk about August later. Climate change is ruining September, and we have no one to blame but ourselves. No one but ourselves and whoever keeps electing Lamar Smith.

June – As far as enduring warm weather goes, June makes it pretty pleasant. It’s not too hot yet and the whole “summer” thing still feels fresh. Have a cookout. Go for a walk. Crack a Bud Light Lime. Enjoy the fact that it’s still not August.

April – I’m not really sure why April is so far down on the list. It feels like it should be up higher. The skiing is still good, and the road riding is coming into form (if you’re into that kind of thing). Some of the lower trails are even open. Maybe April is better than this?

I guess April isn’t all bad.

December – December would be worse if it wasn’t so much fun. It’s dark. It’s mysterious. The skiing is usually lousy but staggering from sweater party to sweater party kind of makes it worth it. Best month? Not by a long shot. Even a pretty good month? Not really. But at least it’s not August.

January – Meh.

July – July hurts my feelings because it should be so good. I remember lovely warm July evenings, chasing lightning bugs and playing Ghost in the Graveyard with kids from the block. I have such warm nostalgia for the month. But it’s been burning us recently, and I take that personally. If you want to call Lamar Smith (see September) and tell him that he’s ruining your childhood, you can reach him at his direct line: (202) 225-4236.

August – Let’s be real: Fuck August. August is the worst month. It’s hot. It’s smokey. The trails are dusty. Everyone around you seems to think that just because it’s sunny out you should somehow be in a good mood or something. F that. I hope August chokes on a pretzel.

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