2/2/2015
Mon – Allenspark Skiing (1:10, 2000′) + Climbing Gym
I headed up to A-park today with plans of logging a few more laps, but my legs had a different idea. Right from the start I was super tired and instead of coming out of it after 20-30min (which is typical), it just worsened as I headed uphill. The weather certainly wasn’t helping things as I was basically in an all-out blizzard with white-out conditions and 30-50mph winds that the tree cover wasn’t even able to fully diffuse. None of this should’ve been a surprise—the wind/snow was forecasted up high—and with 40k’ of vert over the previous four days I should’ve expected some significant accumulated fatigue today. I salvaged things a bit in the afternoon by getting back to the climbing gym with jLu, but even a brand new pair of 5.10 Anasazi’s couldn’t overcome my lethargy. Thanks to Jenny’s psych, though, I still managed a relatively productive 2hr sess.

2/3/2015
Tue – Allenspark Skiing (3:38, 6000′)
Today’s laps were marked by surprisingly sticky snow. Sure, it was warm out—I was skinning in a t-shirt—but I’ve skied on warm days before that didn’t result in snow clumping to my skins and having the downhill velocity severely limited. Due to these sticky conditions, I was much more confident in my abilities in the trees, however, and finally felt some proficiency there, swooping smoothly betwixt the trunks, able to actually carve turns in the unconsolidated pack, and even repeatedly taking the final steep, narrow chute (relatively speaking, of course) that cuts the initial switchback on the skin track. I think I’m also just finally starting to accumulate some time and meager confidence on the sticks.

Alas, on my third downhill—in a comically slow-motion sequence on not-steep terrain—I didn’t cut quite hard enough at one point and glancingly coasted into a tree. It was enough to wrench my left knee an alarming amount, though, and as I wallowed around in the fluff, I feared the worst. However, once I’d regained my feet, everything seemed to be in order as I completed the downhill with no issue, but when I put my skins back on and started back up for another lap it was clear my knee wasn’t happy, so I reluctantly limped back to the Roost and drove home. On the drive home I’d contemplated a quick evening lap on the First Flatiron, but the moment I stepped out of the car I knew that wasn’t happening as I could barely limp up to my apartment. God-fucking-dammit. This is exactly the kind of thing I’d feared when I took up this blasted activity.

2/4/2015
Wed – No physical activity today as I’d spent a largely sleepless night due to the discomfort in my knee. Even slightly shifting in bed brought on shooting pain and it only seemed worse when I awoke. Standing up was barely an option. My only happiness was that it was a gloomy, snowing day, conducive to being stuck inside with a book, allowing me to finish Donna Tartt’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Goldfinch.

Both my Mom and jLu had recommended this book, and it definitely grew on me. At first, my sense was that it wasn’t very “serious” fiction, mostly due to its readability and rollicking, page-turning prose. This was, of course, a lame, even snobbish assessment, and it didn’t take me long to appreciate Tartt’s exquisite character development and deft treatment of obvious themes of morality, loyalty, family, and good and evil. Part way through, my thought was that the story would make a most excellent and entertaining movie, and lo, that apparently is in the works. Count me excited for its release.

2/5/2015
Thu – Another goose egg in the mountain log, but there was discernible improvement in my knee this morning. Walking without a limp was still out of the question, but yesterday walking at all wasn’t even an option. In the afternoon I had an appointment with Jeremy Rodgers—he’s been my go-to, first assessment for any structural ailment for over five years now—and came away with much good news regarding my knee. Jeremy’s functional exam determined that I’d strained the adductor attachment at the inside of the knee, and likely the medial collateral ligament (MCL) underneath it, but that the meniscus and ACL were both in good shape (phew!). Low-impact activity (cycling, hiking, ski touring…I’m going to assume scrambling and climbing) would actually be good for it, along with aggressive icing. I feel lucky to have a physio like Jeremy who I trust completely; when I broke my leg in 2011 he actually exactly predicted the results of the MRI that my orthopedic surgeon ordered—which made me feel like I’d wasted $800 but greatly increased my confidence in Jeremy’s expertise.

2/6/2015
Fri – Road Biking: Lyons & Longmont (2:45, 50mi, 800′)
I had a slow start to the day, reading some Mailer and letting my leg loosen up a little, before getting out for a somewhat begrudging spin on the roads. The 70F+ temps and two days of inactivity actually had me itching to get outside, but I spent most of the time just trying not to grinch about the (mostly insignificant) wind and traffic.

