Fishhook Yurt 2016

I woke up with a vicious headache. I was tangled in my sleeping bag on a bunk in a yurt, listening to the even breathing of the other people. The wood stove held only ashes. My headache and cottonmouth weren't surprising, given that I had done my best to help empty the keg that we had dragged four miles in on a sled. The fifteen of us had taken turns with the three sleds, but the keg sled was the worst, equal to my weight.

 Our huge posse of weighed-down skiers on the ingress
Most pics courtesy of Other Tyler
It's so nice having actual pictures!

I drank some snowmelt from my bottle and tried to wriggle back into sleep, but my guts started protesting. Disconcerted, I gathered together slippers, glasses, headlamp, and jacket, and lurched out to the designated pee tree and threw up into the urine-melted hole in the snow. This happened six or seven more times that night and the next morning, until I was just throwing up bitter yellow stomach matter. I couldn't keep water down. My yurt mates looked at me in sympathy as they drank coffee and came back and forth from the kitchen hut and gathered up their gear for a long tour. 

The sleeping yurt
Pic courtesy of Jocelyn

They left me with one of the long-distance radios and some electrolyte tablets. I tossed around on the bunk, sleeping, trying to drink, and throwing up. I listened to their radio chatter. The group of fourteen split into several groups and climbed a ridge of Williams Peak until it dwindled to a rocky knife edge. We were in the Sawtooths, a range even more striking and wild than the Tetons. Uncertain of the terrain and snowpack and uneasy with such a large group, they skied a couple of conservative laps off the ridge. 

Erica on the final climb. Wish I had been there.

In the afternoon I drank half a glass of electrolyte mix and kept it down. Good enough. I started shuffling around camp, performing ablutions, adhering skins to skis, wincing as I put on my cold boots. I found the group's track out of the meadow and started heading up, so very slowly, taking timid sips of water. Using the amazing radio I confirmed that they would return the same way, and after some climbing I saw them come around the corner. I transitioned to downhill mode and we all returned to camp together, down a south-facing slope that had been, to put it indelicately, sun-fucked. 

I ate a cracker with cheese as the sun set and felt all life return to me. The next day as we packed, cleaned, and returned to the trailhead, I felt buoyant. 

Hang out time in the hut

Aside from Tyler and me, the group was all from Logan, UT, recruited by Alex and Erica from the small populace that adventures and drinks (Logan being the whitebread capital of Utah). Cooking and cleaning responsibilities were divvied up peacefully and the large group (usually a liability) traveled through terrain smoothly and safely with good communication. 

The kitchen hut, always cozy and sometimes good-smelling

With a different mindset I might have been crushed with disappointment, missing my chance to ski the Sawtooths because of a freak twelve-hour bug, but it felt more like a fact-finding mission. We learned a lot about the yurts: what to pack (just warm clothes, beer, and food), how long to stay (longer), which yurt to book next time to improve access to the huge aesthetic lines on the stark peaks (any of the yurts besides Fishhook). 

The meadow near the yurt offered up spectacular vistas

Some of us took a quick lap on Galena Pass on the way home. The pass was the opposite of our Sawtooth experience: well-preserved fresh snow, zero approach, and a high gratification to effort ratio. 

A fast easy Galena lap to finish off the weekend

Alex has now moved to Teton Valley, with Erica to follow after finishing her master's degree. Through some divine grace we found a beautiful rental that will house the four of us and two dogs very comfortably. 

All is well in Idaho. 

The whole gang

Teton Reality Check

This morning Sophie encountered a moose up close for the first time. 

This moose is in retreat from the deep snow in the hills and has been hanging out in Mountainside Village for a couple days nibbling buds off decorative trees. It's a big'un, either a mature lady or a male denuded of his rack for the time being. He is a big awkward animal, with his sloping walk and pronounced hump and long bulbous head. We all have been watching him from windows and porches, posting pictures online, driving slowly. 

In no hurry
Pics courtesy of Bruce 

I let Sophie out to pee and her hackles rose. Oh shit. He came stomping through the neighbors' yard, slowly at first but as she cowered and barked, moving faster, a very half-assed charge. I ran back up the stairs and yelled at Sophie, wondering distantly if he would ram my car. But a moose in winter is not a moose in autumn; conserving calories takes the highest precedent and the unpredictable hormonal rages are forgotten in the quest for survival. 

