reAssess The Commute

There's more than one way to get around on the snow. Outdoor enthusiast Martin, is a connoisseur of touring adventures, in our backyard and beyond. 

Ski touring, ski mountaineering, … whatever you call it, getting into the backcountry on skis is becoming more and more popular.

The idea of escaping into nature and away from the crowds—and enjoying untouched snow—may sound really good, but where do you start? There are two essential components, education and gear.

Skis

Any downhill ski can theoretically be set up for use in the backcountry, but alpine touring skis designed specifically for backcountry use usually feature lighter weight designs that make hiking uphill drastically easier.

Backcountry/alpine touring/ski mountaineering skis (the terms are used interchangeably) range from super-svelte trekking and racing styles focused primarily on uphill mobility and speed, to more freeride-focused models that offer the same massive dimensions and innovative rocker profiles as the newest inbounds powder skis. My backcountry skis offer touring features like notches in the tip and tail for attaching climbing skins. Along with low weight comes some sacrifice in another areas, usually in the ski’s ability to remain damp and chatter-free on hard snow or to resist impact damage to the base and edges like I just found out on Saturday.

Skins

Skins are ready-to-cut sections of plush material that stick to the bottom of your skis and allow you to travel uphill without sliding back down. This is because they have a ‘nap’ that helps grip the snow in one direction, and glide in the other.

Skins are made of synthetic/mohair blend that are durable and grippy, while mohair skins glide with superior speed and efficiency, but may not grip as well as synthetics. Skins with a blend of mohair and synthetic offer a balance of these qualities.

Clips at the tip and tail and a sticky, non-permanent glue compound keep a skin attached to your ski. Most skins use clips that will universally attach to any ski. Martin gave me skins that shipped with an easy-to-use trimming tool and instructions.

Bindings

Backcountry touring bindings allow my heel to move freely off of my ski while I'm skinning uphill for an easier, more natural stride. When it’s time to ski down, the bindings lock down in the heel. There are several types of touring bindings: low-profile, lightweight tech bindings that are only compatible with touring boots with dimpled tech inserts.

Ultralight and minimalist by design, these tech bindings (originally developed by Dynafit) only work with ski touring boots with tech-compatible heel and toe fittings. This binding style places a premium on stride efficiency and low weight, rather than adjustability or downhill performance. These bindings didn’t historically feature traditional DIN adjustment, but new options on the Dynafit Binding are indicative of big mountain skier’s desire to adopt tech bindings.

Other things in these touring bindings include heel risers that can give a boost under your heel for climbing steep hills. Brakes aren’t standard on these ultralight tech bindings.

Boots

Touring boots feature a walk mode that allows the ankle to pivot freely for better range of motion when you’re hiking and skinning. They also usually include aggressively lugged rubber soles and lightweight shell material, all of which make the alpine touring boot suitable for gaining altitude. A carbon cuff or tongue, lightweight plastic shell, minimalist buckle design, or honeycomb structure help reduce the weight of the boot so I can move faster and feel less fatigued during a long tour. 

Martin helped me to make sure that I was getting boots that are compatible with my bindings. A true alpine touring boot’s rockered sole is generally only compatible with pin-style tech bindings.

Like traditional alpine boots, touring boots cover a range of flex ratings. I love my boot’s flexibility on the walk or skin up which also is affected by the range of motion on the walk/ride hinge.

Poles

Backcountry ski poles are essentially the same as your regular ski poles, but they ideally will have an adjustable or collapsible design to adapt to changing terrain. For example, you may want them longer than normal for flat terrain (so you can swing them like cross-country poles), and shorter when you’re ascending steeper terrain.

Now that you have your equipment assembled, what else do you bring along? It will depend on how long you expect to be out and how far you are going, among other things. There are, however, some things you shouldn’t leave home without.

Backcountry Ski Pack

A good backcountry ski pack is tough, offers a means of carrying my skis if I need to, a mid-sized capacity, and a sleeve or compartment that’s made specifically to hold the shovel Martin ordered especially for me with it's smaller size, probe, are avalanche rescue tools for quick access. Beyond that, an extra attachment points for things like my helmet (which I would rather not wear on a sweaty ascent).

