Showing posts with label China. Show all posts
Showing posts with label China. Show all posts

Saturday, February 5, 2022

78 - Where is Jackson Hole? The Last Sweep

                        

                                                            

For Ed Cox

"The Bucklemeister"

Thank You for the Western Trip In your

Volkswagen Bus to the Mountains of Colorado, Utah,

and Wyoming. I never really came back.




                                                           The Last Sweep

                                                          Albert Bianchine


     Tom Dillon skied up to the Plateau and rested his weight on his poles. He glanced out across the Teton Village, Jackson Lake, the National Elk Refuge, and the Hog Backs. Kicking down hard on the edge of his skis, he stepped out of his bindings. He flexed forward in his boots and felt the familiar ease of pressure on his shins. Standing erect, he reached up and loosened the straps of his backpack. He tossed it into the freshly fallen powder. The crystals whooshed in a billowy cloud as it hit the ground. Tom reached down and scooped up a large armful between his gloved hands and parka. He blew strongly on the crystals and watched them dissipate into the dry, crisp, Wyoming air.

     “Yi Ha!” he yelled heartily, his smile as big as the Grand Tetons themselves.

     How many fresh powder turns had he taken? How many deep, waist deep, chest deep, turns had he taken? How many endless, agonizing, thigh burning powder turns, until his life had become one long powder turn? The American Mountains didn’t hold much allure to him anymore. He thought he might try Europe next. There were no more frontiers.

     Tom thrived on the challenge of conquering nature. The chance of ultimate defeat, like jumping into Corbet’s Couloir. He had traded away security for the thrill of the moment his entire life. The greatest moments were the ones that no one else but he knew about, like the thrill of the high traverse across Alta, Utah. The heavy morning fog hanging low and the snow blowing freezing your eyelids shut. The smell of ozone in the air, the hair on your neck standing with static electricity and fear of lightning with nowhere to hide, your right leg clamped securely clutching the track, your breath coming in short gasps knowing full well that to catch your left tip in the crud would send you careening downhill into the rocks and certain death below. The urgent need to be off the top, traversing, endlessly traversing, toward Eagle’s Nest, desperately searching just barely able to make out the small wooden sign, “Expert’s Only! No Easy Out!” Traversing and waiting, waiting for the fog to burn off, and the heavy snow to dissipate, catching your breath at the first glimpse of the blue, blue skies and deep powder and steep, ever so steep sides of Little Cottonwood Canyon. 

     Staring out across the sharp jaggedness of the Grand Tetons, he took a deep fresh breath of mountain air. He was glad that he hadn’t traded away one moment of his youth spent on mountains. His nostrils flared as the breeze sent mounds of snow sloughing from the boughs, instinctively, he jerked his head upright at the hooting and hollering as his friends came crashing through the evergreens.

     Touloose, The Captain, and Fast Eddy, the Bucklemeister, skied up to the plateau.

     “Hey! Touloose, what took you so long?”

     “It was the Captain, Tom, ya know em he got too close to an evergreen and got sucked into a well.”

     “Got in pretty deep?”

     “Up to his ears, right up to his ears,” he cackled. He reached up and pulled his Sherpa hat from his head.

     “Aaayuh!, Aaayuh!, Aaayuh! Life’s a beautiful thing here in the mountains,” the Captain’s irrepressible smile greeted Tom. “Life’s a beautiful thing.”

     He pulled his glasses free from his face, reached in his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He began wiping them dry. Walking up close to Tom, he stuck his face right up to Tom’s.

     “I can’t see ya without me eyes. Let me tell ya something sonny,” his voice lowered to a whisper. “It’s a reaaal funny thing about them snow snakes ya get a little too close to those pits and they reach up and grab the tips of your skis. They suck ya right down into the pit.” He grabbed Tom and wrestled him to the ground laughing and rolling in the snow.

     “Great Run!, Great Run!” Eddy said breathlessly.

     “Let’s start the fire.”

     They all walked out on the plateau and began picking up rocks, and driftwood.

     Tom bent down over his backpack and pulled out several pre-wrapped steaks, onions and potatoes.

     “Touloose, start the fire,” Tom said.

