Recreating in Washington

Though I love to live in Utah, I love to visit Washington.  From a recreation perspective, it rivals anywhere:  the proximity of mountains, rivers, and ocean means that they are very complementary to each other, and as such the quality of recreation is nearly unmatched.  If you are into something in the outdoors Washington has it, and usually in a pretty big way.  Over the last dozen years I’ve explored Washington more than I ever did when I lived in adjacent Oregon, which seems crazy considering that we now live in Utah, but at the time I guess I was pretty content with Oregon and now my tastes have “matured” a bit more and I need the added stimulation that Washington’s bigger terrain provides.   So when we had a window of time to go out on a road trip and Ash wanted to start in Washington (she flew out to tear around with her mom for a few days) and have me come meet her with all the toys on the roof, I was all in, and while we had absolutely no agenda, we knew that Washington would deliver, and right we were! 

After crushing myself doing the annual Grandeur Peak Fun Run and then foolishly deciding to do another “lap” - unaccustomed to the “high” heat that was all of 80 degrees - and then joining Scott and Rachel for their annual combo May birthday soiree I hammered out to Portland in a day.  Approaching P-town up the Columbia river gorge it was raining, and after the brain cookage of the day before it was great to splash up the Eagle Creek trail as a couple-mile leg stretcher; no matter how many times I hike in The Gorge I never cease to be amazed at how amazing that place is:  as deeply-emerald green as anywhere in the world, with more beautiful streams and waterfalls in a few miles than Utah has in the entire state! 

After some good work and socializing with the likes of Chuck Roth, Team Connnell, P.Ecker, and Blair I blasted up to Seattle where I was able to reconnect with Eric Fahlman and his family:

 

I think that’s Claire’s version of “Blue Steel” 

And then grabbed Ash after she had done a few days of tromping around with her mom on the Olympic Peninsula.  As a reference for recreation quality, that peninsula by itself has recreation that would make other entire western states blush with envy: an unusual and gigantic rain forest with a wild coastline, big and remote ski descents, hundreds of miles of rivers that go from mild to wild, incredible cycling, etc.  We had talked about spending much of our trip out on the peninsula (there was the potential for a backpack in to ski Mount Olympus and then float packrafts back out) but we headed for the nearby Cascades instead. First on our list was Mount Ruth; a little-known peak in the Shuksan/Baker area that Ash had skied many moons ago and remembered as being remote, fun, and pretty mellow (we were a bit chastened by the reports of an avalanche fatality on Shuksan just a few days prior; the NW’s late-season hammerfest of snow apparently meant that the ‘pack needed a bit more time to settle down).  

It was an awesome day; a longish and awkwardly-slow approach:

apparently the NW gets its share of avalanches as well

 means that not many people go in there, and we saw no indication that anyone had been in there this spring. But with some perseverance we saw what we'd come for:

 After a few hours we were on top oggling at Shuksan (foreground) and Baker (background:

and the very-remote and rugged Pickett range:

There's apparently a 45 mile burly traverse that's a 4-5 day adventure, or maybe one day if you're the Dorais brothers! 

we took the gratuitous summit selfie:

or two:

and then sliced our way down perfect corn for 2700 feet down to the valley floor:

 where we slogged back out.  

Alders are a tough go.

I've been thinking of doing a website called "Great Trees of the Wasatch", but after being back in the NW I think I should call it "pretty mediocre trees of the Wasatch!"

And given that it’s Washington, not too much farther down the valley was a really nice class 3-4 paddle on the North Fork Nooksack, before we headed up a nearby access road to go hit Mt Baker. 

Even though Mount Baker is only 10,800 feet, it seems long because the access points are all in the 3500’ range, making for a 7000’ gain to the summit.   As such, many mountaineers consider it to be a 2-day trip.  But we just wanted to get up and ski some good corn, so we got a medium-early start of 5:30 start (it gets light early up here in the Great North!) and charged up the trail for a couple of miles with normal ski packs, started skinning at about 5500 feet, and hit the top of the Coleman glacier easily by mid-morning:

We took one little run to take advantage of a different aspect corning up and then the cherry line of a several-thousand foot descent down the heart of the Coleman in great corn.  

As we approached treeline we saw a crew hiking up with full packs and all their climbing gear doing some heinous post-holing in slush, and I realized that one of the reasons that people buy big heavy mountaineering boots is because they believe the old-school Mountaineers’ mantra that more than 5000’ in a day is not really possible, so instead they slog through mid-afternoon slop – which mandates high, waterproof boots that still get wet and take hours/days to dry – in order to make a high camp where they spend their evening hours melting snow before going to bed early to wake up early to melt even more snow before going up to the top and then – after breaking camp – heading back down in postholey slush!  Ergo the need for big boots, I ‘spose…..

We ended up down in Bellingham where we were able to make the first of our many stops at the Organic, Free-range, Sustainable, Hormone-free, Local, Artisan, Tractor-Free...

No joke.....this farm is done exclusively by true horse power, taking the whole politically-correct produce to a new level!