Martin can tell you more about picking the right ski touring pack.

For Christmas he not only gave me a pack that will allow quick and easy access to my shovel and probe, but this backpack may help save my life with this airbag system. If I suddenly find myself in a slide, I pull the oh-crap handle and an airbag deploys to increase my mass and help me to stay on top of the debris and minimize my chance of trauma and burial. 

Avalanche Beacon

Beacons are absolute necessities. Without one I cannot search for someone who was buried in an avalanche, and no one can find me. Some beacons have a lot of bells and whistles, but as a beginner the most important thing I needed to look for was easy and intuitive use.

However, no matter how simple my beacon may be to use, I need to practice until operation is second nature. So we are planning to go out in the snow, and bury some packs with beacons in them to practice our search skills. When things go south and lives are on the line, nurses don’t rise to the occasion, they fall back on their training. Beacons are computers, and computers are only as smart as the people operating them...

Shovel

The classic winter tool is a necessity in the backcountry as well— my shovel is used to dig test pits for snow-pack analysis and to excavate skiers in the event of an avalanche.

A plastic blade isn’t strong enough to dig through concrete-hard avalanche debris. Aluminum is the only choice for safety in avalanche terrain. Some blades offer a serrated edge or pointed shape for extra digging power. Blade size is also a factor; those with larger blades will move more snow, but are harder to manage. That is why Martin choose a shovel with a fixed-length shaft for me; a fixed-length shovel is lightweight and makes for easy storage in a backpack.

Probe

A lightweight folding pole ten feet long, an avalanche probe is used in an avalanche rescue scenario to probe the snowpack for buried skiers once I locate their general position with an avalanche beacon, enabling me to zero in with accuracy that a beacon can’t provide. This leads to less digging time and a faster recovery, which can potentially save lives.

Puffy Jacket/Extra Insulation Layer

The layers to bring along and/or wear will vary greatly depending on the weather, but even on a bluebird day, having a good warm puffer in the bottom of my pack is always a great idea. Weather can change quickly and keeping warm will be that much easier.

Extra Gloves

Gloves are a crucial piece of equipment and I have a few pairs, a thin fleece pair for skinning up, a midweight leather pair for skiing and transitioning, and an insulated, fully waterproof pair to keep my fingers warm in challenging weather.

I think everyone has their own list of necessities, one that develops out of experience. For example, I now always take a small thermos of hot tea on ski/bus trip approaches. When, after a long ski day on the hill, you find a frozen-fingered eight-year-old from the quickly declining weather conditions in the fading light, your touring partner will celebrate you as a savior  when you warm the frozen digits with your magically hot water. Point being—experience is the real teacher, and I learned this one the hard way.

Above all …

Martin has me all geared up, but, he can’t emphasize enough: know before you go. The most important things you bring into the backcountry are knowledge and good judgment. Good judgment keeps you out of trouble, and knowledge may save you if your judgment comes up short. Unfortunately, judgment only comes from experience.

So, how do you live through the learning curve? I cannot start backcountry skiing with experience, but I can start with some knowledge by taking an avalanche 101 course. Luckily, my first trip into the backcountry with my new gear took place with an avalanche expert, Martin. He made sure we were heading to a safe, low-angle zone and he knows what he is doing and is willing to teach me. Then, he signed us up to take a course next month.

Above all, enjoy! A new world of experiences awaits us.

A Family Christmas

 

solitude

 

Snapshots

 

Happy Haul-idays

 An hour later, there is the crackling of amber, the unwrapping of the presents. Divy was carted off for a talk shortly after, and while Markus and I made plans to drive down to the annual Christmas Eve Open House, neither of us could resist the sleepy pull of the fire. We sat long on a pile of sunroom cushions, blankets littered with wrapping paper. He arrived hungry, roasted sausages over the fire.

(Later, the silent night would turn decidedly less so, but for now, all was calm.)

This is the year I am learning to pace myself. Learning that the gifts will be wrapped when they must. That seven holiday cards are better than none. That there was nothing sporty about a 90 mile trek to Bethlehem; that there needn’t be here.

