To Build A Snowman

One freezing Saturday afternoon in January, Byron kept saying to Aaron with a curious, imploring tone, "Snowman? Outside?" They had not built a snowman, but earlier in the day Aaron had explained to Byron what a snowman was, and he  now wanted to see one for himself. "No time like the present," I suggested. Aaron was ready for a cigar. So we headed outside to build Byron's first snowman.

I couldn't get the snow to ball up so I made a large mound and packed it down. I shaped the mound into a structure that vaguely resembled legs and stacked two blocks of snow on top.

I took the first two pictures with my iPhone. The shots are underexposed and grainy because of the low resolution of the iPhone camera and the lack of a flash. It's a shame because the facial expressions were perfect. Note to self: bring a real camera if there's even a remote chance you'll be taking photographs.




I took the remaining pictures with my Canon Powershot A590 using the flash.



The snowman's bulbous nose is not a symptom of a drinking problem.











Aaron's snowman needs a little more work.

Telluride Rocks

Telluride sits in the east end of a box canyon in the picturesque San Miguel Mountains of southwestern Colorado. The town began as a mining community in the 19th century and got very wealthy in the 20th thanks to the incredible skiing provided by the mountains to its south. Telluride's values come straight out of a Stuff White People Like satire. The unwary tourist may find himself run out of town for off-color remarks about environmentalism or President Obama. Better to clear your mind of political thoughts and hop on Lifts 8 and 9, which carry you 3,000 vertical feet up the mountain from the town center. The runs back to town are formidable.

View of the town from Telluride Trail

Revelation Bowl is the only part of the ski area that sits 

on the mountain's southern exposure and thus gets sun light.  

 

Beyond Revelation Bowl the San Miguel River drains into Bear Creek Canyon. The day before we left a telemark skier triggered an avalanche in the canyon. He survived because two hele-ski guides witnessed the avalanche from above and dug him out as soon as it subsided. 

To Build An Igloo

When we were a half mile above the trailhead, we attached skins to the bottom of our skis and resumed our ascent of the eastern flank of Eureka Mountain. The skins allowed our skis to slide forward, but not backward, so they could be used to climb uphill. 

It was late January in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. A thick blanket of snow covered the ground above 9,000 feet. If the weather was favorable and our ability to endure the brutal cold held up, Luke and I  planned to camp overnight on the mountain and skin up to the Goodwin Lakes at 11,500 feet the following morning.

A couple of weeks earlier, Luke had started building an igloo at an elevation around 10,000 feet. We reached the igloo early Saturday afternoon and returned to work. Luke acted as the construction superintendent.  I did stoop labor. 

Initially we tried to pack loose snow onto the existing walls. This method failed because it was so cold the snow would not pack. Luke suggested that we cut blocks of hard snow out of the ground surrounding the igloo. This idea worked like gangbusters. Within two hours, we had stacked the blocks high enough that the opposing walls were within two feet of each other. We capped the hole in the roof with a long, 30 pound block of snow and filled in the holes with powder. We were now ready to weather a winter night high in the Rocky Mountains. 

After we finished the igloo, we skied up a nearby ridge. There was no beautiful vista or rock formation drawing us out. The temperature was in the teens. We were moving to stay warm.  

On the descent back to the igloo, I first tried to ski without removing the skins, but had trouble getting an edge with my skis, probably because I cut my skins a shade too wide. Skiing through the narrow gaps between the trees was frustrating.  I had more control once I took the skins off but continued to doubt whether I had ever strapped planks to my feet before.

That night we barricaded the doorway of the igloo with our packs. The temperature inside was around freezing. Outside it was lethally cold. My toes got numb around 5:00 a.m., when a draft started coming in the doorway after Luke went outside to take a piss.

In the morning, Luke made instant coffee with the snow we had melted the previous night. The snow melt contained pine needles and had a strong pine aroma. I am a coffee snob, but that cup of instant coffee was the best I ever had. That coffee contained the force of life itself.