 Co Op grocery stores that seem to be everywhere in Washington.  The forecast was for a little light rain, which bode well to shred a huge open-space area adjacent to town that is  mountain-bike only with a zillion trails!  However, as former Northwesteners we should have recognized that “light rain” is a bit of a euphemism for “deluge” and the next morning we hastily threw our soggy stuff in the car and did what lots of Washingtonians do:  Head East. 

The Methow Valley on the eastern end of the North Cascades highway is a pretty special place.  It’s in the rain shadow of the Cascades yet is tucked up close enough that it still is able to partake in the range’s copious snow, and while it has all the acoutrements of a resort town…. it is without the resort!  Which makes it great; so much so that there was an essay about it  - in an anonymous form – in the Winter 2014 Patagonia catalog.   Even though it’s always been a “secret” destination for rich Seattlelites and their second homes, the fact that the pass is closed all winter means it’s about a 5 hour trip there, which has kept the resort predators at bay and let the locals and Washington’s nordic diehards have their 220 km (not a typo!) of groomed trails mostly to themselves.  And the unplowed highway provides (snowmobile) access to world-class backcountry ski terrain with great powder in the winter and good corn in the spring when the road opens.  We had another stellar day of great north and south-facing corn off Rainy Pass (in the last few days the snowpack had gone from unconsolidated to isothermic; the beauty of Spring). 

skinning up above Lake Ann, with the North Cascades Highway down in the valley

Putting the Voile ski crampons to work! 

Nice form on nice corn.

crossing a bit nervously given the open water

And again we were able to not only shred nearby singletrack on foot and on bike:

The arrowhead balsamroot was out in full glory in WA as well as the Wasatch.

but also take advantage of the snowmelt and paddle the excellent Black Canyon of the Methow with our old buddy Jonathan Baker:

JB center, with his buddy Jeff

who with Margaret is on the verge of finishing up their cool 600 sq foot home on a 5 acre spread near Winthrop:

  In addition, Ash’s cousin Jeff and Molly live at the base of Patterson Mountain and it was great to see them (and visit Molly’s Organic, Free-range, Sustainable, Hormone-free, Local, Artisan, Tractor-Free grocery store in Twisp. 

Team Patterson

One interesting side note of the Methow portion of our trip was when we first pulled into the Organic, Free-range, Sustainable, Hormone-free, Local, Artisan, Tractor-Free bakery/store in the upcanyon hamlet of Mazama there were a lot of cars parked there and lots of fit-looking people wandering around, and it turns out that the annual Memorial Day 10k trail race was about to start.  On a whim I decided to enter, and was fortunate that the kiddie 1k race happened first so I had a few minutes to warm up.  Given the Methow’s renown for its nordic skiing I figured that this race would have some competition, and sure enough I immediately bumped into two-time Olympian Laura McCabe (whom I’d met once in a hot spring in CA in the mid-90’s and again climbing in Wyoming a few years ago) who then introduced me to a guy with the description of “He was an Olympian this year in Sochi!”  Ah, indeed, don’t let me get in the way of you moving to the front of the starting line! 

Everyone charged off the line, and soon enough I found myself alongside a couple of girls who came up to about my elbow who were very seriously cranking along at about 6:00 mile pace!  Not surprisingly, it turns out that it was Laura’s daughter, and there were other high-school looking types who were surrounding me and going at a good clip as well.  But once the 5k folks turned off I found myself in 5^th place behind nordic wunderkind and a few others.  I had the 4^th place guy in sight and was able to keep him at the same gap that started to close as we entered the last couple of miles.  Remembering my bike racing tactics I took took a couple of deep breaths as I came up behind him and pushed a little harder on the pedals to veritably charge past him, and this brought me to within sight of the 3^rd place guy, whom I caught with about a half-mile to go.  At this point we turned into a stiff headwind, so again bike-style I tucked in and hung out to see how the sprint would be.

Now if I had an Achilles heel, it would be my sprint.  I think I was made up of about 99% slow twitch muscles even back in the day when I was a kid, and my mid-distance running career was pretty much a series of tales of hammering through to the almost-end of every race and then having whoever was nearby easily blow by me to the line as I watched in frustration. Once I started bike racing I thought perhaps the tactical/wind component of The Sprint might work in my favor, but the stories still remained the same; I couldn’t outsprint anyone, ever. 

So as I was sitting behind this guy after charging pretty hard to catch him and being pretty dang tired/sore from going at a relatively high pace that I haven’t run at in a long time I wondered if I would watch yet another guy run to the line in front of me.  But as we turned the last corner to the finish line I felt surprisingly confident and when he predictably surged I experienced a sensation I have rarely had in too-many years of these silly events:  I kicked and blew him away in the last 100 yards for the last “podium” spot (if indeed there had been a podium for the mighty Mazama 10k!).  Pretty fun.  