Thus: our first Christmas experience was as you’d expect it to be – lovely and maddening, cheeks pinked and tempers red. We’d rang the bell at dark, chosen a wide silver one after aggressive indecision from the 8-year-old; he who wanted a voice in the matter, but couldn’t land on a chair.

There was a hot cider detour. A trip to the World Market, the famed chorus of where are the cookies and “Can we check at another store?”s ringing through every aisle. Checkout lines under bright garish lights. Two hours later, sugar pulsing through the veins of pint-sized children, the tree was ready with it's lights and we, the parents, were ready for light’s out.

So we paused. Recalibrated. Opened presents on a new day, with new energy (and detoxified systems) to greet us. It was far lovelier this way, inching out the miles a bit. Tree decorating one day, cookie dough making the next. Just last week, Markus and I finally managed to eek out a trip to the mall, our shopping fueled by pride and purpose.

It’s a reminder I need every year: that holidays with small children are swirly as snow globes, happily shattering our own delicate expectations for a real wonderland.

All the while: cold walks, warm feet, gift-sacking the black and white cookies for a few friends. This afternoon, the boys and I headed the canyon for a Christmas ski tour throughout the mountains.

Happy haul-idays, we’ll sing tomorrow to all.

Happy holidays, I write today to you.

 

 

p.s. See you in 2021, friends. It is such a joy to greet you here, and such a joy to tell you so. From the bottom of my heart, from the bottom of another year, thank you, thank you, thank you.

The Very Best Gift

 

Christmas Cookies

 

A Canopy of Forever

Hope For The Hard Days

It started Friday, with the injury. They were not Markus', but mine, and they were fueled by a variety of external factors, excuses – too much noise, not enough rest, too much covid, not enough time – and I had become itchy with discontent. I was on edge, a jagged, barbed wire version of myself that fenced out the good: gentleness, patience, kindness, love.

When I’m feeling particularly edgy, I forget a lot of things. I forget that I’m the grown-up. I forget that I am a leader, that I set the tone. That my barbed wire of self-preservation does nothing to further our bond but instead, encourages everyone else to – quickly, quietly please – build their own fence to protect each other from the elements of our truest selves. I forget that love – the kind of love I’m giving – comes without conditions. I forget that crying is the easy way out, and I forget that he is a sponge.

Life is linear, they have said. It has momentum, and one day builds from another – one choice from the one before. And so, I wonder, what does it mean when you have a string of bad days? How do you stop the momentum that has been building from crashing, burning, destroying? How long does a strand of bad decisions stretch before it strangles the good, before it wraps around your finger like floss, around your neck like a noose?

We cannot know.

But part of me believes that life may not be linear, after all. Perhaps these bad days are not strings tied together, but are stars – scattered under a canopy of forever? Some beautiful, some terrible, some far brighter than we’d imagined? And by peering at them from afar, from underneath, we see them as they are?
I choose, daily, to believe in a God that is not constrained by time, or space, or boundaries. Life, as I believe that He sees it, is not linear. And so, perhaps I’m looking at all of this from the wrong perspective.

What if a mother’s yell is merely an opportunity to voice forgiveness? What if a child’s disobedience is an opportunity to practice a parent’s self-control? And if that’s true, what if a woman’s guilt is simply an opportunity to accept – to show gratitude for and to cling to – a greater love?

Because here is what I do know: when love is offered unconditionally, everything changes. I know this because I believe in a God who is the very essence of unconditional love, and it surprises me more each day I am a mother. Is it irrational, and unthinkable, and holds little understanding. I am a toddler, a sponge, and certainly there are conditions that come alongside this God’s love? Certainly I will lose just a tiny portion if I, say, disobey and run out into the street? Or color on the walls? Or eat the dog food?

And yet, I am loved. I see it, in small flickers, a star on the darkest night of forever. I feel it, and I accept it, and I carry it until tomorrow.

And so, because of this, I love. He sees it, in small flickers, a star on the darkest night of forever. He feels it, and I can only hope he will accept it, and I can only pray that he will carry it until all the tomorrows.