He changed his mind and lumbered away. Sophie decided he was a wimp, backing down from a fight. She barked and prepared to give chase, but I collared her and told her very firmly what I thought about that, and sent her in the other direction to perform her morning duties. The moose, nonchalant and knee deep in snow, arced his neck to find more edible bits on the maples lining the boulevard. 

He's still hanging out, not really bothering anyone. Welcome to Idaho.

Just the friendly(ish) neighborhood moose

That Time I Did a Fat Bike Race

I hadn't planned on doing any fat bike races this season, but it popped up somewhere online: night race at Targhee. I'm a sucker for novelty, and a night race meant I could still ski all day. It was cheap, there was some cool swag, and a quick browse of the pre-reg showed enough friends to make it worthwhile. Done. Oops.

It was already dumping on the day I registered, and the Tetons proceeded to get another two or so feet that weekend. The race was sounding less appealing on Friday when I and just about everyone I know charged the Ghee all day. But Derrick, the new owner of Fitzgerald's and a strident fat bike evangelist, had already kindly promised me a bike. The gauntlet had been thrown, the smack had been talked. All the bar-fly fat bikers were going to give me hell if I bailed. 

On Saturday we went out for a tour with friend and long-time local Billy. He showed us around a new zone and the snow was phenomenal so we took another run, and another, and another, despite protesting limbs and encroaching deadlines. Afterwards I picked up the Farley from Fitzy's and rode it home, overheating in my ski clothes, groaning from tired legs, and freaking out because I was late and hadn't even charged my night light yet. I ran around the house in a toxic cloud, trying to eat, get my stuff together, figure out when the race started, and breathe through the stress. It didn't help that it was snowing heavily and I was scared of the treacherous drive. 

Only picture I took of our tour...forever ascending

Our relationship survived my unpleasantness somehow and we made it up with plenty of time to spare. The crew at the Ghee was also scrambling to deal: the heavy snowfall stymied attempts to groom the intended singletrack loop and even the shortened two mile course required attention. I figured out attire (shell jacket over t-shirt, wind pants over thermal bibs, balaklava, safety glasses, and Sorels, an outfit not approved by the bike nerds but which suited me just fine) and joined the other racers in trying to practice the tough initial climb and descent. The soft snow was extremely challenging and unpredictable. At the bottom everyone milled around squeezing each others' tires and letting air out in their own. "Is three PSI too much or too little?" "Anyone have a pressure gauge?" My tires were plenty big and squishy and I was really starting to enjoy the shit show. 

We lined up and started, and carnage ensued. On the first descent people flopped around like spawning salmon and I fishtailed all over but stayed upright somehow. Commuting every day and messing around in the neighborhood have given me a better idea for what snow will and won't (mostly won't) permit. If you ever brake, or lose focus, or tense up, or shift your center of gravity the wrong way, you will IMMEDIATELY be punished. Over the four mile race I came off the bike and slogged a lot but never wrecked, which I attribute to 50% good body English and line choice and 50% luck. 

The start, before the fast people completely smoked us
Race pics courtesy of Grand Targhee 

The relentless snowflakes sparkled in my headlamp and I lost track of where I was on the course, wrapped in a bubble of light and quiet and warmth, focused completely on the tire tracks in front of me. Tyler heckled me just as I've taught him: "Go faster! Stop walking!" and Sophie yelped as I pedaled (or trudged) by. 

Trying to maintain a straight line

Four miles took almost an hour but I was pleased as punch at the end. We all hung out at the fire with beers in hand, rehashing the brief ordeal and waiting for the long race to end. A couple people, Derrick included, reported flat tires, which I'd thought was the one thing you didn't have to worry about on a fat bike, but I guess when you're running tubeless at 3 PSI and the tire burps...well. We talked about how ridiculous the skiing would be the next day considering the current rate of precipitation. Awards were announced and I won (the short race). 

I was shellacked the next day when I tried to charge more powder, but I was glad I didn't bail on the slog fest. The borrowed bike performed flawlessly (thanks to Fitzgerald's) and the race was great despite the conditions (thanks to a heroic effort by Andy Williams and crew). 

In Which I Use a Funeral as an Excuse for a Ski Trip

Tyler and I drive the empty roads across southeast Idaho. We've done this drive probably a dozen times but these are unusual circumstances. The normally sagebrush-gray landscape is softened by snow. The expansive lava formations of Craters of the Moon look less like a suburb of Mordor than usual. Unless it snows in Mordor, I guess.

