My Sanity: Yours for $1.50
Here’s how it went down: my wife had my wallet. I needed lunch, so I broke into my emergency stash of credit cards, the ones I never use, activated one, and bought myself a hot dog. Then I waited for a billing statement that never came.
Eventually, I remembered using the card, and checked in to see why the statement was late. Of course, by then the account was overdue. According to the helpful bank representative, at some unknown point I’d switched that account to paperless statements. I mentioned I’d never gotten a statement, paper or otherwise…Would I like to pay the balance now, the rep inquired helpfully (more…)
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The Heater is Gray
Over Christmas I bought a space heater for my room at my parents’ house in Flagstaff, which tends to be cold. I liked the heater so much I decided to get another one when I got back to my L.A. apartment, which also tends to be cold. Problem was, the one I got in Flagstaff was black, and in California (in fact online as well) I could only find silver versions of the model I liked.
Okay, no big deal…but I really liked the way the black heater looked. Is it crazy to care that much about the color of your heater? Maybe (more…)
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The Eagle (and the UFC) Have Landed
There are a number of conversations I’m dreading having with my son. One of them is in the process of just beginning, courtesy of the UFC commercials which inconveniently appear on television during some of the shows my son watches.
In my son’s conception of the world, you see, grown men don’t hit each other in the face.
In my son’s world, people don’t steal from each other, or shoot each other. Waterboarding doesn’t exist. War doesn’t exist. Warplanes don’t drop bombs on houses with sleeping children inside. And yet of course, in time, I’ll be trying to explain all these things and more to my son. However much I may wish otherwise, I can’t keep the darker side of the world hidden from him forever. It would not only be futile to try—it would be cruel.
But here’s a conversation I never saw coming: tonight, my son pointed up at the moon in the sky, and asked if there were people on it. How he came up with that notion I have no idea. No, I explained, there are no people on the moon. Not right now. But people did visit the moon a few years ago. Really, he asked? Yes, I said. And so we Googled the Apollo 11 mission, and I showed my son pictures of the Eagle lander, and I told my son about Neil Armstrong, and Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins, and mankind’s first visit to the moon, and I honestly don’t know which one of us was more filled with wonder.
Even now, I find myself marveling at the thought of it: people, walking on the moon. That thing hanging way up there in the sky. As for those other conversations, their time will come, I know. But at least tonight, I got to share one of the very brightest parts of the human story with my son. And I was reminded that while the world may well be vastly darker than my son realizes, it is also infinitely more amazing than either of us can fully imagine.
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Sierra Sightlines
An interesting question popped into my in-box yesterday: is it possible to see the Grand Canyon from the top of Mount Whitney? In fact I ask myself questions like this all the time, especially when I’m looking at shots of the interior Sierra and trying to identify distant peaks or other features on the horizon. Happily, I’ve found a free tool that is absolutely brilliant for coming up with the answers to exactly these kinds of questions. Can you guess what that tool is? Hint: it’s not evil…
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A Trip to the Gym
It’s official: after more than a year’s hiatus from working out, I went back to the gym today to try to get myself in shape for the upcoming ski season. I must say I approached this venture with no small degree of anxiety. After such a long break from exercise, starting with my back injury and then the birth of my daughter (and many, many sleepless nights thereafter), I was afraid I’d find myself hopelessly floundering when I hit the iron.
As feared, I was a lot weaker. I could just barely press twice my body weight, and at the squat rack I started with four plates per side but had to drop down to three to bang out my fifth set—pretty pitiful. Afterward, instead of riding my bike straight home, I decided to do a fifty-mile loop around the PV peninsula to try to shock my body into waking up.
Okay, maybe it didn’t go exactly like that. Truth be told, my left biceps is the only part of my body that isn’t a total wreck, and that’s because I’m constantly holding my daughter in my left arm as I try to open my car door, unfold the stroller, and carry her up and down the stairs. Is there anything as demoralizing as returning to the gym after a long layoff? The only good news is that it’s still early, and there’s still a little time to try to build a little muscle before the snow get here.
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Back to Normal — Sort Of
Well, I’ve reskinned most of the interior pages of sierradescents back to the good old boring gray. I imagine the pink look raised some eyebrows for first-time visitors who were just looking for a gear review or two, but the occasion seemed to call for more than just business as usual.
I think I’ll leave the pink pages up here on the home page for a while longer. Last night was our daughter’s first night home. She would cry and I did my best to get her back to sleep. Then our son would start crying in his room, so I’d go there and calm him down. Then I’d get back in bed and our daughter would cry again. And back and forth. Maybe I should rekindle my old “this is good training for Williamson” mantra. 
Speaking of Williamson, since I’m going to be on climbing hiatus for July (most likely), I’m thinking of trying to do a write up a trip I did two years ago up the West Face in June. I got a lot of good photos from that, but never got around to writing about the hike. Doing Williamson via Shepherd Pass and the West Face is a great step up from Whitney’s Mountaineer’s Route, if you’re looking for a next-big-trip kind of progression.