Post-race I was chatting with my fellow competitors, and the fourth place guy told me “I drove for over an hour to get to this race”  Really?  Where from?   “Yeah, I’m training for Ironman Canada”  Really?  Wow, that sounds hard.  “Yeah, I might do a sprint tri on Monday”  hmm.  Really.  Fascinating.  “I also do a lot of mountain bike racing” Uh, yeah…..great. Starting to look around for an exit from this conversation....  “I ran a 16:48 5k a couple of weeks ago, and I find 10k’s to be a weird distance for me, and I think this course was a little slow.”  Umm…I need to go trim my toenails.  But hey, it’s been great listening to you……

Ash and I did a nice ride that afternoon that was ended in one of the Methow’s singletrack Meccas, and Ash had gotten to an intersection before me and started chatting with a couple of nice folks there.  After she told them we were from SLC and were on a fun road trip with the toys the woman suddenly asked “Are you with Tom Diegel?”  OMG, really?  It was Caitlin, who had moved to Seattle from Vermont after doing the Grand Canyon with Team Middlebury, the New Hampshire Canyoneering society, and me!  

  I am not sure if the world is truly that small, or the circles that we travel in are just tiny……

After the Methow we moved on to the recreation mecca of Leavenworth, where we were able to do some great paddling on the Wenatchee river - with it’s renowned play spots at medium-high flows and a brewpub at the takeout:

Only in Washington....

 one of the “best rides ever” (Devil’s Gulch/Mission Ridge/Red Hill):

a 10 mile, 3000' singletrack climb/descent

this guy greeted us in Yakima Canyon

We did a little flat two mile hike and got back to the car, where we met these guys.  They had biggish packs, trekking poles, and were stretching (above) in preparation for the hike.  We asked them what they were doing, because clearly we had missed something more energetic, but no, they were doing the same flat 2 mi hike!  

and other great runs/rides as we worked our way to Yakima for some excellent Patterson family time. 

There are times when we do trips that we want to leave the car and all its trappings behind, and that’s when we do multi-day river trips and bike tours.  But Washington’s amazing quality and density of daylong adventures meant that this trip – combined with some equally-high quality socializing with excellent people – was super worthy, and we actually have already penned in spring trip next year to our (second?) favorite state.     

Warm Showers

A few years ago Ash and I were bike touring in Washington when a car passed us, pulled over, and a couple jumped out and waved us down.  They were bike tourers as well and wanted to hear all about our adventures, since they knew that adventures always lie around the next corner when bike touring.  Then they asked us an odd question:  “Where’s your next Warm Shower?”  I mean sure, we all like warm showers and they are great at the end of a long day in the saddle, but we weren’t necessarily planning our trip around showers and weren’t quite sure where the next one might be.  “You mean you don’t know about Warm Showers?”  We admitted our ignorance.  They went on to tell us about the website www.warmshowers.org.  It’s a site where bike tourers around the globe register themselves and their homes as places to stay for other bike tourers who may be passing through.  So you look at your route and it looks like you are going through Salt Lake City and you login to warmshowers and find folks who live there whom you might be able to stay with.  Which is exactly what Benoit (“Ben-wah”) and JP - who hail from France and are on an ambitious North American tour – did this week, and ended up at our house. 

I had gotten a couple of messages from Benoit about when they would arrive, but it was still a bit loose.  I left my little pilates class and started to ride home, went a couple of blocks, looked down 1700 south, and there were two bicyclists with panniers heading towards me.  Of course it was the Frenchmen, and they were delighted to be escorted to our house. That kind of fortuitous occurrence always seems to happen when you need it on a bike tour.  

They were super grateful for a place to do their laundry, sleep in a bed, drink some beer, have some great homecooked food, and – of course – take a warm shower (even hot!).  But what they didn’t realize is that Ash and I were probably even more excited than they were at the prospect of providing them with these amenities, because it was a bit of an opportunity to repay the many people out there who have been so gracious to us over the years as we pedaled briefly through their lives.  Bike touring really encourages personal engagement; I think it’s the lack of the personal barrier that a car represents and perhaps the perceived vulnerability of a bike tourer, but people just want to help.  It reminded us of a handful of the great experiences we have had with locals in their countries:

• I rolled into a town in Germany with the address and phone number of a guy my dad had met years before at some business conference.  He not only took off half a day of work to show me around his town and take to me to a sumptuous lunch, but also gave me a couple of “special” bottles of wine, a huge, hearty classic Bavarian cake to fuel me up for days, and some “special” Deutschmark coins to remember his country.  I actually drilled a hole in one of the coins and it stayed on my keychain for 20 years til I lost the set!
• Ashley climbed over a pass between France and Italy on a solo tour and started chatting with one of the many lean, mean, older guys on sweet bikes riding the pass as well, and he invited her to stay the night with he and his wife.  They plied her with rabbit, wine, bread, salad, etc, and all were “our owwwn pro-duction!!!”
• My buddy Eric and I were riding through Scotland and were trying to make it to a town before getting hit by a thunderstorm and were unsuccessful, and got soaked.  But at least I hit a big pothole and flatted my tire, tossed the food we had just bought all over the wet streets, and broke my rack.  But as we were chuckling at our plight at a gas station we met a nice couple who invited us to stay at their place a few miles away, to which we heartily accepted. And this was "their place":

(that is another whole story unto itself)