      He walked across the snow, his mountaineering boots leaving deep impressions in the snow. He bent down over his pack, reached in and extracted a small vial of clear liquid. Walking over to the fire pit, he unscrewed the top and poured it on the wood. Extracting a slim red metal container from the pocket of his bibs, he opened it.  Scratching the striker across the flint, he stepped back as the sparks hit the kindling. A small flame flickered on the damp wood. A wry smile spread across his face. A loud wumph, followed immediately by roaring flames drove him back from the circle of stones. The long fingers of flames, orange and glowing brightly reached up and snapped at the crisp Wyoming sky.

     “Works every time,” he smiled smugly, “a little aviation fuel out of the silver streak, my BMW motorcycle.”

     The men instinctively moved closer to the fire, pulling off their gloves and warming their hands over the flames. They all chuckled.

     “Did ya hear about Tuckerman’s Ravine last year Tom?” Eddie asked.

     “No, I didn’t, how was the headwall?”

     Eddie laughed.

     “Pure disaster,” he said.

     

     He reached over and placed a collapsible metal screen wrapped with foil over the fire and set the food on it to cook.

     “Bad trip in? Bad trip up? It’s been years since I’ve been to the ravine, but I still love it. It reminds me of Mt. Baldy at Alta, that is the steepness, I mean. People out West don’t think there’s any radical terrain in the East. Sometimes I think powder is for pussies, it takes a real man to ski Tuckerman’s covered in blue ice,” Tom expounded.

     Eddy adjusted his glasses and bent down close to the fire.

     “A little bit of both, a little bit of both.”

     He looked over at the Captain and he smiled sheepishly.

     “Well to start with,” he began, “ We were packing for the trip and we bought frozen dried foods, to keep our packs light. That is all of us cept the Captain, it seems that the Captain had to have large cans of stew, soup, and those little white potatoes.”

     “Jesus,” Tom said, “ How much did his pack weigh, that’s a very long hike in.”

     “It was heavy, believe me,” said the Captain, “damn heavy.”

     Tom burst out laughing.

     “Well anyway,” Eddie continued, “it seems we started into the Ravine, and we're hiking for a while, when the Captain here starts to sit down. He starts complaining like an old woman, moaning and complaining, just like an old woman, tossing out cans of stew, soup, and potatoes, huffing, puffing, and complaining about the cans that we would have to split and pack out! He complained all the way into the ravine about the weight of his pack.”

     “That true Captain, what he’s saying?”

     “It be true”

     “It’s just the beginning, Tom,” Eddy continued.

     “Once we got into the lean-to, we met some Canadian climber’s, and started partying with them. They had brought Ouzo and we got pretty smashed. I started feeling dizzy, so I went inside and slipped into my mummy bag and zipped it up tight. Started to doze off, when all of a sudden I got the chills and began getting sick.”

     He paused and reached up and turned the steaks, the fire crackling and sizzling with the dripping grease.

     “Anyway like I said, I started getting real sick, and I was pretty hammered. But my zipper was broken, I was clawing and scratching like hell, but damn if I could get that bag unzipped. Here I am, I got the chills, I’m plastered drunk on Ouzo, I’m zipped to my throat in my mummy bag, and I’m getting sicker and I can't get the bag unzipped. I’m like a cat trying to claw my way out of a sack.” 

     “What happened?”

     “Well nature took care of it, I just rolled down over and out of the lean-to, and puked my guts out!”

     They all burst into laughter.

     “Sounds like a real bad one. How was the skiing?”

     “Awesome Tom, Awesome, you know the wall.”

     “Foods ready,” Touloose yelled. “Hey, Tom.”

     “Yeah.”

     “Did the Captain tell ya how he came to be married?”

     “No, No,” Tom replied.

     “Look, don't start this,” the Captain said.

     “Yeah come on tell me, I want to hear this.”

     “Yeah tell us,” Eddie chimed in.

     “Well the other day out of the blue, the Captain says, Touloose , don't ever get married. So I ask him why? If you hate it so much, why did you do it?”

     “She made me do it,” he whined.

     They all sat down around the fire chuckling. They looked out across the piney rock ledges of the Tetons, across the fenced ranch lands, the silver sagebrush, to the blue, deep dark shimmering blue of Jackson Lake, under the marine blue of the pristine Wyoming sky with the Hogbacks darkening purple in the waning sun.  In the town of Jackson, the sun flashed and glinted off the windshield of an old pickup truck. The cold began to settle into the trees. The ivory crystals started hardening. Far up, very far up on the hill just above timberline, above the lichen encrusted rock ledges, just below the little red tram with Jackson Hole lettered in white on its side. The Ski Patrol began descending among the evergreens. The eerie silence was split momentarily by the solitary cry, “Laaaaaaaast Sweeeeeeeep!!! Laaaaaaaast Sweeeeeep!!!"



