9 Days Left, Training on Frozen Chicken Heads

Excellent day of doooom! I'm a bit in over my head with my schedule, which is NOT so cool for my massage clients, and here is a great big appology for the rescheduling that is going on, and thanks for the patience and understanding.

School started again today, but I was up at Bridger training. I won't be in school or doing massage until after the exam on the 2nd and 3rd, its just too intense, I've got to focus.

Today, Jill Imsand and Jen Gunther came down from Big Sky to train, and we picked up Alex Sweeny, and then later on, we ran into Maggie Beardsly, and Glenn from Big Sky, and it turned into a huge ski posse!

The snow was like a frozen stormy ocean tipped on its side and dusted with about an inch of new snow, basically the toughest conditions for me to ski. We worked really hard, skied aggressively, took aggressive lines, and asked ourselves to ski it well, ski it with as much technical precision as we could muster, and it ended up being outrageous fun, and very very hard work!

We skied all three whirlpools, the hourglass into the third whirlpool, the fourth finger, angels' flight, flippers, abelin's, easy money, all the crappy, steep south facing snow we could find!

I'm not sure if my skiing would pass if it had been the exam day, but I do know that I was happy with how I was skiing, I felt like I was able to ski that stuff better than I ever had, and that I was able to make positive change during the day to ski it better and better as the day went on. It was awesome to chase Alex around out there, he picked some gnarly lines, and I knew if he skied it, I could, too.

There was one scary moment when he lost a ski in the middle of the pinch on the fourth finger, (it went rocketing off this little knoll and shot into space), which is VERY steep and it was pretty icy, and I thought, oh, he's going to have to slide for life to the bottom, but he managed to get up on his one ski and sideslip down to the ski, totally keeping it together in a very scary moment, got himself back together.

Our last run of the day was an amazing rodeo ride adventure through steep trees and off a big log, just outstanding.

Thanks for an amazing day, guys!

Bomb Bomb BOOOOM!

photo by bootlegenterprises.com
So, they were bombing the HECK out of Bridger Bowl this morning, I don't think I've ever heard so many explosives in the whole entire two and a half years I've been skiing. (har har). The bombs were going off until at least 11:30 this morning!

Just wanted to say thank you to the awesome Ski Patrol who go out there and get it done, working hard to keep our super steep and difficult ski area as safe as possible for us!

For a VERY COOL video of our ski patrol at work firing the BIG GUN, go here!

The Slushman's Lift at Bridger!

I was up at Bridger a few days before it snowed and here it is! It's real! Its UP THERE! I can't WAIT to get on that new terrain!

Any Excuse to Quit: Or, Assume the Position of Someone Who is Excited to do This!

We've all been there, even on a day when we feel psyched to go play. I woke up on Saturday morning, and the VERY first thought I had was... I could just NOT go for a hike, and instead stay home and make pancakes.

And I actually DID lay back down for about a minute. And then I thought, this is ridiculous. Yes, you didn't sleep much last night, but COME ON! You'll be psyched once you start. Then I pictured myself hiking in the hot sun, and that just seemed like hard work, so I immediately took back THAT awful visual and replaced it with getting my coffee first. Ahhh, that will be nice.

Out the door I go. I drove to my FAVORITE coffee in the WORLD so far, The Daily Coffee on the corner of Oak and Rousse. I got my latte, an incredible vegi burrito for the top of the mtn, and a raspberry coconut scone of DOOM. I felt happy.

I started driving towards the M, and for some reason in my mind, I was picturing loving the drive through Bridger Canyon, savoring my coffee. Maybe its because I spend almost my entire Bridger Bowl paycheck during the ski season getting coffee at the daily EVERY morning, and then savoring it while watching the Alpen Glo.

So I was SURPRISED when I remembered that the M was right there, I didn't get to go through the canyon after all. I wasn't READY to hike! I was thinking I had like 20 more minutes of wake up time! Maybe I won't go after all.

Well THAT's insane. But the thought was there. Then, OH JOY! There are cars everywhere, all down the road, and the M lot is packed. I pulled up and hopped out. I walked up to a race volunteer. "Is the Ridge Run today?" I asked. Yup. "So its probably not a good idea for me to go hike up to Baldy and be swimming up stream, huh?" I asked, hopefully.