Regarding Mailer, I’m pretty ambivalent about his work. This morning’s selection was The Armies Of The Night, which was notably awarded both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award in 1968. Last year I read The Executioner’s Song (interesting, thought-provoking subject matter; pretty uninspired delivery) and Harlot’s Ghost (quite enjoyable fiction)—both behemoths in the 1100-1300 page category, so at 300+ pages at least this one hasn’t required the same time commitment. In Armies, Mailer assumes a relatively jaunty, semi-self-deprecating, somewhat humorous tone in his account of the 1967 March on the Pentagon protesting the Vietnam War, but instead of being entertaining, I’ve found it to be a bit grating and not entirely commensurate with the subject matter of political activism and civil disobedience. And then, at one point he casually mentions that he’s sitting next to Noam Chomsky in the prison’s holding area (they’ve all intentionally gotten themselves arrested) and it was like I was all of a sudden reminded that this was indeed a serious, political undertaking instead of the bumbling farce that Mailer largely seems to present it as.

Despite my vacillations towards Mailer’s style, any distaste is occasionally completely assuaged by flashes of brilliance such as this: “One had to trick or seize or submit to the grace of each moment, which, except for those unexpected and sometimes well-deserved moments when consciousness and grace came together (and one felt on the consequence, heroic), were usually occasions of some mystery. The pleasure of speaking in public was the sensitivity it offered: with every phrase one was better or worse, close or less close to the existential promise of truth, it feels true, which hovers on good occasions like a presence between speaker and audience. Sometimes one was better, and worse, at the same moment; so strategic choices on the continuation of the attack would soon have to be decided, a moment to know the blood of the gambler in oneself.”

Mailer is writing, as he says, about public speaking, but I completely relate to this passage in the context of any performance that requires the melding of the physical and mental, public or private. Such as, say, running (hiking, scrambling, climbing, moving) or racing through the mountains.

2/7/2015
Sat – Flatirons Scrambling (4:30, 6500′)
1st Flatiron-Green Mt-Regency-Royal Arch-5th Flatiron-Fist-Yodeling Moves-Morning After-West Chimney, Green Mt Pinnacle-Challenger-Green Mt-2nd Flatiron-1st Flatiron-Amphitheater 2nd Pinnacle
My knee was feeling quite improved this morning, so with the 70F+ temps I couldn’t help but get out for a bunch of scrambling. This wasn’t maybe the most logical of circuits, but it involved two full ascents of Green and lots of good stuff in between. The only downer was that I’d hoped to finish things off with the usual circuit of classics in the Amphitheater, but wasn’t particularly inspired to pull the steep, tricky moves on the 1st Pinnacle and West Bench with the audience of stoned teenagers out enjoying the incredible weekend weather.

2/8/2015
Sun- Allenspark Skiing: Mt Saint Vrain (5:15, 7500′)
I’d wanted to get in four or five laps today (8 or 10k’ vert), but as I headed up on my third lap I found that my skins had gotten wet in the warm, slushy snow in the sun (another +70ish degree (F) day in Boulder, geezus) and then froze once I entered the shade, making my uphill traction frustrating at best. I was getting better purchase in the untracked snow, though, so when I reached my usual saddle highpoint at 10,700′ I continued up the mountain thinking I’d turn around at treeline.

Above treeline the snow mostly disappeared (the Front Range is notoriously windswept all winter), but I could see a party of three skiing off the summit of the peak just on the other side of the shallow drainage, so I strapped the planks to my pack and headed over there to check things out, psyched to tag an actual summit and also actually ski off of it. The summit snowfield was lower angle than it first appeared—I was just able to skin straight up the fall-line—and the snow was hopelessly wind-blasted, but the top of the mountain (~12,200′) afforded brilliant views of Longs Peak and the Wild Basin to the north and Paiute Peak and the other Indian Peaks to the south, so I was a happy man. The ski down was highly variable conditions-wise, but the summit and the unexpected extra 1500′ at the end of the day made it all worthwhile, capping a 17h18min/22,800′ week. Not bad considering the mid-week injury scare.

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I’ve recently gotten into Alec Baldwin’s podcast Here’s The Thing, where he interviews—or, really, just has a rather casual, often wide-ranging conversation with various artists, performers, and politicians. This week I listened to his interview with Thom Yorke—I’ve been a fan of Radiohead ever since a friend burned me CD’s of OK Computer and Kid A my freshman year of college—and was surprised at how agreeable and interesting the episode was; Yorke generally has a reputation for being a pretty moody, angsty bugger. Anyways, the interview reminded me of this SNL performance of The National Anthem. F’ing incredible.