We reattached our skins and began skiing up the mountain toward the lower Goodwin Lake. Luke was leading and had difficulty staying on trail. At one point, we skied across the base of a steep, thousand foot long slope. Fear of an avalanche momentarily distracted me from the increasing pain that my new alpine touring boots were causing.  Then we climbed a slope so steep I had to remove my skis to ascend it. But after that we stayed on the trail and movement was easy.

When we reached lower Goodwin Lake, gray clouds obscured the sun and a powerful wind was ripping snow across the iced-over lake. It looked like a scene in a beautiful, frigid hell. My gloves had frozen stiff. We ate Luke's homemade power bars in a spot where the trees provided limited shelter from the wind. Then, a few hundred feet below the lake, we removed our skins and skied downhill, through the trees, back to the camp.

For the next few days after we came down from Eureka Mountain, the sun appeared as a dim circle of light faintly visible through the clouds. The unrelenting gray reminded me of a line from Taxi Driver that Chris had quoted a few weeks earlier:

You're waiting for the senator? That's a very good answer. Shit, man! I'm waiting for the sun to shine.

But it's impossible to be despondent about the sun's failure to shine when you're surrounded by the inhospitable beauty of the Rocky Mountains.

All Season Biking

We were coming out of a right turn on the Green Bay Trail in Highland Park when I heard Gabe call out, "Timmy's down!" He had blown his front tire, which sent his new Ibex bike crashing onto its side. While Tim repaired the flat in the shade of a scraggly tree in someone's front yard, I ate an apple and raised the nonsensical matter of where the owner's pet cat would shit now that we were loitering in its favorite spot.

Tim's wreck was the second of the three that would occur on our circa 70 mile ride from the North Side to Lake Bluff and back. Earlier, Gabe fell at a stop sign when he failed to unclip from the pedals fast enough. A car full of teenage girls laughed as he got up and dusted himself off. The wrecks didn't cause injury or diminish the pleasures of biking on a temperate day in June.



After Tim worked the tire over the new tube, aired up the tube, and reattached the wheel, we continued pushing north on the Robert McClory Path, which runs parallel to the North Shore rail line and is free of motor vehicles for several miles between Highland Park and Lake Bluff. We pushed our speed over 20 miles per hour, with Tim drafting a few inches behind me.



An aptly named suburb, Lake Bluff sits on a bluff overlooking a private beach on Lake Michigan. The teenager who seemed to be responsible for keeping non-residents off the beach allowed us onto the road that descends to the lake. During the ride down, we realized the beach was private and decided to turn around. I attempted a u-turn, but the road was narrow and steep. My Bianchi Volpe fell on its side, which bent the rear fender into the wheel and bent one link of my chain.

Tim bikes with a toolbox worth of tools mounted to his bike. He used an 8 mm ratcheting spanner to adjust the fender so that it did not contact the wheel. The bent chain link was irreparable though. As we biked back to Highland Park, the drive train changed gears each time the bent link passed over the rear cassette. It was annoying and I had no power. In Highland Park, a bike shop replaced the chain while the three of us had pizza and beer. Refreshments were necessary because we had hardly eaten, but premature because we had 25 miles left to ride.

Instead of returning to Chicago via the Cook County Forest Preserve District, which was our outbound route, we decided to head southeast through Wilmette and Evanston. I felt a sense of homecoming as we crossed Howard Street and entered Chicago's far North Side.

A month later, in mid-July, Tim and I cranked out a century bike ride. We extended the route we had taken to Lake Bluff 15 miles to the north. We turned around a few hundred feet north of the state line in Kenosha County, Wisconsin. On the last few miles before the state line, the Green Bay Trail was bisected by roads a half dozen times. It was frustrating to slow down for traffic, but I appreciate the mere existence of a trail that allows you to bike several hundred miles, all the way from Chicago to Green Bay, Wisconsin.

Tim, Gabe, and I decided to do another long bike ride before Chicago's winter set in. On Saturday, November 8, four days after Barack Obama was elected to the presidency, we biked from the North Side to the president elect's neighborhood in Hyde Park, on the South Side. We got fairly raw conditions instead of the hoped-for temperature in the 50s. We fought headwinds on both legs of the ride. The temperature started in the low 40s and had fallen to the mid-30s by the turnaround point. The cloud cover was dense and grey.