• The next night we found ourselves in yet more rain (it was Scotland, after all) and knocked on a farmhouse door to ask if we could sleep in their barn.  “Nay, me sons are off at university; ya kin sleep in their beds!” and were pretty much  instantly inside being fed lamb that had been slaughtered that day, all the porridge we could handle the next morning for breakfast, and a sack lunch to send us on their way.
• A few years ago we rolled into the Natural Bridges Monument campground after a long day only to find that it was full, and being a national monument there was no “free” camping allowed and while there was water at the campground, there was no other source for many miles.   But some campers saw us and recognized the situation and immediately invited us to stay with them in their camp and were happy to share their beers and dinner with us. 
• On the last day of a trip near Puerto Vallarta, Mexico we took an appealing-looking (on the map) detour that turned out to be a really hilly, rough-gravel road that went super slowly and after some hours it became apparent that we were simply not going to make it to PV in time for our flight home.  But the one car that came by stopped, immediately went about the task of figuring out how to fit us, our bikes, and our gear in, then drove us to PV, where they took us directly to a hotel owned by their friend who made a room appear for us. 
• We rolled into a town in Cuba late in the day looking for a place to stay and quickly found a guy who offered to take us by his own bicycle (that had one brake pad!) to the homes that were allowed to have foreigners stay, but they were all full.  He then checked with his friend who owned a Cuban-only place who agreed to take us in, but we literally had to sneak in, so it was clear that he was taking a bit of a risk himself for accommodating us.  (This was one that we did repay; the guy who showed us around and made the introduction later traveled all day by bus to meet us and we gave him our bikes as we were leaving; we still get letters from him thanking us again and again!)
• On a long climb up into the Dinaric Alps in Montenegro in late fall I misunderestimated how long it was going to take to get me to the next town and as both darkness and temps were falling precipitously I came upon a shack alongside the road and an old woman shuffling outside.  I used one of the few Serbian words I had learned – “bread?”  - and she just motioned me into her one-room “home”, where I spent the night with she and her husband, who had shown up shortly thereafter with their business:  the cow.  It was a mostly-conversationless night – you can only go so far with “bread?” – but the gleam in their eyes indicated that they knew how appreciative I was for their simple hospitality. 

And there are many more.  So Benoit and JP are off to their next adventures, and we are going to give them the names of some folks we know who might be on their possible route, but undoubtedly they will be the beneficiaries of graciousness by random folks who appreciate the simple beauty and challenges of bike touring. 

Here’s to warm showers!

Scintillating tale of a new car

I have often said that it would be nice if cars would simply “die”, so that there’s absolutely no question that “yes, you need a new car”.  I have a sort of cartoonish image of the wheels falling off and the car collapsing onto the pavement, the hood popping open, the seat springs sproinging, smoke billowing out, etc.  Unfortunately, this rarely happens and cars die of a million cuts, with each costing a fair bit (tho the Diegel Family Ford Grand Torino – aka The Tuna Boat – did ultimately catch fire at an intersection in Portland, and my roommate – who had bought the car from my dad – snagged the license plates and bolted!).  So I guess I should be pleased that our 18 year old Subaru Outback gave us notice of its impending demise recently by having multiple, random, unexpected overheating episodes, which apparently are indicative of either a blown head gasket or destroyed “rings”; regardless, it was a $3000-5000 fix since it involved the bowels of the motor. 

To give the patient its due, I took it in to another “doctor” for a second opinion.  While the diagnosis was slightly different and he provided an auto-equivalent aspirin of $60 worth of a radiator “conditioner” and a  new radiator cap that should keep it going for awhile, his ultimate evaluation was stark:  “I think it’d be ok as long as you weren’t relying on it for road trips into the desert and going up the Cottonwood canyons”.  Hmm.  Well, considering that those two things are pretty much why we own the car, this didn’t sound very promising for us. 

So we were faced with a decision that nearly everyone faces, usually multiple times throughout their lives:  fix or buy a different car?  And if a different car, what model? And go new or used?  I reached out to the Facebook community and got a great array of responses, and despite similar demographics the responses were varied; most were in favor of buy, and buy used.  But a few suggested fix it; still somewhat low miles for such an old car, and in order to have a car on the road it’s better to have a totally styled engine for $4k than spending $10-30k for a different car. 

My dear old dad was not necessarily much for waxing poetic on life or imparting wisdom on his sons, but one thing I vividly remember him saying, with a  grand sweep of his arms to indicate the vastness of our run-down little hobby farm:  “You see this?  All that we have now is essentially due to one thing:  I have always bought cars and held on to them until they die.  Buying and selling cars too often is the best way to lose a lot of money”  Of course, not only was he far more mechanical than me  and actually enjoyed working on cars - and passed that knowledge/desire on to brother Paul – but also in his last months he impetuously bought a Triumph TR8, one of the worst cars ever.  But for better or for worse, I have ended up following his advice and had cars that were 24, 17, and now 18 years old.    And despite the fact that there were plenty of other things that could go wrong with an old car, it was pretty tempting to fix it.  But a friend put it succinctly:  “That’s to keep you in the game.”  But that’s not winning the game, and – as alluded to above, as a non-mechanical guy – I wasn’t sure I even wanted to play the game any more. 