For now, there will be a lot more diapers than dihedrals in my immediate future, so please forgive me if updates are a little sparse. I am tossing in some new gear reviews here and there, but if you’re like me, you’ll want a little more meat with your content. Happy 4th of July everyone!
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Happy T-Day!
Happy Thankgiving everyone! Looks like we’ve finally got our first official winter storm of the season in the Southland Mountains. Mount Baldy says they got 2-6″ of snow. Up north, Mammoth reports a modest 5″ new on an admittedly meager base—but at least they’re open!
Ski Dazzle Los Angeles is Dec 4-7 at the Convention Center. Whether you go to buy gear or just to check out the scene, it’s always worth the price of admission.
That’s it for now. We’re headed north for the holiday. Then off to AZ for an MRI and hopefully some good news. If you’re traveling, travel safe this weekend, and be sure to eat a lot of turkey and pumpkin pie. Take care!
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Backcountry Mag vs. Davenport
Well…not exactly, but if you did happen to catch the cover on the November ’08 Backcountry Magazine, you’ll see the provocative headline, “New Heights or New Hype: Freeski Mountaineer Chris Davenport.” The feature article inside doesn’t exactly stake out a bold position on the subject, but it does ask the intriguing question, is Chris Davenport creating a new skiing genre?
Seeing as we’re currently waiting around for some snow around here (and otherwise bored), I thought I’d offer my own fearless take on the Davenport phenomenon, hopefully controversial enough to spark up a comment or two, but not too controversial, because we’re still worn out from the election.
Ready? Here we go:
The Pioneer: Lou Dawson
To understand who Chris Davenport is, you’ve first got to understand who Lou Dawson is.
Lou Dawson is the first person credited with skiing all 54 of Colorado’s fourteen-thousand-foot peaks from the summit or as near thereupon as theoretically possible.
As a feat of mountaineering, it’s a big one, not just because of the sheer numbers of 14K peaks in Colorado, but because of Colorado’s notorious mid-winter snowpack, Colorado’s notoriously dry winters, and even access issues, all of which meant, in any given year, that only a handful of the fourteeners might actually be skiable, with the rest bare of snow or too dangerous, or simply (at the time) considered unskiable in any conditions.
It took Lou roughly thirteen years to ski all the fourteeners (including various unnamed high points—just to be thorough).
Now, in ski mountaineering, unlike climbing, it’s not always easy to define what is and isn’t a summit ski descent.
Everyone has their own idea.
If for example, I take off my skis to walk across a short rocky patch (as I did when I skied Mount Williamson), do I still get credit?
Part of the reason why it took Lou 13 years to ski all 54 Colorado fourteeners (in addition, of course, to the massive scale of the task) was his emphasis on style. Lou set a high standard for himself in terms of what did and did not qualify as a summit descent. This might seem foolish, but in the evolving world of ski mountaineering, style probably trumps all other considerations, because there are so many ways to “ski” a mountain.
The importance of style was anticipated way back in the 1970′s by French Extreme skiers Patrick Vallencant and Anselm Baud, who insisted on always climbing their routes before skiing them, and eschewed the use of a rope on descent (excepting mandatory rappels, which were always noted as such).
Their rigid sense of fairness was not pointless. Absent some minimal ethic of style, the sport of ski mountaineering can quickly devolve into absurdity. Imagine strapping on skis and parachute, and jumping off the Great Trango Tower. Is that skiing? Or as Baud once mused, with a long enough rope, why not “ski” the Walker Spur?
Davenport: Anything You Can Do…
Enter Chris Davenport. A former Alpine Ski racer, Chris established himself as a freeskiing force when he won the 1996 World Extreme Skiing Championships in Alaska.
Fame and fortune did not immediately follow. The sad reality #1 of ski mountaineering is that it is not much of a way to make a living. Reality #2: many of the most high-profile ski mountaineering feats (first descents on big peaks) have already been skied—and this is especially true for North American skiers.
That meant that if you were a talented young freeskier looking to support self and family doing what you love, you had to keep winning contests, keep up the withering task of writing gear companies and begging for sponsorships, keep scrapping along—or get creative.
Get Creative is what Davenport choose to do, by proposing the audacious feat of skiing all of Colorado’s fourteeners…in one year.
Right away, there were critics.
Logistically, Davenport’s goal seemed all but impossible.
And stylistically…well, what the heck did artificial time constraints have to do with mountaineering? Turning ski mountaineering—a Soul Sport if ever there was one—into a dash to bag summits didn’t sit well in the craw for many people.
Finally, insuring the controversy would not go away quietly, Davenport made no secret of his intention to commercialize the venture. There would be a film. A book. A website.
The Project: Everything But Snow
Chris Davenport’s project to ski all of Colorado’s fourteen-thousand-foot peaks in one year began Jan 22, 2006, with the successful descent of Mount Lincoln (accompanied by film and photo crew).
