Sunday, April 10, 2016
Willamette Pass
Closing Day, 2015-16 Season
Well, then. The end of the season snuck up faster than I had anticipated. I've only used three of the five days on my five-day pass, so I need to get two days worth of skiing in one day since I neglected to read the fine print on my pass that says the tickets are non-transferrable and the chances of Willamette honoring a day next year approach zero.
I talked my friend and colleague Karl into coming up today. He's the Environmental Services Manager at the Eugene Water and Electric Board and has probably done more around land and water conservation for our area than anyone. I've been working with Karl for seven years on source water protection activities and some very interesting strategies around incentives. If that's of interest, you can find out more here. A bunch of my work is posted on the site.
Since the kids moved, I need to assemble a new ski crew. All of my old crew are still in Colorado and I try to ski with them whenever I'm out there. I don't know that many people that ski here and the ones I do live a long way away. Karl is a great skier and was pretty much up for anything.
Back to skiing. A perfect closing day--temps in the 50s and excellent spring snow conditions. The crowd was thin, and as we would later learn, about half the people there were ski patrol.
Karl checks out Waldo Lake in the distance.
Where's Waldo? There it is!
Mt. Bachelor.
Karl creams the corn.
Diamond Peak.
Odell Lake.
There I am, pushing hard as ever.
All in all, an excellent closing day. We mashed the corn until about 2pm when it started getting pretty sticky and then called it. A great day of skiing with a good friend. I'm hoping we'll get some powder days in next season.
I don't know if I'll get back out this season--it would have to be at Batchelor or Hood--all the other areas are closed. We'll see!
I got a bit behind on the blog posts, so here I am on April 30th catching up and avoiding work on a spring Saturday.
We finally got another storm system in. I probably should have gone up Saturday, but work issues make it difficult to take two days in a row off. On that point, I might have had a total of four full days off this year so far. Three of them I spend skiing--a far from satisfactory outcome.
I've mentioned before that I'm getting fussy these days. Without Dylan or someone else to motivate me, getting up is more of a chore--not the getting up in the morning...well, that's a chore too, but getting up the motivation to get up to the mountain. I must be getting old because the social aspect of skiing is more important to me than it was when I was 21. Plus, I really, really like to ski NW Pow. It's the best...better than all the rest.
I arrive at the mountain at 8:50 and it's snowing pretty hard. The report indicated a foot or more overnight and a couple of feet in the past few days. My kind of conditions. I didn't quite get first chair, but it was close.
The snow was deep, as the photo below demonstrates. It was also a bit heavy, but sometimes you have to accept what Ullr provides.
It was pretty darn windy and at points approached white out conditions. Skiing is always an adventure because you never know exactly what you are going to get. What's the weather going to do? What will the snow conditions be like? Will conditions be different on different parts of the mountain? Will there be a big crowd (Willamette is pretty predictable on that point--usually not--even if the lot is full you never wait in line)? Will the lift break and strand you (always a wildcard at The Pass)?
I'm not brave enough to attempt skiing in these conditions, so I took a photo and waited for the wind to calm down a bit.
Like the past few times, I spent most of the day in the trees exploring old and new lines. I could spend the rest of my ski career exploring the trees at Willamette on a powder day and be completely content.
A lot of things are changing right now. It's an interesting era on the planet. We're collectively engaged in a science experiment that appears to be changing the climate and geology of the planet. We've got a political system that seems off the rails a bit. Wars continue to rage on. The U.S. continues it's imperialistic policies while most the population appears completely ignorant. Technology has fundamentally changed the way we do pretty much everything--from raising food, to commerce, to communication. It's also come at a significant loss of personal privacy.
What's the answer? I don't know, but I've been asking the questions for most of my life. One thing I know for sure is that it's a privilege to be able to spend a day sliding down a hill on a pair of sticks in the snow. I've often asked myself about the value of skiing and wrote in this blog a long time ago that I would write an essay on that. I will someday, but not right now. What I will say is that for me it is a type of freedom that I don't get from any other activity--including playing music. My level of comfort on a pair of skis is unsurpassed by anything else I can do and it brings me into a mental and physical space of perfect harmony (at least when I'm in the flow).
In his book "Flow" Mihály Csíkszentmihály, a psychologist, elucidates a state where time and purpose merge. By definition, flow, also known as "the zone," is the mental state of operation in which a person performing an activity is fully immersed in a feeling of energized focus, full involvement, and enjoyment in the process of the activity. In essence, flow is characterized by complete absorption in what one does. Skiing is the definition of flow for me.
At any rate, if you haven't read "Flow" it's worth the effort.
The one constant in life is change. Physical change from getting older (mom and dad, I appreciate you not complaining about how much harder everything gets when you reach your mid-50s). Cultural change, technological change, family change. I miss the ski excursions with Diane and the kids...but I won't ever forget them (especially since I starting writing about them in 2008). The other thing I thought was utter BS was older people (most notably politicians) using the excuse "I don't remember." I reached a point in my early 40s where my memory card was full and started dumping random memories for whatever work-related nonsense was occupying my brain at that time. It's super frustrating to be reminded by friends of family of some fun time you had in the past that completely went out of your memory.
Up to this point, I don't think it is anything unusual, but the statistics on dementia are sobering. One of the cool things about consulting is that people pay you to learn about stuff. Great business model for the most part. Last year I finished up a project for a firm in California that does memory care facilities. They wanted to expand their operation in Newport. We were successful, but the part that caught my attention is that one in seven people over 65 have memory issues. I hope that isn't me, but life is such that you take whatever comes at you.
People that influenced my life are passing away. David Bowie died from cancer a few weeks back at 69--too young in my view. I never quite latched on to Bowie like I did other artists, but he was always there through the decades. In 1971 Bowie released changes. The content is incredibly insightful for someone in their early 20s. Here's a little excerpt:
"Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream of warm impermanence
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations"
Here I am at 55 wondering where all that time went. It went by and I was here the entire time. It's hard to conceptualize that far into the future when you are young. And perhaps that is all right and good. They say that youth is wasted on the young. There's a lot packed into that, but you don't realize it until you're older.
The upside is that I'm going through what is probably the most creative period of my life. For a lot of people, that happens in their 20s, but creativity doesn't end there. I've written more music, participated in more significant policy issues, and done more academic publications in the past five years that I could have ever anticipated. I think it's a constant question of one's value and contributions in the grander scheme. Does it have bigger value? I don't know, but it has value to me and that's what is important.
I'll keep skiing as long as I can and will hope for more days like today before I'm done. Until then, I'll embrace the changes.
