New Year, New Post, No Resolutions

First Day Hikes have become a recent tradition at our nation’s state parks. It has blossomed under the culture of #optoutside, #findyourpark, and other healthful, nature-driven hashtags. I support this philosophy, and I’ve written before about the gem of a state park, Lathrop, a short 40 minutes from my front door.

Lift 3 at the former Cuchara Mountain Resort

But sometimes the pressures of the New Year impair motivation. I spent more than a few minutes signing up for a trial of Noom today, and I’m on board with self-efficacy (love you, Bandura) and food diaries. What I can’t get behind is Noom telling me my target weight, based on my height, should be between 121-141 lbs. That’s some BMI (body mass index) bullshit. I haven’t weighed in the 140s since my 20s and I was in arguably the best shape of my life in my 30s, where I was securely stationed at 155.

Ye old ski area from the base

That, and they’ve insisted I get a scale. I don’t own a scale. Haven’t since my 30s. My last (and only) trainer Angela told me weight loss takes weeks to notice, and it will start in the upper body and work its way down. Hips are last, and depending on my half-glass orientation on any particular day, are either my pain point or what makes me special. Angela (rightfully) told me to stay away from the scale. And after serious health issues, major surgery, and a year and a half of recovery, I was ready to get my health back, which included losing weight. But I knew the latter would occur through the weight training I was doing with Angela, 2-3x a week. And it did. Within months I had to gone from 11-12 to a 10. I’ve been a 10 since my 30s, and have mostly stayed there. I will never be an 8 what with the Kardashian booty and Lindsey Vonn thighs.

The Baker Trail behind me place flattens out after a short, steep climb

Signing up for Noom felt like a dating profile experience. Lots of questions, some writing. It didn’t ask me about menopause, or if it did, I missed it. It didn’t ask me about insomnia or crushing fatigue or gout or crabbiness (hard to tell the provenance of this sometimes) or any of the other wonders of hormonal change. Nope. Noom, it seems, is about the tyranny of the mean: 141 my ass.

Aspen grove in my backyard

So instead of opting outside or finding my park or first day hiking it, I walked the dog in my neighborhood, which I do 2x a day. I’ve learned via the One Minute Workout book I’m reading that low intensity (like walking the dog) is not going to help me reach my health goals unless I’m doing it for hours. And I have neither the time nor energy for that. Some days I’m sleeping 15 hours. Did I mention I got COVID this summer? Still recovering from that too.

Finally some snow on West Spanish Peak

It’s finally starting to snow here, and I’m looking forward to some high intensity exercise like snowshoeing and cross-country skiing, which I can do out my door. I’m also on the yoga kick of 2-3x a week with the amazing Adriene. She has 11 million followers for a reason. I never don’t feel peaced after 25 minutes with her.

I’m outside 2x a day, every day at 9500ft

So, the plan, which includes a bunch of things I already enjoy: eating enough carbs to exercise and think; yoga with Adriene; water, water everywhere; more intense snowsport workouts; and recommended reading: The Healing Gout Cookbook, the Menopause Manifesto, the One Minute Workout. Feel free to recommend others in the comments. Knowledge is power, and I’m not getting it from an app this time. Sorry Noom, you’re off the team.

N.B. The pix in this post are from my daily dog walks. I’m a winter girl.

Snowsnack Season

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Here at 9500 feet we’ve had a few storms this fall producing measurable snowfall. Shoveling and snowsnacking are about to become routine. I wanted to share early views of winterlife from someone who lives it from November to April, full-on: wool, snow clumps, blustery wind, postcard moments, sketchy driving, and did I mention shoveling?

When I bought my (former) ski condo five years ago, many had questions:

Where’s that?

What’s there?

Why?

Other questions abounded on why I, an avid snowsports person, did not buy closer to a ski area, say like Summit County for instance. Even five years ago, the answer was “Who can afford Summit County?”