That Chris began skiing on the 22nd, rather than the 1st of January is telling. The 05-06 winter in Colorado began as one of the worst on record. Common sense said that Davenport needed not just a good but an extraordinary winter to accomplish his goal. It was soon obvious that mother nature wasn’t going to cooperate.
The obvious course of action was to put off the attempt, and wait for next year.
Dav did the opposite: he kept skiing—as much as possible—ticking off whatever summit happened to be skiable at the moment, waiting for a big Spring storm to turn the season around. That Spring storm never arrived, and soon Summer came, and the fourteeners project looked to be over, though Davenport had come tantalizingly close.
But salvation did come in a most unexpected form. It was in fact a Fall storm and more like it that made it possible for Davenport to resume skiing in early November (usually a problematic month in Colorado). An abundance of atypical weather that fall and then winter allowed Davenport to complete his goal, skiing the last fourteener on his list, Longs Peak, on January 19.
Yes: that was January of the following year, technically putting all the ski descents within the span of one year…just not within the same year.
Nonetheless, the deed was done, and as a commercial venture it was inarguably a success, putting Davenport on the map in a way that winning the Extreme Championships could never hope to match.
Questions
Browse the photos on Chris’ website, Ski the 14ers, and something soon becomes evident. Because of the 05-06 season’s poor conditions, at least a few of Davenport’s ski descents took place on mountains that bore very little snow.
Give Davenport credit for perseverance, but some of those peaks look pitifully bare—the kind of bare that implies a lot of walking on rocks; the kind of bare that would keep most ski mountaineers at home. The kind of bare that would seem to rule out anything resembling an Official™ summit ski descent.
And so, the inevitable questions of Style became even more intense. What was a ‘ski descent’ by Davenport’s definition? And was his project really a mountaineering feat, or simply a feat of self promotion?
Analysis
Lost in these questions of legitimacy is a fact that many critics gloss over: Davenport is a master of logistics and one Hell of a skier to boot. His ski skills, in fact, allow him to claim ski descents where others would have likely given up. He showed creativity in choosing lines that connected patches of snow that allowed him to ski, hop, jump, climb, or (yes) walk while keeping his skis on his feet, and so if he did stretch the definition of skiing in places, he did so in a way that spoke both of his discipline and his talent.
And what of this artificial timeline—the year deadline? Does it have any precedent in mountaineering’s history?
Indeed. We recognize Reinhold Messner as the greatest mountaineer on Earth not because he was the first to climb Everest, but because of the speed of his solo summit of Everest. We recognize many athletes not because they were the first to do something, but because they found a newer, quicker way to do it. Were this not so, the Olympics as we know them would cease to exist.
And yet…I cannot believe ski mountaineering is at its best when it is simply a competition with the clock.
There are other ski mountaineers who have found creative ways to advance the sport (Andrew McLean’s kite-skiing trip to Baffin Island will always top my list) despite the dwindling list of high-recognition “firsts”.
And perhaps the most timeless accomplishment that will come from Davenport’s quest to ski all of Colorado’s fourteeners will be his first descent of Capitol Peak’s South Face—a line that will undoubtedly be remembered as one of the standout achievements in North American ski mountaineering.
Coda
Davenport came to California a season or two ago. Rumor was he intended to ski all of California’s fourteeners as his next project.
Perhaps the man brings bad weather with him…once again, there was no snow, but this time it was in the Sierras. It’s not clear that all of California’s fourteeners would be skiable in a ice age. In a poor winter, no amount of creativity could overcome the Eastern Sierra’s snow deficiency. Davenport was sent home.
And I was glad. There’s something a little grating about an interloper rushing in with the intent of bagging all your mountains in a whirlwind tour and then posting photos of it on their personal webpage. I mean: the nerve of the man.
Not only that, if someone’s going to be the first to truly ski all the California fourteeners, in any time frame, I’d much rather it be myself. And I bet there are plenty of Bishop and Mammoth skiers who are hoping they’ll be the first instead.
So give Davenport credit for turning up the heat on the rest of us just a bit. And give the man credit for conceiving something new and something ambitious within our sport—and making it happen.
Posted in Musings, Skiing | 2 Comments
Muphry’s Law
Simply brillaint.
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The Great Wheel Turns
I’m in Arizona right now, going through old family photos and contemplating the meaning of life. Saturday I attended my grandmother’s funeral in Phoenix. Thoughts of that upcoming occasion undoubtedly contributed to my feelings of impending doom while hiking and skiing Lone Pine Peak (not that the route needed any assistance in that regard).
We drove out Friday from L.A. to Phoenix, taking the 60. A black car appeared behind us, going extremely fast. They tailgated me for a short while, allowing me to look at the drivers’ and passengers’ faces–they all looked like kids. And then the car shot past us on the right, and accelerated away at a rate uncommon even for L.A. drivers (more…)
Brooks Ultralight Tarp
Tyndall - North Rib
Bloody Mtn - Bloody Couloir
San Jacinto - Snow Creek
Williamson - Bairs Creek Cirque