"Oh, no! They'd probably love it! That's great! Have a good hike!".

Crap. So much for that, now I HAVE to go. Here is the insane part: I like hiking! I was happy to go!

I schlepped back to my car, and just started putting my gear on. Assume the position of someone who is excited to go for a hike this morning. Put your gear on in a happy, energetic way. Put on your iPod. Lets DO THIS.

I asked the volunteers if they needed anything trucked up to Baldy, and hit the trail. Of course, immediately I felt better. The second I started walking. And then my phone rang, and sometimes, if its a friend, or a client, I'll answer even if I'm hiking... so I did. And I hiked right past all the places that I usually complain in my head, because I was chatting on the phone. Okay, I know its gross to talk on your phone while you are hiking, but HEY, at least I was HIKING!

I got to the ridge in record time for me: 40 minutes flat, feeling good, strong and happy.

You never ever know which days will be days full of energy. I have found that constantly coaching yourself into a place where you keep asking yourself for more, for positivity, to reexamine the way you are feeling, to make a different choice, to give yourself a chance opens doors that would otherwise be BOLTED shut.

Assume the position. Assume the position of someone who knows how to ski! Assume the position of someone who is confident. Your body language can help inspire your own true feelings to follow. I'm not suggesting you lie or pretend, I'm suggesting you put your body in a posture of success, and open your heart to the possibility that you might succeed, and boy, that might feel really good!!

The Herd Mentality. Or, I'm going to slow down because she's more fit than I am...

(photo by WindDrinkers)
So the other day, I hiked up to Baldy, basically swimming upstream during the Ridge Run. It was great fun, amazing to watch these athletes race along the spine of the Bridgers, a 27 mile run with a 4300' elevation gain, and a 9600' loss (man, its BRUTAL going downhill that fast for that long!).

When I turned around, I had the very unusual experience of suddenly feeling like I had something to prove. It was a great moment to take a step back and watch my emotional reaction to stepping into a stream of people who are working hard towards a competitive goal. While I knew intellectually that I had only hiked up five miles, and these folks had gone... 20, or so..., and that I wasn't truly competing with any of them, I still noticed a desire in myself to run faster, stay in step, adapt a competition mentality.

Along with adopting this irrational state without logically deciding to, I noticed something interesting... when the person in front of me stopped running and walked on the uphill pitch, I felt grateful for an excuse to stop! Whew! It MUST be hard enough to warrant stopping, the person ahead of me did!

I was eager to filter out all of the outstanding information that should inform my decision on how fast and far I wanted to go, on this, a training run for me that has nothing to do with the ridge run, in favor of following the herd. I abdicated my responsibility in my own training to the total stranger in a different event who happened to be twenty feet ahead of me!

This got me thinking. Of course. Because that's what I do when I'm hiking... I blog in my head about all the nonsense that is or is not helping me reach my goal that day.

As I was ruminating over the issues of herd mentality in a race situation, and how it can affect innocent bystanders (by-hikers?), a SUPER fit chick ran by me with a big smile on her face. I had been happily jogging along, keeping a good pace after overcoming my mooooo-ness and passing the "Its Okay To STOP" guy ahead of me when this blur of superfitness sprinted by.

"Oh. She's much more fit than I am. Now I feel defeated." popped into my head. FOR REAL! Let me state for the record that I was feeling pretty good on this day! I was very happy with my hike, the time I made to the top, the pics I took, and the fact that the jog down was going to shred my thighs and make them HUGE like TREE TRUNKS. So why so eager to jump to defeatism?

In this moment, I remembered to separate myself, my reality, from the reality of the person who had run by me. She is living her life, in her reality, and while it is literally on the same path as mine, my experience of my life and success and failure is separate from hers, just as it is separate from the guy who walked uphill.

In a good Yoga practice, we concentrate on where WE are on our journey. Yoga is not a competitive or comparative activity at its root. We are never supposed to look at someone else in Yoga class and yearn for our bodies to be where theirs are. When you move into a posture in Yoga, you strive to ask your body to do what it can, and perhaps a bit more. Where your limit is is the APPROPRIATE place for your body to stop, because this is where you get the benefit of the work you are doing. Wishing you were "as good" as the person next to you, or pushing your body to a place where you are "imitating" the posture, but not effectively working in it is damaging, and beside the point.