So it was a good time to apply some of the stuff that I have learned from the books I’ve read on decision-making.  I have been a bit melodramatic about in the past, telling myself that the decisions are – in the context of adventuring – about life or death.  In this case, it was….very much not that.  But the stakes seem high, since cars are so expensive, and as we all know, cars are – whether we like it or not – very much a salient representation to the world of Who We Are.   So they are so much a personal, emotional device.  But being so mechanical and utilitarian –getting us where we need to go – they also should lend themselves to rationality.  Aka, great representations of Daniel Kahneman’s System One – the quick, emotion, intuition-based decision making process, and System Two – the analytical, thoughtful, and rational process that are perpetually at odds with another in our complex little minds. 

To fix? 

• “Fer heck’s sake… $4k is a lot better’n buying a new car!” (but what happens when the transmission detonates somewhere between Hanksville and I-70?).
• “I just bought 4 awesome new snow tires and put them on spare wheels for that car!” (I can sell those on Craig’s list). 
• “I dread the prospect of shopping for a used car and all that entails!” (it’s not that bad, and if you don’t want to do that, buy a new car). 
• “I dread even more the prospect of walking into a dealer and buying a new car!” (it’s not that bad, it’s only one morning of non-recreation so pipe down, and people do it every day.)
• It’s so much more money for a new car!” (yes, but a car is a necessary evil, and how much would we be willing to pay for a “good” car when it dies 150 miles down a burly road in Canyonlands?)
• “There aren’t any other good cars out there now!” (this is actually sorta true in our book; why the manufacturers haven’t been able to combine “good” (>35mpg) gas mileage  with driveability with a medium-size that has decent clearance without a ton of forgettable, breakable, and expensive gadgets in an affordable price range…I don’t know).
• “I’m gonna fix that car because that’s what old pappy told me to do, that’s what I’ve done and it’s worked out just like he said!”  (Even old pappy knew when to throw in the towel, and the only thing stupider than buying and selling too many cars is throwing good money after bad). 

To buy?

• “What if the old car breaks?” (well, we had a mechanic we trust look it over, much of the guts will be rebuilt
• “I want a new car!” (really?  why?  Because I’ve dropped too many crumbs between the seats and stained the seats with my spilt beer?  Can’t we just buy a spray can of “That New Car Smell”? and call it good?)
•  “New cars are so much safer!” That is a true statement, from what I can tell, but how realistic is it that we will “use” that aspect? A low likelihood. But given that there were three auto fatalities in the SL Valley on Tuesday alone, perhaps not that unrealistic? 
• “Having a new car is so exciting!”  Daniel Kahneman writes about the human condition that makes us oblivious to the rapid demise of excitement as the newness of anything wears off.  Thus the next new shiny thing seems so exciting, but wait…..weren’t we just as excited about this now-“old” thing not so very long ago? 

My mind was spinning so hard on this issue over the past week that I was getting dizzy.  But generally speaking we came around from “fix” to “buy”; while the appeal of less $$ was strong, we realized that the risk of having a possibly-compromised car and wondering for the next several years when it was going to strand us and/or we’d have to throw another $2k into it was not worthy. 

And then to buy:  EVERYONE said “NEVER buy new!  They lose so much value when they are driven off the lot!”  Of course they do:  everyone “knows” that. But is it really true, and does it really matter?  Feeling a bit like the Freakonomics guys, I thought I’d actually put that theory to the test and do a bit of research.  

The truth is that many cars do not devalue quickly; many famously-durable and popular cars/trucks don’t devalue very much at all (our friend Jim – who provided invaluable advice during this process – said that he would have a tough time now buying the Honda Element he bought several years ago because the value has gone UP! To be fair, Honda inexplicably dropped that popular car….).  But generally, yes it’s true: cars lose value over time/miles.  But as brother Paul put it, that’s assuming that the car is an asset – ­as opposed to simply a good, and that asset will be sold.    But given that Ash and I are (thankfully) on the same page of the “buy a car and keep it for a long time” theory, that point actually becomes moot:  we fully anticipate that in 15+ years we will likely sell/trade in/give away whatever car we have for less than $1000.  And the difference between a 10 year old, $2000 car is not much different than a 15 year old, $1000 car. 

Yes, we could buy a car with 10-30k miles on it and take advantage of what I like to call “humans’ inherent propensity to make irresponsible purchasing decisions”, but the truth is that every car has a finite life, and buying a car with 30k miles on it means that we would ultimately arrive at the exact same point as we would with a new car…..two years earlier.  No one talks about how their riding lawn mower loses value the moment it’s “driven off the lot”, or after driving their beautiful sofa off the lot, knowing in the back of their mind that ultimately it will sit on the curb for days with a “free” sign on it.  But because of the emotion, personality, reliance, and expense associated with cars, we tend to apply more “value” to them  - and also tend to turn them over for those very same reasons. 