#thegoodlist

 A note about #thegoodlist:

It's not that everything's coming up roses over here. 

I know you know. Still, it's worth repeating, often and always, that life's swelling circle of hope and doubt and fervor cannot possibly be squared off, served up as portions. 

But, we can learn to love the whole of it. We can learn to mine for good, or as my boyfriend has been saying for the past year: look for the light. 

The more we do it, the more we see it. 

And then: when the AC separation comes, when the first shift of your first game begins in Texas and ends 15 seconds later, when the emergency room doctor says it is grade 1-2, we'll have tiny shards of sunbeam to light the way forward. 

Candie's Baby Shower

 

Heroes Work Here

 

THE FUTURE IS EXCITING

life design 101

It’s back to school time for Markus, a time re-start fresh and re-establish routines.

As we move (back) into his senior year, how can he pull the back-to-school spirit into his life?

Maybe the answer is taking a class or starting a project. Maybe the answer is letting go of something like the trees shed their leaves. Maybe the answer is settling into a routine, setting a new habit, or applying to that University that remote school has kept you from…

But whatever it is, don’t fight the pull. Be open to change. Trust what you know you want. (And don’t be afraid to stock up on new school supplies either!)

As we approach the winter, what are you most excited about?

advice for a creatively abundant life

 

Ski & Skate

 

10 Things To Love

 Our home hasn’t found sleep in the past few nights, for reasons we don’t yet know. We’ve been tossing bedspreads to the floor, flipping pillows to the cool side. This morning, I called a truce earlier than usual, padded out to the dark dining room to find even the raccoons on the lawn, ever awake and digging for breakfast.

Insomnia, the great Gordian knot.

The good news, of course, is it finds me here typing to you. I’ve had a more difficult time coming to this space during daylight hours. There are apples to peel, slice, dole out. Another chapter in Der Kleine Mann. Emails, always. But for now, for this moment, all is quiet and calm. All are fed.

It is just me, right here.

(Bliss.)

—

A small smattering of loveliness to share:

1. Months ago, I asked the fine friends of Instagram for the greatest recipes beknownst and have slowly taken it upon myself to test each and every one (a most suitable goal if ever there was one). Here’s the clear winner so far, all those who are curious.

2. It is no secret we waddle around in long underwear at first frost, and last year I stocked up on these. They’re thick and structured, perfect for weeks-in-a-row wash and wear rotations. A not-so-short list of places I’ve worn them: Here, near-daily. Divy’s taekwondo class. Our favorite corner bread shop. Grocery shopping. Walks to the park. Not yet work, but it’s only a matter of time…

3. Eyebrows, then. While I once was one to hop on the micro-blading/eyelash-extension/whatever the kids are doin’ these days-train, I do love a good eyebrow dressing, and my general preference is gel > brush. Boy brow is good, but I like the ingredients in this one better.

4. Jojo Moyes, The Giver of Stars. I read books as often as I can, for the authors constructive wisdom and simmering depth. Though the writing is slow, that’s never been much of a dealbreaker for me (oft: the opposite). My December has been made all the better for this one.

5. Martin’s gearing up for a big project at work, so I’ve got my favorite meal scheduled. We all hate to see him go, but on the plus side, I don’t have to share the bread.

6. Speaking of bread, our Whole Foods is carrying this, and the rye flavor has graced no less than three daily meals over here. Eggs, chicken, rice, toast, potatoes, salad – heck, you could probably slather it over a bar of soap and it would taste better than an afternoon at Gjelina (very good indeed).

7. A conversation with Laurie White, on rituals and obituaries, trees and love.

8. Markus came home from his hockey practice a few days ago with a short video clip. He explained his 6 am practice in great detail, said today was the day to visit his father’s relatives. So he did. Said tomorrow was the day to visit his mother’s relatives. So we did. Said all week is the week to gift oranges and apples. So we did. And I am learning this: I will never regret following a child’s lead.

9. A happy little weather station.

10. Flannel sheets, for when we all start snoozing again (soon?).

Sending peace and warmth to your neck of the woods, sleepless or not. Happy December, friends.

GNO Craft Night