Because of a long motion I was writing, I had been unable to work out during the week before the ride. So I set a brisk pace on the southbound jaunt along Chicago's lakefront. The last I had biked there was Labor Day weekend, when the crowds were thick. The grey weather the day of our ride kept people indoors. The wide open path was an invitation to push our speed as much as we wanted.





We turned off the lakefront at 51st Street and crossed Lake Shore Drive on a pedestrian bridge, where I took the only good photo that came out of the 27-exposure disposable camera that Gabe had procured at Walgreens at the start of the Lake Bluff ride five months earlier.


We planned to head west to the Obamas' block and then ride past their mansion. The Chicago Police Department and the Secret Service thwarted this plan. They had barricaded the Obamas' block at 50th and 51st Streets. I asked a police officer at 50th Street if we could ride down the block. "No," he replied without a trace of a smile.

We embarked on a fruitless quest to find a decent pub or cafe. We biked through and around University of Chicago's campus but found nothing. In terms of the architecture of the houses and apartment buildings, Hyde Park suits me more than any other neighborhood of Chicago. But the bars and cafes are far and few between, and I am at core a Northsider, so I could never live down there.

The search for a watering hole led us back to the lakefront and 55th Street. On the way, we stopped to take in Loredo Taft's massive sculpture, the Fountain of Time, in the Midway Plaisance. A man in a delivery pick-up truck stopped and asked for directions to an address on Woodlawn. We had no idea where it was. Gabe speculated that he was an undercover Secret Service agent sent to check us out because we had asked the CPD about biking down the Obamas' block. Later a man driving an SUV honked at us while we headed west on a boulevard. He was black and had Illinois plates and a fuzzy toy hanging from the rear view mirror. Tim suspected that this man was also from the Secret Service. I thought Tim and Gabe's paranoia was unfounded, but it was infectious and made me uneasy. We stopped outside a cafe full of white hipsters. There were no open tables, since it was the only source of good coffee in Hyde Park other than Starbucks. We didn't venture in, but I commented to Tim that everyone inside was Secret Service.

We decided to bike back to downtown on the streets of the South Side, rather than returning via the lakefront. Taking the streets meant dealing with motorists who at best would be indifferent to white bike nerds. In the actual event, the ride north on Cottage Grove, then Martin Luther King Drive, and finally Michigan Avenue was devoid of a single dangerous encounter with a car.

We ended the 40 mile ride at Aaron's place in Logan Square. My two year old nephew, Byron, was revved up to have three yahoos on bikes visiting him. I felt a powerful sense of physical wellbeing. The cold weather marked the beginning of Chicago's winter. The return of winter causes dread and unhappiness for many people. By biking outside for six hours, we had embraced the change of season and immersed ourselves in the powerful beauty of winter's grey skies.

My refrigerator is decorated with magnets arranged to resemble the Einstuerzende Neubauten logo, a stick figure whose arms and legs point down. Recently I amputated Neubauten man's legs and gave him articulated arms that reach for the sky. After the bike ride, I detected in this crude likeness a hint of joy I hadn't recognized before. I thought Tim had tweaked my design, but he doubted it.

Trainspotting the Novel is Better than Trainspotting the Film

The main character of Trainspotting, Mark Renton, is eloquent enough to persuade you that self-destructing with injected narcotics makes more sense than the middle class grind of sleep, commute, work, ad nauseum. His deftness with words is showcased when, in the film, he lambastes the people of Scotland for submitting to English rule:

It's shite being Scottish! We're the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don't. They're just wankers. We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can't even find a decent culture to be colonized by. We're ruled by effete assholes. It's a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won't make any fucking difference.

I adore Trainspotting the film but the novel is a higher work of art. The foundation for the greatness of both works is Renton's character. The film gives us a passing account of him. It focuses on his transformation from a junkie scraping by in Edinburgh to a Londoner trying to claw his way into the middle class. The novel gives a complete description of Renton's personality, world view, and family.

