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.
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.
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.
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 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 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.
SheSpoke 