We enter a thick fog in the Wood River Valley that turns to precipitation as we near Ketchum. There's a lot of snow hemming in the narrow streets. North of town we locate the grand vacation home of Tyler's brother's friend. This is the new base of operations, since Tyler's grandparents' home (which he calls the Palace) is no longer available. 

Thanks to the Mountain Collective pass, i.e. the best deal in the West, a couple days at Sun Valley costs zero dollars instead of hundreds, so we go skiing. Warm snow falls and the visibility is soupy. Tyler says this is completely unlike Sun Valley, land of sunshine, groomed runs, and no snow. 

We retire for burritos, beer, and a scenic hot tub buttressed by snow banks. Sophie chases snowballs across the yard. 

Thursday is a stunning bluebird powder day so we ski the resort again, where the tree glades, of perfect density and gradient, are almost untouched. It is very enjoyable until I exit onto a cat track at high speed and slam knee to mouth. No teeth are knocked out, just duck lips and abrasions. I quit. 

Turns out Sun Valley is a fun resort when it snows

We're back at the house on schedule. The rest of Tyler's little clan has arrived: his two brothers, his mom, and her boyfriend. Everyone dons Nice Clothes and we go to the Episcopalian church for the memorial service for Tyler's grandfather. I see other attendants' grief and tear up thinking abstractly about losing a parent or grandparent. My brain shies away from specifics because I don't to want sob audibly at the funeral of a man I barely knew. Afterwards I flit around the reception eating cured meat and trying to avoid talking to relatives I don't know. 

Our crew retreats to the house to debrief on all the politics and power plays happening. I feel grateful for the simplicity of my family. 

Just another beautiful day in big mountains

Tyler, Ben, and I have a window the next morning to go for a backcountry tour before the interment of Charles's ashes. After studying some topo maps we have a potential objective, but driving down the canyon yields disappointing options, so on the way back we pick a National Forest access point at random and are greatly rewarded with an easy climb in the sunshine and pristine powder through perfect trees on the descent. This never happens. 

We go to the cemetery. The priest extols the beauty of our surroundings and I warm inside, but it is hard to the reconcile the sweet sadness of the ceremony with the uneven family dynamics, the permanency of death, the shadow cast by money.

My loves on the summit 

Tyler and I drive to Boise the next day but not before a repeat of the successful tour, to tire the dog out and get another taste of powder. 

We have dinner with some of Tyler's oldest friends, kind and funny and charismatic and fiercely loyal to him. The intensity and longevity of Tyler's friendships, I think, are a testament to his character. 

On Sunday a bunch of us ski the local hill, Bogus Basin. Boise down low is shrouded in a chilly gray but the road to the resort climbs out of the haze into bright sunshine. The group splinters because of different ability levels (or one could say lifestyle choices: occasional skiers vs. habitual snow sliders) but we regroup regularly for beer and pictures. 

The gang and me at Bogus

Too soon we have to say goodbye and drive the long interstate back to the Tetons. Temperature variations cause impenetrable fog and we're both tense, half-listening to Serial while peering into the abyss. 

It is bitter cold and clear in the Valley. We try to organize the detritus of our trip and then pass out. Today it is back to work, back to real life, back to a place where everyone counts their wealth not in dollars, but in days spent outside. 

Gratuitous Dog Pictures

A month and a half. Oops. Ideas for posts have flitted through my head but for the most part they're either belly-aching (I like to keep the negativity to a minimum on the internet) or broken records (there are only so many ways to say, Happy happy joy joy). I could write an ode to technical outerwear and how nice it is to stay dry and warm in winter conditions. I could write about how I had to get creative entertaining myself outside because the snow refused to fly...but that's so two weeks ago. Now we're getting 3-5 inches a day, which has lead to very enjoyable days in the backcountry and at the resort. I could write about how scared I am of avalanches. Weird early season weather gave us and most of the west some very unstable layers that we'll have to contend with for at least the next month. But I don't want to get too far into that because my family is already unnerved by my snow pursuits. Understand this: I am very timid and at the slightest whiff of elevated danger, I'll happily settle with in-bounds skiing. The experts talk about varied risk tolerance and mine is way over at the low end of the scale.

My parents are divesting themselves of the bakery, and I'm so happy for them, but between that and the disturbing threat of loss of mountain bike access, Brevard is feeling less and less like home. (And it doesn't snow there.) This past year I paid attention to current events again after almost a decade of being an uninformed wastrel and my god there's some scary, sickening stuff going on. It almost makes me want to crawl back in my hole.

