89 A Gift Given Me.

For Verne F. Champlin

My grandfather who worked for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as an accountant, he had Gore, Whiteface and Belleayre Mountains as his accounts. He filled my Childhood Dreams with Mountains of Snow.

A Gift Given Me

 

One Day,

at the base of Whiteface Mountain

I thought of someone special and

about a gift he’d given me.

 

I ascended swiftly into a silver silken sea

in a crystal vision Mother Mary came to me.

She whispered to me softly,

words to sooth my fear.

I soared so gracefully

far above the timberline.

I descended slowly only

after I had picked my line

down among the emerald pines.

 

One Day,

at the base of Whiteface Mountain

I thought of someone special about a gift he’d given me.

Written for the shortening of Chair Six of Whiteface Mountain for the 1980 Winter Olympics.

 

 

Chair Six

 

Oh! carousel of well worn

blue wooden chairs ascend me swiftly

upon the summit of your face.

Stark, lonely, loving, longing,

fair milk maiden’s lips

forever locked, granite windswept cheeks

ominous in your blue ice

laden grace.

 

Teeth chattering trembling fear

your North winds wailing,

searching, searing, stiff

frozen denim jeans.

The smell of

wet grey woolen ponchos.

 Out of the Gondola Shed at Gore Mountain

(with Touloose)

 

Bright radiant red

chariot cherry plastic bubbles

“All the way to the top men,”

a lift attendant’s

warm wry smile.

 

His bright orange ski cap,

pulled well over the ears

Keeping out the biting cold.

 

Clomp and thump,

Clomp and thump,

hurriedly mad crazed killers

Plunging home our skis and poles.

 

Swish,

Heaven’s gate slides shut

a zero down gloved hand

bearing a radiant silver cross

that turns the key

clicking the latch

locking away

the chosen ones.

 

Bumping, bouncing,

bursting out

bathed in luminous sunlight

ivory crystals

set upon forest green pines

sparkling

pale blue skies

swaying, swinging,

precariously perched on a sterling

stranded string

dangling there.

 

Touloose

his purple passion hat

cocked over an optic gleam

a comrade in arms

comes his familiar cackle,

“Ain’t it the tits,” his breath hangs frozen

a cumulus cloud

moist

splashing against my brow

dissipating with our fears

into the quiet

frigid serenity.

Adirondack Day, Jon Bowers and Gordon Grey

2 cents overdrawn

 

Mick Jagger on a full screen

MTV video screaming,

“I’m just waiting on a lady,

I’m just waiting on a friend.”

 

Gold Peak restaurant bar

warming my hands on a

steaming ceramic coffee filled mug

arriving one day later than,

the Vail Mountain employee draw.

 

Being 2 cents overdrawn and scribbling,

like Gollum caressing his precious, precious,

my powder snow poetry.

 

Leaving the restaurant like that,

I mean with blue words

on a white paper napkin

thinking them worth much

more than 2 missing pennies.

 

Pulling on down gloves

trudging into the wilderness,

like Strider the Ranger.

 

Never really fitting in

like a brown slab wood cabin

mud caulked chinked

with a grey stone chimney

sizzling snowshoe rabbit

smoke billowing wafting

through silent aspen’s.

 

It hangs drifting like

cotton ball clouds

sparkling crystals bending emerald boughs of pines.

 

A skinny ski trail snaking around

deep powder tree wells

to a stoked glowing fireplace

in the White River National Forest

warding off dusk.

A Tear By The Way

 

“Been climbing at Devil’s Tower

some of the 5-8 pitches were hard

Tho, I laughed all the way up.

 

I live in Breck, (Breckenridge, Colorado) during the winter

work as a waitron nights so I

I can board all day. Same

as now cept

I’m a fly clinging to and climbing

cracks all day.

 

Wyoming is big and beautiful,

endless vista’s and horizon’s

stretching into forever

glowing orange sun hanging

half in, half out of the Earth

light blue hue

tiny white wisps of cirrus

clouds rushing by

winds whipping

ripping my hair blonde

from it’s long pony tail

stinging my breasts.

 

There was nothing I could do

dangling on my descent

rappelling requires

complete concentration.

 

Saw you hitch-hiking your

blue and black Dana Design Pack

against your tan smooth skin

you know you have a climber’s body.

It’s too bad I turn here for

Eldorado Canyon tho

this should get you far enough

out of Boulder.

 

It’s a pity

we couldn’t climb with one another.

My name is

Tear by the way.”

Sierra, Boz Scaggs

Fall into Change

 

  This is The Mirror Lake Inn, in Lake Placid, New York. It instantly reminded me of all of the beautiful fall trips I would take into the Adirondacks and Green Mountains of New York and Vermont. The fall colors of the East are beyond words. The many hardwoods each with their own distinctive colors are exceptional. I have missed the falls of the East greatly. In Colorado, the Scrub Oak turn red and the Aspens of course are brilliant gold set against the lovely pines. But nothing compares to the Eastern Fall. Take a ride on the Gondola on Gore Mountain to view fall colors. Ride along the shores of Lake Champlain which is spectacular. Or just take a drive into anywhere Vermont, Rutland, Bennington, any of the Ski Mountains and their awesome Valleys will suffice. Just get out doors and view the colors. At last the fall in the West may be less than average because of a mold on the Aspen's this year that is causing the leaves to drop prematurely.