The Sounds of Silence, Simon and Garfunkel



Sunday, December 6, 2020

Thirty-Seven: Aspire For A United America: In The Time Of Coronavirus

 Prayer of St. Francis


Lord, make me an instrument of your peace
Where there is hatred, let me sow love
Where there is injury, pardon
Where there is doubt, faith
Where there is despair, hope
Where there is darkness, light
And where there is sadness, joy
O Divine Master, grant that I may
Not so much seek to be consoled as to console
To be understood, as to understand
To be loved, as to love
For it is in giving that we receive
And it's in pardoning that we are pardoned
And it's in dying that we are born to Eternal Life
Amenities

     Truer words have never been spoken by a loving mortal man. We need more light and love in our world. The darkness these days is all pervading and overwhelming. Do not be fooled by false narratives. They abound in the world today and are designed to polarize your thinking. The narrative of divide and conquer is alive and well. The more we become separated as a nation the more vulnerable as a society. We have come to far as a nation to allow ourselves to be divided in ideology. We are all Americans First and foremost for America. Do not be torn apart. Have patience with those that disagree with your political thinking or mindset. Now is the time that we are at our most vulnerable and can easily be misled by false information from foreign hackers. They are out to create chaos among us. Believe me when I tell you I find it almost impossible to understand anyone who aligns themselves with our current administration. However the thought that we are purposely being manipulated in our hatred and anger over politics does not escape me. I will acquiesce my position to understand my fellow American before I will allow us to be torn apart as a society.
     Sow the seeds of Harmony, Faith, Love and Compassion Today! Take a step back from your opinion and understand your countryman or you had better learn to speak Russian of Chinese. This is no joke. We have the ability to reset the narrative after we come out of Covid. How do you want your future and your children's children's future to look. Take the time to reach out as a Nation and to be one! 
     

Monday, February 19, 2018

God Is The Boss, Francis










 

God Is The Boss, Francis

 

I was visited by an old friend the other day walking along the Rio Grande Trail through downtown Aspen. I had just passed the Aspen Art Museum on my way to the John Denver River Sanctuary, passing a stainless steel 30ft artist’s rendering of the “Last Tree.” The Rio Grande Trail is a beautiful scenic trail that skirts along the river and opens upon a small meadow by the river. There are large boulders with many John Denver song lyrics carved into them. It was there among the yellowing aspens that I sensed it, that very faint trace of the dampness of winter in the air. My good childhood friend came to me. I looked up and saw him hiding in the scrub oak turning red along the base of Red Mountain and the multi million dollar mansions that exist there. The Aspens’ turning gold along Smuggler Mountain, one of the last working silver mine, that made Aspen the Silver City.  How I used to wait on his arrival with great anticipation in Albany, New York. The fall season is different in the East because of all the hardwoods to be found.  In the Adirondacks, the Berkshires, the Green Mountains, and White Mountains, you will find an array of reds, yellows and golds. It signaled to me the coming of winter and my sport of choice, skiing. I imagined all of the hats that I have worn over the years to pursue my great love of the sport. How it has been my refuge through my trials and tribulations and how whenever life of the world got to me, I would simply choose another mountain to learn and ski.