So instead of talking more about any of those topics, here are some pictures of my dog,

Sophie finds bike vanity pictures a little odd but as long as I promise to take her for a run around the neighborhood, she doesn't give me a hard time.

Sophie loves playing in the backcountry with her best friend Darby the pocket-sized golden retriever. When it gets cold she wears her pink coat, which is both cozy and fetching.

Sophie can't contain her excitement when I go stir crazy sitting around the house and decide to go for a fat bike ride.

This is my most recent addition to the quiver. Surly Krampus 29+, cheap, heavy, and bombproof. Great for the daily commute but it's not quite a fat bike so powder riding is very challenging.

At this point we're basically living in a Christmas card.

And yeah, the turns have been pretty darn phenomenal.

First Snow

The dog has been a handful. I wander around under my own dark cloud. This morning it isn't raining, only a gentle snow. I text the boss: Coming in late. We go for a run on Rush Hour. The ground is crunchy. My joints ache from too much biking, not enough running. I think, I want to buy waterproof running shoes. The dog bounds up and down the trail. We pass T-Race riding with her dogs Rippin and Chillin. Our greetings billow like smoke from our mouths. My brain turns off. For the first time since April, the dog does not want to go in the creek afterwards.

Back home, I drink lukewarm coffee and feed the dog pieces of apple. I put on lots of layers and ride to work. I am very pleased with my appropriate clothing choices. The factory is chilly but I am wrapped in a bubble of good humor. I tell my fellow barmakers, Whenever I am grumpy, tell me to go for a run. We are chatty and cheerful. We sass the boss. He always wears a wry, bemused face around us.

They leave. I continue making Tram Bar. The new barmaker comes in at three. She is still quiet and bright-eyed, not sassy. Soon, I think. I subject her to my favorite financial podcast. She claims not to mind. I finish and pedal home in the dark cold. The road is very slightly uphill. I am sweating through my puffy and my beanie sags over my eyes. I see the stream of headlights on the highway from Jackson. I think, I would never ever ever ever choose to be in a car in that long line rather than here on my bike. 

I look at pictures on Facebook of friends skiing. I download a surprise collaboration album from Big Boi and Phantogram. I let the dog out. She goes to the neighbor's yard where the viscera of an antelope freeze in the grass. I stand under the street lamp, watching the snow's silent barrage. The first fall is the most beautiful. I think, This particulate from the sky dictates my happiness for five months. 

On Vanity

These girls! Mountain bikers with their artful side braids, trendy matte visored helmets never awkwardly tilted, never exposing unseemly forehead. Their logo'd raglan three quarter length tees look suited for playing sandlot softball but hug curves and wick moisture like butterfly wings. Their shorts are tailored but not tight, never gaping above kneepads, never riding down in the back to expose undershorts or the dreaded crack. Even at the most unflattering, posterior-widening, torso-shortening angles these girls look perfect, "shred-ready" but approachable. You want to buy them a beer and ask for their number. Even if you are a straight girl.

These skier girls. Winter outerwear presents a more forgiving profile but I still get it wrong. Certain colors and brands scream "I am here on my bi-yearly ski vacation from Florida." I don't want to scream that, or even whisper it. These girls with their bug-eyed reflective goggles and be-stickered helmets, artful side braids again poking fetchingly out from their protective headwear. Uber-technical shell jackets, dirty on the elbows from 100+ days of riding lifts but still appealingly color-blocked with contrasting zippers on trend for this season. Pants that are neither too tight (poser? tween?) nor too baggy (boy butt? ski bum saddle bags?). Even the way these girls stand, on skis or at the bar, natural, unselfconscious, athletic. They probably do yoga in the off-season. Photographers love these girls.

I will never be one of these girls.

My ass is too large to be disguised by light breathable bike shorts.

I always miss the memo on this season's outerwear trends.

I don't own goggles or sunglasses that hide my eyes, which always beseech the viewer: am I doing it right? Do you approve?

My side braid is never artful.

But maybe it's OK. I still get to experience the lifestyle that these girls represent. Even if I will never look as cool/effortless/beautiful while living it.

The Gravel Pursuit

Two weekends ago now, the Petervarys put on the inaugural JayP Backyard Gravel Pursuit, a 60/120 mile gravel grinder in Island Park, ID. Tyler was out of town so I took Sophie to have a sleepover with some of her best friends at SegoHaus and snagged a ride north with Gary, a fellow gravel grinder. We joined up with a solid Teton Valley contingent at the campsite and after some pasta and beer I had the best night of outdoor sleep I've had possibly ever, thanks to perfect temps and a massive thrift store Coleman airpad. 