This was Ash’s theory when she bought her Subaru Loyale in new 1991 for $12k and sold it for $900 in 2008, and thinking through her rationale brought me full circle in these last few days.  Therefore, in lieu of going out to ski some corn on a high-value nice spring Saturday morning, we put on our virtual armor and grudgingly headed down to the new car dealer to see what fate awaited us. 

We got an early start and rolled into the Subaru dealership just as they were setting up for….a big party.  Huh? “We are giving away a 2 year lease on a Cross Trek Hybrid!”  Wow.  Bands, radio stations, kids’ huge bumper tent thing, barbeque, the works!  We were tempted to just check into that and spend the day in this awesome car lot party.  But instead we walked past that into the building, walked up to a sales guy and said “We want to buy a standard transmission Cross Trek”. 

 

It was so exciting that we were tempted to just stay at the party all day!  

The truth is that it was not that painful of an experience.  We took the car for a 4 1/2 minute test drive, came back, and said “ok”.  We were a little chagrined to find that not only did they not have any standard transmission models (less than 5% of cars sold today have standards) but there were none in the entire state, and ordering one was going to be 8 weeks. It could have been a serious test of our resolve, but they found one in Jackson, WY and said they could get it.  Then we settled into negotiating.  Ash was the bright, affable, good cop (which was an easy role for her) and I was the sullen, grumpy bad cop (also an easy role), and I realized that the old school perception of negotiating over car prices has sorta changed, because the Interweb now tells us what the dealer paid for the car and what consumers have been paying for them, and we all know that we all know that information (known knowns, as it were).  The fact that it was coming from Jackson at their expense eroded our position a little, and we bought some of the plastic cover stuff in a feeble attempt to avoid the car getting Diegel-ized, but we were out of there in three hours and were relatively satisfied.  Though it was hard not to feel a little weird about being so dramatically consumerish for a coupla folks who like to fool ourselves into thinking we are not!  

So it went, and we now own a new car, ready to whisk us off to adventures both near and far, for many years to come.  

any pangs of regret or sense of loss?  It's just a car.....

Am I excited?  It's just a car.......or is it more??!  

Spring Canyoneering Fest

If it's April it must be Spring Break time, and if it's Spring Break it's time to go to Daytona Beach!  Or, I guess, the southern Utah desert is a good second choice.  And thus last week was the annual canyoneering fest, which - as always - is sponsored in part by the New Hampshire and Cincinnati Canyoneering clubs, presided over and funded by the Hanlon and Elovitz Family Foundations.

The week's grovelfest got off to a good start when Colin, Ash, and I went down early to do the notoriously-skinny Shenanigans canyon in the North Wash area.  It has long sections that are only 10 inches wide and doesn't let up vertically until the top, so if you are prone to claustrophobia, this is a great place to confront your fears.

The King and his throne, preparing for battle

Ash ready to dive into the skinnies, where she just sashays along while the big lunks grunt and heave their way through

Colin taking a breather while stemming.  

I didn't get any pics of the real tight stuff because a) it's really hard to get good canyoneering pics at all, much less when it's really deep and dark, b) I pretty much couldn't even reach into my pack half the time to get the camera out, and c) there's nothing quite like being deep in a slot canyon with thunder and lightning crashing and flashing overhead and rain spilling into the canyon, so our focus towards the end was downcanyon motion, not pictures!  But we were able to get through the nefarious Grim Crawl and out the exit rappel without getting the waterpark slide effect.  

And then the erstwhile members of the NH and Cincy Canyoneers Society showed up.  Despite more thunderstorms in the morning that drove Colin and Ash off towards home (though they ended up hitting Crack canyon on the way) we went to Shenanigans' next-door partner, Foolin' Around, which  - while not quite as tight, is probably a bit more strenuous to wriggle through.  And then off to Ticaboo Mesa, home of the Dante Canyons and the Best Campsite in the World.

Moonrise over the slickrock

Dan after waking rubbing his eyes, and realizing he's not in Massachusetts any more

The Dantes are a series of five awesome slots all spilling down towards reservoir Powell from the campsite.  I had done one of them last fall with Colter, Tom McFarlane, and Brother Paul, and it only whetted my appetite to hit up them all.  They are not long, but they are dramatic:

and the hike out is really dramatic as well:

Team Elovitz/Allan showing good stemming technique:

and the ever-smiling Sue going deep

Dan preparing to cut all his fingers off going over the edge:

Mike had to give him a little hug:

Must be spring

Three of the slots - Purgatory, Paradiso, and Devil's Thumb - are pretty straightforward, but the other two have some trickier sections.  Limbo has a stem that starts out maybe 10' off the canyon floor and then traverses over a DEEP pothole where the stem gets a little wider, but at least the wall your feet are on is a little loose and crumbly.  I made a slight error in traversing to the slightly-wider high rather than dropping low, and got a bit stretched out in the crux, so that all that I had touching rock were my toes and shoulder blades.  I was glad for my Pilates classes this spring as I was, uh..."fully engaged" at that point.  To alleviate this somewhat stressful situation I sorta slid/worked my way downward, pulling my shirt up my in the process so as to get the full value of the sandstone on my bare back.  I wasn't really giving Mike and Greg - who were right behind me - full confidence in the move, but at least they were able to identify what NOT to do!  I'm usually good for at least that.

