Slow Stairs

The other morning in an effort to crush a lingering hangover I did a quick hike/run out the back door of camp, up a dusty manzanita-choked slope to Cathedral Lake. I encountered a couple of camp guests resting on a rock halfway up, and we chatted a bit and I gave them an (incorrect) estimate on how much farther they had to slog before they reached the lake. As I set off I heard the wife wheeze, "Oh, to be young again."

They were probably in their early forties and clearly very challenged by the steep terrain. But some of the most athletic, energetic people I know are around the same age, if not older. It's not about age, it's about lifestyle.

I see it at work all the time. There are lots of stairs in the lodge, and since camp is always, always packed with people, the stairways often get clogged with bovine types. Folks in the prime of life, wearing athletic shoes and Camelbaks, gingerly pick their way down the flights, death-gripping the banister. We lose a lot of productivity because of lag time on the stairs. Staffers pass each other, eyes rolled to the skies, as they await the never-ending descent or ascent.

I don't ever want to be the kind of person who takes stairs slowly.

Visits

It seems odd that I had nothing to say after a trip that I'd so eagerly awaited for five months. But then, after all, it was Brevard. Lush and green and unbearably full of memories and so special and so mundane, where I was overjoyed to see everyone I knew and grew up with, and with whom I proceeded to have the exact same conversations and went on the same bike rides as always.

I was so, so happy to visit, and quite content to leave. I want to continue becoming the person I will end up as, although lord only knows who that may be.

Most cliche Pisgah pic ever

One of the best parts of the trip was dragging Tyler around and forcing him to experience my home as I always have. Riding bikes, riding more bikes, hiking John's Rock, posting up in the bakery drinking free coffee, wandering around town, having brews in the backyard and watching the fireflies, eating mediocre Mexican with the best possible group of people, popping into the Red House without invitation, sweating in the forgotten humidity, shooting the shit with the family at the dinner table. Perhaps it was a result of the constant arm-twisting, but he admitted to really enjoying Brevard.

And then the dragging continued, as my little sis joined us on the return trip. We were all cranky from prolonged travel and gross overpriced food and whatnot, but as we drove up into the basin I loved watching her eyes pop. Snowcapped peaks in June, the deep blue of the lake, the jagged span of horizon; it was fun to appreciate the drastically different western scenery all over again. Despite my schedule we found time to do all that important stuff: sunny kayaking, scramble-hiking, bagel shop gossiping, beach sitting, shopping, camping.

The Chute can't really be called hiking.

I foresee a lifetime of friendship with this one.

Now she's going to be a college girl and I'm going to be...a camp girl. The first summer camp guests arrive tomorrow and if all reports are correct, I'll come up for air at the beginning of September. Here we go.

Pavement Time

The other day Deutschbike and I went out riding. The fella was out of town so on my day off I had the luxury of pummeling myself into oblivion at my leisure. My knees, ass, and hands may beg to differ but my heart said, best road ride ever.

Better than riding around the lake even, because of the incredibly diverse scenery. Soft pedal out of camp along my own little lake, cut through picturesque neighborhoods, climb up out of Christmas Valley, a glade of the sharpest greens and most bountiful wildflowers with the tranquil Upper Truckee River running through it, over Luther Pass and down into Hope Valley where the craggy glory of the Sierras swallows me. Then a long and windy stretch through cow-town, the flats of Nevada with the Sierras on one side and the Pinenuts on the other. When I stop to eat a Pop Tart a big hawk peers down at me with disgruntlement and then moves down to the next telephone pole. Then a long, exposed climb through the sandstone canyons above Gardnerville, nothing to protect me from the sun and seemingly nothing holding the sand to the cliffs. Finally I made it to Daggett Pass and took the shortest route back to camp, through South Lake Trashhole, land of never ending road construction, and yet...generous shoulders, glorious weather, drivers who notice bikes. The final stretch was the hardest of the day, with a little baby climb up Tahoe Mountain and then the bone chattering road around the lake in all its pot-holed, pavement-rippled glory.

Not as long as my last big ride, but way harder: http://app.strava.com/activities/55419760
The ride resembles the Assault in a lot of ways. Big climbs at the start and finish, flatlands in the middle (in a different state, even!) Crazy beautiful, crazy tough, definitely want to do it again.