In it, we learn that, growing up, Renton was ashamed of his younger brother, a spastic who was sent away to an institution. He felt a mixture of hostility and contempt for his older brother, Billy, who regularly beat him up until he earned Billy's respect by stabbing a bully at school. This incident and Billy's reputation as a hard man caused the thugs of Leith to give Renton wide berth.

Renton's family, on his father's side, is Protestant and militantly Unionist. On the mother's side, they're Catholic and favor Scottish independence. Billy takes after the father's side, joins Her Majesty's Service, and is killed by Republican forces on a patrol in Northern Ireland. At the wake following the funeral, Renton drunkenly comes on to his cousin. His advances enrage his Unionist uncle, Chick, who attempts to throw Renton out:

--Listen son, if you don't get oan yir fuckin bike, ah'm gaunnae tan your jaw. If it wasnae fir yir father thair, ah've done it a long time ago. Ah don't like you son. Ah never huv. Yir brother was ten times the man you'll ever be, ya fuckin junky. If you knew the misery yuv caused yir Ma n Da ...

--You can speak frankly, ah cut in, anger throbbing in my chest but nonetheless contained by a delicious glee that comes fae knowing that ah've upset the cunt. Stay cool. It's the only way tae fuck a self-righteous bastard over.

--Oh ah'll speak frankly aw right, Mr University smart cunt. Ah'll knock you through that fuckin waw. His chunky, indian-inked fist was just a few inches from fae ma face. Ma grip tensed oan the whisky gless I wis haudin. Ah wisnae gaunnae let the cunt touch us wi they fuckin hands. If he moved he wis gittin this gless.

Ah push his raised hand aside.

-If ye did gie us a kickin, ye'd be daeing me a favour. Ah'd jist huv a wank aboot it later on. We University drop-oot smart cunt junkies are kinky that wey. Cause that's aw you're worth, ya fuckin trash. Yir also takin a wee bit for granted. Ye want tae go ootside, just say the fuckin word.. Ah gestured at the door. The room seemed tae shrink tae the size ay Billy's coffin, and be populated only by masel n Chick. But thir wir others. People wir looking roond at us now.

Renton reduces Chick to fodder for a pervert's sexual fantasies. The contempt is impeccable. Renton's contempt first reached artistic heights at the wake when a minister of the British government extends condolences for Billy's death:

Some ruling class cunt, a junior minister or something, says in his Oxbridge voice how Billy wis a brave young man. He wis exactly the kind ay cunt they'd huv branded as a cowardly thug if he wis in civvy street rather than on Her Majesty's Service. This fucking walking abortion says that his killers will be ruthlessly hunted down. So they fuckin should. Aw the wey tae the fuckin Houses ay Parliament.

Here, Renton seems to view Scottish nationalism as a viable program that might bring about an independent Scottish state. This contrasts with his rant in the film in which he calls the Scottish servile trash, which suggests that hopes for independence are futile.

Since films are short and visually oriented, Trainspotting the film can't depict Renton's personality with the art and the depth of the novel. Because Renton's character is the nucleus of both pieces, the novel is superior to the film, just as an original of a painting is superior to a reproduction.

The opposite holds in the case of the film and novel versions of Fight Club. Palahniuk fails to give his characters personality in the novel. The film, by shifting the focus to the compelling chain of events described in the novel, and away from the deficient characters, is stronger than the novel.

Mountainscapes by Luke

When we hiked in the South Colony Lakes area in July, Luke took 12 photographs. Each one turned out to be a strong composition (compared to my yield of two good compositions out of every 100 photos taken). Here are six of the photos he took in July plus a tremendous black and white photo he took on a late spring hike somewhere in the Sangres.

Looking east at the Wet Mountains, perhaps from Highway 69.

Crestone Peak in the late afternoon, from Bear's Playground.

Crestone Peak is in the foreground, with the Needle on
the left. I think this was taken on Columbia's summit.


Columbia from the summit of Kit Carson.


The humble keeper of this humble
blog on Kit Carson's summit.


Crestone Needle from Crestone Peak. Tiny figures are
visible on the Needle's summit in the full size picture.