Inferno canyon has some additional challenging sections, including some raps that lacked anchors, so we were pushed to "ghost" it with removeable anchors.

The Gnarly Dude (see the label) about to test out his sew job on his homemade "potshots"; bags filled with sand that we rappelled off of.  

and in order to avoid a possibly-sketchy traverse over a pothole we elected to do an even sketchier 5.8-ish traverse high above the canyon floor.

Once again we were able to prove what one should NOT do!  

The earlier thunderstorms and subsequent winds had died away, and the Best Campsite in the World delivered for the three nights we were able to be parked there

Sawyer - the self-avowed expert in finding the Big Dipper - showing his prowess.

Near the bottom of one of the canyons is an Anastazi ruin:

with a milling stone:

Dan was - and I think still is - a bit unsure about whether or not this whole native ruin thing was for real

These pipes were embedded in the rock going up to the ruin.  Mike had heard that a U of Utah archaeological "expedition" in the 20's had used a lot of permanent fixtures to access the ruins.  

some pretty dramatic raps

Because new rental cars are impossible to figure out - but aren't as sophisticated as my new i-phone that has apps that are able to detect low battery juice - we left some lights on in the car and Dan the tow-truck man and Greg were able to use Dan's exploded lawn chair legs to jump-start the rental....without getting electrocuted.  

Strong work!  

Sue modeling some scrumptious and sexy rappelling attire

Dan on his own exposed, sketchy traverse

A cool multi-stage exit rap

We then moved on to another sea of slickrock on the other side of Ticaboo Mesa for a fun figure-8 slot adventure (down one, up and out, down another, up to the intersection, and up and out a different canyon).  

That had some skinnies

Sawyer's "little kid" advantage in the skinnies is disappearing rapidly!

The apple and the tree

Sue is All Set

Me, on the other hand....

not so sure......

The great white light behind us drops several hundred feet down to the reservoir

a sand "angel", if a 14 year old kid can indeed be considered angelic....

We then headed south to hit up Cheesebox canyon, which is a "must do classic".  And indeed, it's worthy.

suiting up.  It looks dry here.....

If you were walking across the desert and came across this creature, what would you do?  

Gang lunch

rapping into the water

Jane in the water

and soaking up the occasional sun

some amazing formations in here.  

As ever, a great trip with great folks.  thanks to Mike for some of the pics.  

Snowboards at Alta?

Recently a suit was filed by a group called “Wasatch Equality”  against Alta in order to force the (very much) “ski” resort to allow the long-banned snowboards, with the fundamental argument that because Alta operates on public lands they therefore have an obligation to not “discriminate” against snowboarders. I’ve been a little surprised that most of my peers have not expressed support for this concept, and I think that it’s an interesting, fairly complex case that brings enough of a local bearing on a landmark constitutional amendment that it begs a bit of blawgage. 

According to The Wiki, “The Fourteenth Amendment (Amendment XIV) to the United States Constitution was adopted on July 9, 1868, as one of the Reconstruction Amendments. The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, and was proposed in response to issues related to former slaves following the American Civil War”,

It’s a pretty incredible amendment, actually, with lots of components that affect our lives every day:  Due process, the concept of citizenship, congress’ ability to enforce laws, and the limits of local governments that were the basis for both Roe v Wade and Bush v Gore.  And perhaps most importantly:“The Equal Protection Clause requires each state to provide equal protection under the law to all people within its jurisdiction. This clause was the basis for Brown v. Board of Education (1954), the Supreme Court decision that precipitated the dismantling of racial segregation, and for many other decisions rejecting irrational or unnecessary discrimination against people belonging to various groups.”  It is generally under the auspices of the vitally important fourteenth amendment that Wasatch Equality is using to fight for the right……of snowboarders. 

You can see what Pat Bagley of the SL Tribune thinks of it: 

  

The variety of reasons that people don’t want snowboards there runs the gamut.  Here are a few, and my rebuttals:

• “Alta is too hard for snowboarders to get around!  What about the High Traverse, Ballroom, and all the hike-to shots?”  I’ve snowboarded Alta a fair bit pre-season, and I’ve found everything quite accessible.  Snowboarders in general “make it happen” to get to the nice lines, and the High Traverse – for example – is no better or worse than the (equally challenging, and more dangerous, due to trees) Cirque Traverse at Snowbird.  And c’mon….don’t you think that you should let snowboarders themselves determine what’s accessible/rideable and what’s not, and not you The Skier?  And something tells me that if every resort in the country except three allows snowboards, including such “burly” mountains like Jackson, Big Mountain, Whistler, etc – can have an effective “snowboard management plan”, Alta can too.  Or maybe general manager Onno isn’t up for something so complex? 