Meanwhile, In the Here and Now

My favorite pre-work run, out the door of the cabin:

The dusty trail, a lung-busting climb up granite ledges and switchbacks, through snowmelt and bark debris

The views emerge quickly on the ascent

To one side of Angora Ridge, lush lakefront;
to the other side, lingering skeletons of the '09 burn

I dawdle at the fire lookout every time

The fleeing storm parks itself over Desolation

In the other direction Freel and company loom above
the Meyers valley

This time of year sees more blooming than I'd expected

Fast downhill, each footfall threatened by loose surface

or manzanita bottleneck

And back home (upstairs)

Sweet digs, perfect size 

My own little nook 

New Season

Angora Peak

spring in tahoe is pretty sweet. toasty warm days bookended by the occasional chilly drizzle that sharpens and clarifies all the new greens, so different from the darker everpresent pine green. a neon dust of pollen covers every surface and the birdsong is incessant. when the warmth returns the smell of baking pine needles floats in all the sunny spots; it has already made a permanent home in my olfactory memory bank.

Hikin (it's like running, just slower)

Just two girls dreaming of the east coast

i feel at home here and all is good in the world, but i can't wait for the smell of loam and the constant shade of canopy. i want to run over root baskets and stream beds again and ride up some gravel road, clinging to the wheel of whoever is in front of me and praying that the climb will end soon. i want to sit in the bakery and greet every single person who walks through the door. i want to hug my family. (is that weird?) in ten days i'll be flying over the blue ridge with my forehead and nose smudging the window, and i can't wait to be back.

Back to Camp

I finished off the season with one last magical powder day at Kirkwood, with a group of six wonderful friends, a posse that despite its size never grew unwieldy or sluggish.

And now after a lightning fast winter, I'm settled back in at SSC, with a new cabin and a new title and, oddly, a new sense of detachment. Because this time around I have a life in town, not to mention a set schedule of forty evening hours a week, I haven't and probably won't wholeheartedly embrace the scene that is camp. It's a little bittersweet that I'll never again be a new arrival wide-eyed with wonder (like Eric, who I suspect is in heaven), but instead I can build on friendships I made last season, get to better know the full time staffers, and make some attempt to do my job well (which doesn't come as naturally to me as food service, but what doesn't kill you, etcetera).

Of course the best aspect of camp remains the same: infinite opportunity for outdoor play. The mountains and the waterfront beckon. The trails shook themselves free of snow very early this year, and Rebecca and I have been on a couple of extremely satisfying bikes rides (made all the better by several months of abstinence). On one of those days I had the quintessentially Californian experience of mountain biking and skiing in the same day. And this sunshine doesn't look like it's going anywhere.

Life In Flux

On the drive back from Utah I received two important communiques: an official job offer from SSC after a winter spent on tenterhooks, and an urgent text saying, "Our house has been foreclosed on."
Whoa.
Further conversations revealed that rather than a cause for panic, this news was an unexpected boon. Fannie Mae is permitting us to squat in the house until the end of March, our security deposit was returned posthaste, and to aid in relocation costs we will be cut a generous check on move out day. I'll be crashing at my "other house" (and living in sin for the first time in my life) until moving to camp. Meanwhile the boys bought an RV to start their new life as gypsies.

This is what it looks like when young people retire. 

Snow showers have been sparse and bookended by sixty degree glory days. I have had the chance to get in a couple good powder days at Kwood and the Heave, free snowmobiling thanks to the power of craigslist, some good road rides, and one unforgettable trip to the infamous Squaw Valley. Early in the day Tyler and I went a'hiking up to the looming Palisades. I took the easiest chute while he dropped in on the dumbest iciest chute...

...and emerged scathed. Dripping blood and ashen-faced, he somehow skied down to the clinic, where we learned he'd broken his hand and lacerated his favorite finger. He's spent the last week doped up, stitched, splinted, and not thrilled. Sports injuries are sobering stuff and this one has reaffirmed my intense fear of being laid up, antsy as hell, and unable to play.

Won't be doing that for a while.

Meanwhile work has ground nearly to a halt as the season comes to an end (how did that happen?), the house is emptying of furniture (aforementioned craigslist bartering), I can't stop watching mountain bike videos, and I'm counting down the weeks until my trip back to the south. 

Lest I Forget My Roots

It refuses to snow in South Lake so upon my return I brought the Deutschbike out of hiding, cleaned off the filth of a cross ride two months past, unearthed chamois and road shoes, and disembarked warily. Turns out, to express the most painfully obvious truism, it is just like riding a bike. For the first hour nonstop I enjoyed what could only be called a full body high. Climbed to Luther Summit and remembered that going uphill was, of course, my first love. Bombed the descent, meandered back into town. There is no finer mode of self-propulsion.