The 60 mile start line

All pics courtesy of JayP

We started at eight. I coveted the other bikes. Most people these days are either riding modern cyclocross bikes (disc brakes, big tire clearance) or actual gravel grinders* (mountain bike geometry, huge tire clearance), but I am still on Deutschbike, who is perfectly engineered to goreallyfast for 45 minutes on a dry cyclocross course. Whatever. I spent my whole bike budget on the fun stuff.

*I just realized I used the phrase "gravel grinder" to refer to an event, a person, and a bike. It's so utilitarian! 

After five miles of dodging people and puddles I finally felt awake. I caught Gary and together we blew apart the woman who had been stubbornly sitting on his wheel. Then we hit pavement, a long unexpected climb with a civilized grade. Long gentle climbs are the one thing I truly love about road riding. Every hill crest brought another incline and I was overjoyed, because the more miles of paved uphill there were, the less of a disadvantage I'd be at with my tiny tires and inadequate brakes. I was reeling in dude after dude (ok, so there are two things I love about road riding) and I was on fire. At this point I was counting every unhatched chicken I could lay hands on. Victory, victory, I thought in time with my pedal cadence. 

Then, after the climb, on some unremarkable flat gravel section, I heard psssshhh.

Shit. 

Fixed the front tire pretty quickly (for me) but half the women's field had passed me, looking strong. I settled in for the chase. The feeling of invincibility had disappeared. 

During the grind I didn't forget to look around. We mostly traveled through nondescript lodgepole pine forests but sometimes the course surfaced above the trees and the views were breathtaking. The cobalt sky graced a lush green valley dotted with bright gold aspen groves and surrounded by slate gray peaks. 

Yeah, that view

I came through the aide station for the second time, still sitting in third with eight miles to go, still in no man's land. The next stretch was insulting: very slightly uphill in kitty litter gravel with a headwind. I followed all the other tire tracks as they tacked all across the road on the hunt for firmer ground. 

A huge pick-up came barreling toward me and as I concentrated on holding my line in the soft shoulder, I blew through an intersection. After riding five more miles to the highway without seeing a finish line, I turned around, shattered. I castigated myself when I realized there had been no tire tracks on the road for the entire last stretch. Back at the intersection, I saw an arrow that I'd passed. It was being buffeted by the wind, but to my right was another course marking reassuring me of the turn. I followed and saw lots of tracks again. Whew. 

Unfortunately, I had no idea that the finishing stretch was the same as the start, and that I was following the morning's route deeper onto the course. I had apparently absorbed nothing of the first ten miles because nothing looked familiar. But I started feeling deeply uneasy as I continued traveling south with no sign of the finish. Without any idea of why the arrows had led me astray, I started looking for a road that would cut west toward the highway. It was several miles before one appeared though, and I was too nervous to backtrack, because I was out of water and didn't have another spare tube. I had to stop several times on the never-ending ATV road and rethink the steps I had taken, but they still seemed sound. I knew I was going west and I couldn't be more than five or so miles from the highway. While on my first wrong turn I was cursing and sprinting, this time I was more pragmatic, knowing if I didn't figure out a way back I would truly be up shit creek. 

Finally after six agonizing, thirsty miles of second-guessing myself, I found a paved road and an RV couple who gave me directions and water. I was another seven hilly miles from the lodge but it was paved and I had water, beef jerky, and a tailwind. 

JayP's Backyard Pursuit (left) vs. Julia's Backyard Pursuit (right)

I mashed back into town feeling strong and happy. I had to check in with all my worried friends and just managed to catch JayP before he went out looking. I felt like a huge asshole. He'd told us the night before: bring two spare tubes and bring the course map. But I'd thought since I was doing "the casual distance" that such warnings didn't apply to me.

We stuck around to cheer on the other participants who were still rolling in, the hardmen who raced the 120, the gently stoned recreationalists who relished every lovely mile, and the midwestern family of four on fat bikes that had rallied and finished the 60 with smiles on their faces. Seeing their perseverance and good attitudes humbled me, and I decided a little less swagger and a little better preparation would probably serve me well in future endeavors. (But how many times have I learned that particular lesson, to no avail?) 

Riding in fall is the finest

At the racers' meeting the night before, JayP had said, "This is the inaugural Gravel Pursuit, and when this race gets huge, you will be able to say proudly, I was there for the first one." I absolutely believe that is true, because despite my foibles, it was a beautifully designed course and a flawless event.