• “Snowboarders have a blind spot, therefore they are more dangerous” – Yes, it’s true that snowboarders can’t see behind them; no one can.  But like skiers, snowboarders are going downhill, where they can see all that is in front of them, and all overtaking riders need to give way to those they are overtaking (since skiers also have a blind spot, also behind them).  Statistically speaking, ski injuries have gone down 50% in the last thirty years, the same amount of time that snowboarding has risen in popularity.  It’s true that snowboarders themselves have an injury rate higher than those of skiers, but the majority of those are hand/wrist injuries, and collisions account for a whopping…..6.4 % of injuries.  https://www.nsaa.org/media/68045/NSAA-Facts-About-Skiing-Snowboarding-Safety-10-1-12.pdf  and clearly, it seems that virtually all other ski resorts are willing to assume that “liability” of people possibly getting injured. 

• “Snowboarders are inconsiderate punks” (or some derivation thereof) – Whoa, bring on the Fourteenth!  Even if they were or are inconsiderate punks – and people of all ages, shapes, sizes, and genders are snowboarders, and I doubt all of them fulfill that stereotype - using that as a reason to keep a population out is not much different than the Jim Crow laws.  And something tells me that there are plenty of inconsiderate punks on two planks as well……

• “But if they are forced to allow snowboards, what about tubers!  Discs? Snowbikes?  Snowmobiles!  The place will be overrun, and a dangerous precedent will be set!” Precedent is indeed everything in law, but the fact that there are (literally; I counted) 427 ski resorts in the US that have created the precedent that skis and (except 3) snowboards are the exclusive users of those resorts, with no challenges to those well-accepted norms. 

• They can go somewhere else!" - Yes, of course they can, but for the same reason that "skiers" like Alta, so would/do snowboarders.  And if I'm not mistaken, there were plenty of drinking fountains to be used back in the 40's, but there were a few that didn't allow blacks to drink at them.....

• Which leads to the best argument I’ve heard – that Bagley alludes to above – is that the concept of “discrimination” and the ideals that the fourteenth amendment aspired to are far superior to the desires and choices of mostly (and increasingly) upper class, mostly-white citizens who already have it all.  They weren’t born snowboarders, right? But wait a second……I’m no theological expert, but I don’t believe anyone was “born” a Protestant?  And yet our constitution protects the rights of citizens who have chosen this religion to practice as they wish.   And if indeed “religion” is:

a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and

a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons. 

Well, I know a lot of skiers and snowboarders who ostensibly are so passionate about their activities that I would consider them to be “religious” about not only their sport, but the lifestyle – and life choices – they have made in the pursuit of (to carry the analogy a bit further) the subliminity associated with shredding untracked powder. 

On a recent march up a skin track - birthplace of many a good conversation - Ashley made an excellent contradictory analogy:  say a chili dog vendor is operating on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and a vegetarian comes up and says “I want a veggie burger.”  Because a concessionnaire is operating on public lands, is he obligated to serve all the potential customers who show up wanting a product or service that he may not provide?  And if Chuck’s Chili Dogs start offering veggie options, what happens when the Rabbi Elovitz visiting from NYC walks up and asks if his dogs are kosher?  A slippery slope (so to speak) for sure.  But one that would obviate a decision regarding a ski resort operating on a lease on public lands to do exactly as 423 of its peer ski resorts do very easily and effectively? 

It’s interesting that this lawsuit was filed at the same time that Utah unexpectedly leapt into the national spotlight for having gay marriage temporarily legalized (and starting today it’s being argued in front of the 10^th district court in Denver).  Because fundamentally the situations are similar: 

“I think that gay sex is ‘icky’" (according to a letter to the editor of the SL Trib the other day) "but that’s a weak argument, so I’ll come up with all these faux reasons to shut down homosexuality, and hope that my community will also feel that way and support me.” 

As compared to:

“I don’t like snowboarders and snowboarding and what they do to the snow and I don’t want moguls to be that far apart, but I know that those are really weak arguments, so I’ll come up with faux reasons" (promoted and encouraged for decades by Alta management) "to shut down snowboarders, and hope that my community will also feel that way and support me.” It's not very different.  

On a more personal note, I do hope that Wasatch Equality prevails because then the precedent will be set that the ski resorts also must allow another emerging activity that has been proven safe and easy to manage:  uphill skinning!  As it is, one local resort embraces it, three absolutely positively prohibit it in-season, and three have an obtuse, don’t ask don’t tell don’t bust non-policy……

It also is an issue that could loom large in the aforementioned One Wasatch plan; of the seven resorts that are included in the plan, two  - Alta and Deer Valley – do not allow snowboards, so despite the fact that – as Forrest Gladding points out – nearly 40% of US riders are snowboarders and 60% of riding families are of mixed riders, a significant population will effectively be unusually limited in their ability to take advantage of that “opportunity”.  I'm no marketing expert, but as Forrest also noted, trying to convince snowboarders around the country to go to only marginally snowboard-friendly but interconnected Utah vs spending their vacation dollars to go to open-armed Colorado might be a tough go for that 40% of the riding population.  

So let’s see how esteemed Parr Brown attorney Jon “Charger” Schofield does when he trades in his Patagonia jacket for his suit!  Could the Alta case go all the way to the "Supreme" Court?!?