I looked at the SuperFit woman as she trucked off into the distance, and asked myself to imagine a different reaction as she ran past me... one that thanked her for showing me how much more was possible in my own fitness, one that admired her dedication and training without the poison of jealousy, and suddenly, I had a puff of energy! It propelled me forward, onto the balls of my feet, and I was running.

We face these choices a hundred times a day, but sometimes we don't catch them until we are suddenly realizing that we unexpectedly aren't feeling too good about ourselves, or our choices... we are suddenly and unexpectedly in a place of judgment and criticism, which is never a good platform to perform from!

I am working hard every day in my own personal training to remove judgment and criticism, to ask myself to try harder, to give more, and to be proud of where I am on my own journey. If I can stay there, or bring myself back to that present moment, void of negativism, the path is clear before me, and I leap down it unencumbered!

We DID it! We skied the Great One!

Finally! It happened! I've been wanting and wanting to ski this line, and today... we DID IT! Look at the range in the back of the picture, its the long white line on the left. Angela and I hiked in in our shorts today;

(lesson #1 today: tie your long sleeve shirt around your skis so when its time to boot up something steep, you can just throw your shirt on rather than having to take your pack off.)

and left our tennies at the snow line, and booted across the snow field, to the bottom of the Great One, where I practiced my self-arrest technique with Angela's ice axe she'd loaned me for the day. (Lessons 2-5 how to load your ice axe on your pack, walk with it in your uphill hand, belay off it, and self arrest on both sides with it.)

Then we booted up fairly firm snow to the middle pinch, hiked across the talus field, and then I kicked in the steps for the second half, up the steep top pitch of the couloir. (Lesson 6: don't move your feet if your ice axe is moving. Don't move your ice axe if your feet are moving.) It was really fun to boot up something so steep, and I was psyched to be breaking trail. I needed to pace myself a bit slower, I was slowing down at the top, but I felt SO much better than the last bootpack I did!

The interval training, week of rest, and steep hiking has helped! We had a nice lunch at the top with a couple of guys that came up the long way "Wow, are you guys in training, or something?" was the question as we climbed out of the couloir and onto the top.

The boys took off, and we followed a bit after, Angela let me ski it first, which was pretty fun, the snow was firm, and not rocky, I didn't feel like I needed to do any survival skiing, I could actually kind of get after it in there, and THAT was an awesome feeling!

At the bottom, we took our skis off to hike across the talus, and, of course, as I'm standing there looking at them, I think, "I should either turn those over or pick them up." and off they go. Bouncing down the rocks. That was a nice little extra detour. Angela was just totally laughing, until her laugh started HER skis down, but she caught them.

We skied the second pitch with a bit more verve, the snow was still fantastic, and we tipped em over a bit more on this pitch. We were going to give the line across the basin a go, we watched a snowboarder come down it and it looked super fun, but it was getting late, and TODAY is my little sister's birthday, so we did a mini hike up the bowl and skied down to our shoes.

YES, I must admit, there is INDEED a Kate Faceplant in this story, really, what back country adventure would BE complete without me landing on my face? ONCE AGAIN, when it was very nearly flat, my ski hung up on something, got pulled behind me, and I was very suddenly on my face. So much so that my nose was jammed full of snow. And, of course, rather than blowing it out, I snorted it in. Immediate result: brain freeze of doom. Angela was looking at me like I'd grown horns. "What happened?" Who knows? Too sporty on a low angle with rocks and twigs sticking out of it. AGAIN. Maybe I'll learn that lesson one day.

ANNNNYHOOO, not important. The climbing was awesome. (I had a perfect moment climbing UP! That's happening more and more on the climbing part, which is exciting, because it used to just be painful, like PLEASE GOD let the ridge be CLOSER, my lungs are DYING!) The skiing was awesome. There is still a ton of snow up there.

The hike out was serene, and a bit damp (we had a little tropical storm to cool us off as we headed for the car.) There are so many great lines to explore up there, and the snow is just right! Thanks for another super fun day, Angela! See you in September!

Greetings from the top of the Bridger Ridge!

Greetings from the top of the bridger ridge! 45 minutes to the top with a loaded pack tells me training is paying off, even with a full week off. Aspen on Thursday!