   My wife, Kathy, was a DJ in Aspen and Carbondale, Colorado for many years and often puts together some great song lists to listen to. This week we were talking about our meeting in Aspen in November at our job we shared that brought us together. I remember being kind of a lonely old ski bum and she being a popular outgoing personality. It seemed unlikely that we would ever be together. I guess the Lord does work in mysterious ways. What I am trying to say is to get out of your comfort zone and to go for whatever your dreams are. I know that I am pursuing mine this year. Look for my collection of short stories on book shelf near you in the coming year.

A couple of songs to sooth your memories:
Don Henley; "Last Worthless Evening"
Billy Joel:"New York State of Mind"

Follow Your Dreams

   When I originally thought of White Dreams, I thought it was my quest for Alpine Winter Adventures, after all the quest for steeper mountains and deeper snows was the singularly greatest drive in my life. I listened to my grandfather talk about Whiteface and Gore Mountains as a young man. He worked for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation as an accountant. Along with a Southern Catskill Mountain, they were his accounts. I listened intently to his tales of these areas and the views in the winter. So much so, that every spare moment I had I went skiing in the Adirondacks and quickly moved on to bigger and greater mountains and snows. Nothing new I've covered this topic a zillion times in my writing many different ways. I have given homage to the dreams I have pursued in my stories and poetry. It has been a trip into single mindedness. A one way trail you might say.

   These days, my thoughts have focused on my writing entirely. My friends and I would often say about skiing, "If not now, when!" The time is now. I know that there is a lot of insane research that goes into a Historical Novel. The thing that attracts me the most these days is the passion. It has never diminished. It grows in strength and desire as the seasons come and go. The fall and winter have always been my greatest time of adventure and travel. The spirit is willing and as the nights grow colder and the sun shifts in the sky with the Autumnal Equinox I feel the shift and pull in my spirit and psyche. It is the the familiar feel of the beginning of a new dream and adventure. Another White Dream, this one the biggest dream I have ever dared to dream. You have got to follow your dreams or become numb and dead to the world in your staleness.

A Song about Complacency:"Comfortably Numb," Pink Floyd

A Song of Conquest: "Conquistador," Procol Harum                     
 

A Walk In The Park

My flights of Fantasy are impossible to control once you let them flow. I started making a mental list of my prerequisites today while I was on Red Mountain in Aspen looking down on Aspen Mountain. I thought of my early years listening to my grandfather talking about Whiteface Mountain in New York State. I started skiing Gore and Whiteface in high school and quickly graduated to Vermont Mountains. Places like Killington, Stowe, Mad River, and Glen Ellen. In the early days it wasn't enough to just ski them. It was a challenge to get a free day pass or figure out a way to ski for free some how. Some of our early trickery was to Ski Glen Ellen early where they would let you take a free run up top to test the conditions. If you wore heavy ski clothes you could take off your coat and tell the lift op that you were too hot and your ticket was on your coat below. They would buy it for a about a half day. Then you could leave and drive to Mad River and buy two $2.50 ride tickets and ski the bumps there. The moguls used to get as big as Volkswagens parked sideways. Voila, a complete day of skiing for chump change. It didn't take much undergraduate work to realize that skiing in the East was a cruel hoax. Time to graduate.
The West, discovered on a ski trip in Fast Eddy's (The Bucklemeister's) Micro bus with the bursting Orange Suns in the window. The trip brought us through Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. It also brought us home with a Van load of Coors Beer. I was hopelessly hooked on deep powder and steep ski runs. So much so that I moved West to pursue my dreams. Life is funny though because I originally was on my way to Big Sky Montana. A ski bum's true ski dream. Except that as I was leaving a gas station wash room in Dillon Colorado I happened upon a friend named Angela. She informed me she lived with Mary and Melissa and they had jobs at Arapahoe Basin and a condominium. It was the late 70's and times were much more free then. A quick overnight visit and I had a season's ski pass and a home with the girls. I had hit the ski lottery. During that season I had the opportunity to get to Big Cottonwood Canyon in Utah. The home of Solitude and Brighton. I would revisit there many times for the grandeur that they were. A ski patrolman friend who had fallen in love with Utah was kind enough to take me under his wing and show me all the powder stashes he knew. Although that Little Cottonwood Canyon is much steeper and grander, Big Cottonwood Canyon had unknown places.
One of these was Honeycomb Canyon. The Powder Stash of all Stashes, I lost my mind (or what little I had left any way.) I was hooked I visited and revisited there as often as I could. Like all great places and most cities the rest of the world discovered it and (my suburbia) stash grew into a popular place.
There are many places that you ski and while you are skiing you realize that you are just a visitor. You can find your way back but it is always just for the moment and then the moment is gone. You change or deep inside it changes you. You touched it, caressed it, put down tracks on it and the wind and snow will fill then in and you were never there. Was it just a dream? A beautiful romantic love affair that only you experienced. How do you share it? Do you speak of it respectfully among friends they way you would of a great lover? Do you go through life never talking about it again? Now that I am older I still have no answers only the fond memory of the freedom and liberty to pursue my dreams.
Honeycomb Canyon, Big Cottonwood Canyon, Utah

It is funny in life that certain songs and lyrics become Anthems to you and when you are young and making life decisions the words almost speak to you. I remember a room mate of mine telling me that if a Played Bob Dylan late at night when I came home after a night out drinking that he would break all of my Dylan Albums. Listening to this song, I was a young college student again struggling with trying to stay in College and get my degree or be free and ski. I stayed and got my education buy flew to the hills as soon as I was able.
"What About Me," Quicksilver Messenger Service