Runs on Highlands.
Sometimes all I can hope for in a day is just one piece of information that will help guide me through the next. These quizzical pieces of information can come in all shapes and sizes, and the messages can differ; however, their effect on my psyche remains constant. They will always and inexorably ready me for another day.
Today I had my moment—the time when I received a tiny but not inconsequential bit of information—at the end of my day. I had spent the morning and early afternoon skiing with friends. A northern wind had brought with it 10 inches of light, fluffy, snow the previous night, and the mountains just north of Carbondale held blankets of the white stuff. Riding northbound with two stalwart climbers and skiers from the valley truthfully made me nervous—their skill at both sports being well beyond mine—but we passed the 40-minute drive discussing various ways in which you can climb the crux of a specific route on the limestone of Rifle Canyon.
Riding northbound with two stalwart climbers and skiers from the valley truthfully made me nervous.
“Well, I tried the wrong beta for years,” said Lee, his near 70 years of wisdom promising accuracy. “ But there’s an easier way to do the crux, you see.”
And so we hurtled down highway 82 with discussions of sunny rock climbs holding our attention, despite the fact that we were moving through a snowstorm. We arrived at an area appropriately named Highlands, and then my relative “calm before the storm” came crashing down as Lee, Mike, and I headed up a steep lift, then down a steep snow-pelted swath cut through the Apens of a mountainside. The snow recruited thigh-burning turns quickly. I watched as the two oldsters swooped left and off through a glade of Aspen trees and I skied straight by, though longing and wishing for the skill needed to ski those glades.
The Maroon Bells from Highland’s “Joint Point” as Mike calls it.
Eventually our paths down the mountainsides of Highlands differed greatly, what with the oldsters skiing terrain a little out of my league. And so the day passed, though I did find friends that preferred a similar way down. But my feelings of belonging to that mountain didn’t come. And I wondered about my self. The seemingly inevitable questionings of where we are, where we are going, and who we want to be, crept through my kicked-open doors like a hungry stray cat and I desperately wanted and needed my moment of clarity to come. And I skied until my legs shook from fatigue.
I met Lee in the Lodge near the fire place at three 0’clock sharp, and we headed back down valley, his near 70 year old spirit enlivened from the “deep powder day.” We conversed about the only thing we know about each other: climbing. Lee reminisced and relived many cruxes of many hard routes he has done and will do still, and then unknowingly he gifted me with my moment. During a brief imaginary revisit of his home state of New Mexico, Lee confirmed my suspicions that he knew the legendary Ute Navajo ninja climber John Duran. Duran is a hero of mine, though he and I have only crossed the bouldery paths of Southwest Colorado sandstone. But at first mention of Duran’s name, Lee quipped, “Oh, well of course I know Duran. Talk about a good skier!”
“What? Duran skied?” I asked, amazed but unsure if he had the right Duran. I mean Lee is almost 70, though he still climbs 5.13 and is as sharp as the tooth of a newborn puppy.
“Yes, Duran. John Duran. He was one of those guys that could just mash down the bumps. He was a beautiful skier.”
And so my moment came. Just knowing about John Duran’s prowess on skis, and picturing him sliding beautifully and effortlessly down the bumpy moguls of New Mexican mountains gave me my spark. And the spark starts a fire inside, and with the light of its flames, you can read just enough into the future to start another day.
Freestone Press 