It had begun simply for me in the early days. My grandfather filled my head with dreams of the Adirondacks and the beauty of them. I quickly made friends with the other skiers in my class. One of those friends was my good friend, Frank Thompson who has become “Captain Zooms” in my stories. I, a shy retiring bookworm, who found great solace in learned knowledge versus outdoor activity, was immediately attracted to him. He was already a ski technician and worked with skis and understood ski hardware. He turned me on to my first pair of jet foamed form fitting ski boots, called Strohlz, and my Rossignol Strato 105’s, they were 215 cm’s long. “My steel beams to hell,” I called them. My boots were purchased for me by my high school girlfriend Sandy. Frank’s room was a classic of ski posters and equipment leaned up in every available corner. One particular poster of a buxom woman in a tight fitting yellow Bogner ski outfit, unzipped to her navel exposing her abundantly large breasts, she was exploding through this incredibly awesome mogul field, and the caption read, “Keep those tips up.” It was a K2 ski poster. I thought he was the coolest kid in school. He was a real rebel where I was the nerd.  Other  posters, like the infamous Solomon Ski Binding Poster that said, “Solomon, Deliver Us From Premature Release.” These have all become great collector items. Frank became my ski mentor, and mountain teacher. Every available evening, weekend or cut day from school was spent chasing snow flakes and sunsets, until at a very young age, I took a year off from college, to pursue my dream of being a true ski bum, (I wish to write, Every Ski Bum’s Bible, a commentary of all the things you need to give up in life to pursue that dream.)
The culmination of that dream was skiing at Arapahoe Basin, which at the time was the highest lift operated mountain in North America. I had arrived. The steep, the deep, anti everything that corporate society stood for. No material hang ups or needs with a true disdain for the Corporate Whores who would sell their soul for the almighty dollars. I considered myself the self appointed King of the Mountains. I knew every inch and every skiable trail in America. Many places in America that I had skied were not accessible by lifts and had to be climbed. I was young, “no problem.” I conquered and truly loved every one of them.
Every year my friend that first trace of the wet dampness of winter would arrive and I would gear up for winter. In the early years we would leave Albany on Sunday to ski the mountains of Vermont, a state that I came to love dearly.

Francis’s mom, Bea Thompson, was a devout Christian and practicing Catholic. Her greatest concern was for our almighty souls and redemption from sins, she was sure that we were committing. Her concern included where we would attend church on Sunday if we were skiing. We were quick to allay her fears by informing Bea, that we attended Mass on the Chapel on the Mountains, every Sunday. We  justified our lie by rationalizing that God invented Mountains and they were places of awe and inspiration since the days of Moses and we were somewhat of Biblical Characters ourselves with long hair and beards. Modern day Prophets if you will, we attended the almighty church of the high mountains. Our justification was dashed one particular Sunday Morning when Frank and I dressed in our White Stag ski sweaters tight fitting ski pants with our brightly colored ski jackets were confronted by Bea Thompson in her large blue terry cloth robe on her snow covered concrete steps in suburban Colonie, New York as were fastening our skis and poles to the roof rack of Frank’s Tan Dodge Dart. (Algernon, named after the Book Flowers for Algernon, yes it had push buttons on the dash to shift instead of a typical stick or automatic shift lever.) We had to face down the wrath of Bea who had found out about our lie, that ski areas did not have chapels on them. Like Moses, delivering her edict to the infidels who were worshipping the false gods of gold they had wrought, she stood with her outstretched blue terry cloth arm raised in accusatory fashion delivering a divine message straight from the mouth of our Lord himself.  The cold chilly air crackles and rings in my ears to this day as she yelled, “God is the Boss, Francis!”
I have been more fortunate than most and have had the ability to build a tremendously successful Plumbing, Heating, and Electrical Service Business in perhaps the richest Ski Town in the world, where the occupants ask questions like, “Is it the biggest, is it the best?” How wonderful that I who took a year off from my pursuit of an Industrial Engineering Degree to go skiing in 1973, could be designing and installing mechanical systems in multi-million dollar commercial and residential building in Aspen, Colorado, owned now by exclusive Billionaire Industrialists.

During my early tenure as a property manager, before opening my business, my job was to decorate 8 of the most prestigious Commercial Buildings in the downtown core of Aspen with Christmas lights and decorations. My then Supervisor, (now turned Wife) and I decided to change the drab white lights on all the trees and buildings to brightly colored Salsa Lights, The red, blue, green, orange, amber lights, tightly woven from all the trees in front of the buildings, and hung along all the rooftops, literally set the up tight establishment of the Aspen Town fathers on their ears. I was summarily crowned the “The King of Lights,” in Aspen Colorado in 1994, in a ceremony presided over by our entire Property Management Team, which has since become the most prestigious Property Management and Real Estate Company in Aspen and the Entire Roaring Fork Valley. I was presented with a tin foil crown and in a mock ceremony became the King of Lights of Aspen, Colorado, by my boss and future wife.


So as I stand among the Words of “Annie’s Song,” and “Rocky Mountain High,” and listen to the gentle waters of the Roaring Fork River cascading out of the pristine mountains of Independence Pass. I can't help but hear the refrain of Frank's Mom, "God is the Boss, Francis."
Today's Song
Cat Stevens, "Where do the Children Play"