Luke took this photo on a late spring hike. Every element in the photograph contributes to the composition. It merits being exhibited. Hopefully I didn't ruin this scan by altering the levels and contrast.

Strength Training Program for Skiing

The October 2008 issue of Outside Magazine describes a physical training program that Ann Hodel, a former NCAA ski racer, devised for downhill snow sports. This weekend, I split my old program into two days and added exercises she recommended. I had more fun in the gym than I'd had in years.

Upper Body

Pull-ups: 50-62 reps, 7 sets. In June, I started using the Schwarzenegger method - doing at least 50 reps of pull-ups, regardless of the number of sets required. Since then, total number of reps I do has increased from 40 to around 60.

Push-ups: 60-100 reps, 3-4 sets. I added push-ups at Hodel's suggestion. I haven't worked on my chest in a year. The last time I did my shoulder joints felt like they would dislocate when I lowered a barbell to my chest. Yesterday, I did 25 clean reps on the first two sets and failed completely at rep 15 on the third set. My chest muscles have been burning since then.

Standing Barbell Military Press: Around 26 reps on heavy days, up to 60 reps on light days. This exercise requires you to extend your arms over your head while standing. The motion builds up the deltoids and back muscles.

Bent Over Barbell Rows: 30-50 reps, 3-4 sets. I start with the 45 pound barbell or the bar and quarters and work up, on heavy days, to 185 pounds.

Good Mornings (alternative to barbell rows): 16-24 reps, 3 sets. I start with the barbell and work up to 135 pounds. You place the barbell across your shoulders as if you were doing squats and bend forward until your torso is as close to parallel to the ground as you can stand. It builds up the lower back and the hamstrings. Like dead lifts, Good Mornings can blow out your lower back unless you keep your back arched.

Lower Body

Squats: 48-60 reps total, 12 reps a set, 4-5 sets. I added this at Hodel's suggestion. When I last did squats in August 2003, it felt like the exercise would make my right knee explode and spray synovial fluid all over my gym's mirrors. Tonight I worked up to a reasonable but taxing 210 pounds. The exercise felt great - the deep movement lit up my calves, hamstrings, quads and glutes. I didn't feel the slightest twinge in my right knee. I may be able to do this exercise safely at moderate weights.

Plyometric Jumps: I discovered this exercise thanks to Hodel. You stand next to a platform or box that is a foot above the ground, jump onto it sideways, and jump off sideways, as many times as you can in 60 seconds. Switch sides for the second set and stand facing the box for the final set. Jumping sideways involved a lot more coordination than I thought. Jumping onto the box when facing it required less dexterity. But at that point my legs were cached. I could get into a rhythm with the front jumps, but not the sideways jumps. My quads and lungs were begging for respite two thirds of the way into the second set. I did 39 right sided jumps, 35 left sided jumps, and 49 forward jumps.

Barbell Bicep Curls: 5 sets, 25-50 reps. I include barbell curls because the bicep assists in pull-ups by taking the strain off the latissimus dorsi.

Before Andrew's Wedding

Some people pack when they travel, others buy what they need when they get there. Brent and Gabe fall in the latter category. After they picked up necessaries at the local K Mart, we decided to pass the time remaining before the wedding by having a couple of beers outside the hotel. Aaron practiced his best man's toast. His deadpan praise of Andrew's moral character made me double over with laughter. The rain diminished to a drizzle and a bottle of Becks swiftly killed my hangover. We made comedy from the raw materials of defamation, absurdity, and bad taste.

John Belushi lives.

A pose reminiscent of Rutger Hauer in Blade Runner, when Roy Batty dies.

Where to Rent a Tux in Battle Creek, Michigan

Andrew and Mira got married in the middle of an impressive storm that hovered over the upper Midwest for more than 48 hours and caused flooding in Illinois, Indiana, and Michigan. Aaron was the best man, Brent the next best man. Guests thought they looked dapper in their tuxedos, which had been supplied by Clair's on Columbia Avenue. Although we were wearing the same style of tux, Gabe and I, the groomsmen, were mistaken for blackjack dealers who hadn't changed after their shifts at Firekeepers.