It was time to buy a place. Except for an aborted attempt to buy a condo in Denver almost 20 years ago, I have been a renter all my life. Teaching salaries and extravagant wanderlust do not translate into down payments. But five years ago I managed to find an affordable ski condo next to a closed ski area in Cuchara, Colorado. Perhaps you’ve seen the movie, Abandoned?

Winter in Cuchara comes early, stays around, and provides almost daily moments of awe.

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I bought this place because I wanted the solitude, the lack of industry, the fewer people, the wildlife, the undiscoveredness. And when the pandemic first struck, I and a friend hightailed to here-nowhere. We subsisted on creativity (who didn’t), biweekly trips to WalMart, daily happy hour hikes, washing wool in the tub, three homecooked meals a day: full mountain living.

When I moved here full time 18 months later, dog in tow/friend not, many of those activities remain once the snow starts flying and the indigo sky appears the next day. Add in an energetic puppy, and voila! Instagram moments.

Chair 4 in the foreground, West Spanish Peaks behind some leftover clouds

Ivory with clouds

Early season Chair 4

Snowstorm-after mornings are a study in contrasts: beautiful/difficult, exhausted/energized, eager/dread, white/indigo, rebirth/ending, and hunkering/exploring. Cuchara is a summer destination with some diehard snowlovers who come to sled or skin up the empty ski hill when there are freshies or it’s a winter holiday. I have solitude to look forward to and loneliness to combat. I have postcard moments in the queue that make their appearance only after gearing up and shoveling. During weekday mornings, Ivory and I mostly have the place to ourselves.

Cuchara Mountain Park from the base

Geared up for the season

Did I cross-country ski or snowshoe this morning? No. Not enough snow. And when you live half the year in snow, with snow, being surrounded by snow, a solid pair of boots, some gaiters, and wool everything is good enough for a morning’s walk and some snowsnacking.

Blizzard Curls

Blowy and powdery at the top of the Breezeway lift at Monarch

I got waxed up in the parking lot around 10AM.

“It’ll be easier to turn,” assured my fellow boarder as he spread wax on my snowboard.

“But you might fall getting off the lift,” he warned and laughed, then, “Meet you back here.”

It was a powder Thursday in February at Monarch Mountain, just west of Salida, Colorado. It was also deathly cold, with temps on the wrong side of the integer line. I was layered in wool, fleece, then my Helly Hansen coat. After one walk to the car, I knew I needed a longer, bulkier outer layer for these conditions. I stopped by Mt. Shavano Ski and Snowboard Shop on the way to the hill for a new snowboard coat. I walked away with a Boulder Gear Serena Jacket. The description on their website is spot on–I was looking for something warm but not bulky; stylish but not poser-y; internal storage for cards and key; and a hood for dastardly windy days. Like today.

I learned to board at Monarch in the late 90’s. I had lived in Tahoe a few years earlier and tried, repeatedly, to learn how to dowhill ski on straight skis. I was an avid cross-country skier and couldn’t wrap my head, hips, legs, or shoulders around the “pizza french-fry” technique.

Blue runs off the Garfield lift

So I turned to snowboarding, graduating all the way to double-blacks ten years ago. But there have been head injuries, car crashes, and even a head-on collision with a snowboarder a few years back. Now I like to warm up on the blues, hit a few blacks, then warm-down on the blues. I prioritize empty runs, and if I find an empty run with enough challenge, I’ll start lapping the mountain.

And that’s what I did for two windy, chilly powder days at the end of February. I started on the eastern Breezeway lift, noted the empty trails on the chair ride up, and as prophesized by my parking lot friend, fell getting off the steep lift ramp. I dusted myself off, going through my top-of-the-lift ritual of tightening the Boa system on my snowboard boots, one cinch at a time. He was right, I was turning more easily, but only when I could see the contours of the trail. Which wasn’t often.

Black choices off the Breezeway lift

Blowy snow and overcast skies meant seeing the run, finding a line before you got there, was out of the question. I headed toward the fluffy bumps on Upper Halls Alley and B’s Bash, both empty but hard to see. I was being bounced around by large moguls, willing myself to find curves to turn into and keeping my tail up so I wouldn’t fall. As the days progressed, I moved west across the mountain, dodging loose trees off the Panorama lift and finding fun blues and blacks to drop into off the Garfield lift.

The uncovered parts of my face started to burn

I was having fun but I was working for it–huffing my way through invisible turns, thumping off the top of moguls, leaning back to keep speed up on the flats. My hands, face, and toes were alternating to win Coldest Part of the Body. Between the altitude (summit elevation is almost 12,000 ft.), the bitter cold, the wind, the too-tight sports bra, and the powder challenges, I tapped out after a few hours.

Great snow conditions, low light

I took my first snowboard lesson here at Monarch, and my Kiwi instructor, after watching me connect turns, noticed I was working too hard. “It’s the slackuh spawt, Tracey. You’re trying to hahd. Just point yaw shoulders and lean to turn.” Almost 25 years after that first day I was trying to point and lean, conserving energy for talking, slogging through the lift line, and driving back to Salida.

As I was trudging back to my car the second day, who should I run into? “Told you I’d meet you back here. How was your day?” We traded stories, preferred lifts and runs, and which parts of our bodies ached the most.

“It was hard to see.”

“Because of all that powder!”

True.

We dusted off our vehicles, blared the heat and music and changed into better footwear. I flipped down the visor to remove my contacts and noticed, just like after a day at the beach, that I had accumulated blizzard curls. I laughed at the hairy icicles. And my eyes had that faraway stare that comes with extreme physical exhaustion.

Skins on Backwards

Cuchara Moutain Park after a a few new inches

I am a proud member of the Great Resignation. I was working mostly from home, in expensive Denver, and big cities are no fun during a pandemic. So I moved to the Sangre de Cristo mountains where I had bought a small condo a few years prior. The condo is next to an old ski area, Cuchara Mountain Resort. The lifts stopped running in 2000 due to mismanagement, a lack of snow, and whatever else. There have been some improvements and a concerted effort to repurpose the area and maybe even open Lift 4, pictured above.

View of winter from my west-facing balcony

I bought the condo not with faraway hopes of living next to a lift-served snowboarding. I bought it for the views, serenity, and throwback feel. Runs on the lower part of the mountain are blues and greens, so I had been hiking up and boarding down. A tiring system in fresh powder.

Tips of the new setup

I was always running into someone skinning up after storms, and I thought it would be cool to explore more of the mountain with the right equipment. I met some splitboarding neighbors, so I invested in brand new Voile gear, the full Revelator setup. I figured I had at least the will power to start a new sport at 51.

Transition from climbing up to swooshing down

Backcountry snowboarding requires at least one costume change. From the car, the mohair skins adhere to the bottom, the boards split apart and change places, the bindings slide in and clamp down, and poles get extended. For the five times in my life I’ve been splitboarding, I’ve been wearing cross-country skiing gear and carrying a backpack filled with more snowboard-y mittens, helmet, and goggles. Once on top, I fold the skins, collapse the poles, and stuff all in the pack for the descent.

I’m doing (some of) it wrong

I try to get out on the splitboard in the morning after new snow, but on this Thursday it was going to have to be a happy hour skin up. I drive my car the quarter mile from my door to the ski area base of because I am not skinning up back to my front door. I’m just not.

The 90 second reward

The air was cold and windy, the light was flat and fading, and snow was getting tossed about on the lower mountain. It’s about 20 minutes to the top of Chair 4 and 90 seconds down. Gearing up and transitioning also takes about 20 minutes, so the ROI is kind of off. Today I’m focused on the single digit temps and my talkative lower back, and the complexity of my equipment outsmarted me. I put the skins on backwards and forgot to take the pole guards off. In fact, I think I’ve left the pole guards on almost every time I go out. And the clamped-down bindings looked wrong on my boots, arching over my boots instead of holding them in from the front. I was too cold to care. I trudged up.

The climb up was hard, but it’s always hard. The transition was messy, but what else is new? And the glide down was satisfying, awesome, and over too soon.