Discipline, Austrian Style: Hiking in the Rain with Pepi Stiegler

I first heard of Pepi Stiegler when I went out to Jackson a few years ago. He's a friend of my friend, Jonathan, and we had been hoping to get in a ski tour all together. The timing didn't quite work out on that visit, and this time, as I was driving up to Jackson, I managed to connect once again with Pepi, and we agreed to meet one morning for a hike.

It turns out that its been raining in Jackson for the last three weeks, much to everyone's dismay. My friend Nato, who loaned me not floor space or a couch but a full on honest to god GUEST ROOM, (for which I said thank you with buttery eggs and my favorite pasta for dinner), is sick of bad weather, over skiing, can't golf in the rain, and feels like he lives in Washington State right now (although his garden looks amazing thanks to all the moisture).

I didn't care that it was raining, to be honest, I've been going a little nuts wanting to ski and hike, and I feel a bit rabid if I don't get outside. I have a rain coat, and I hoped that Pepi would be up for meeting anyway even though it rained all night through the night in a torrential deluge which made the rivers rise significantly.

I had seen some of Pepi's skiing in Jon Jay's "Olympic Holiday", a great picture on the 1960 Olympics in Squaw Valley, where the men's downhill had a hike-in start, and the snow looked like they'd groomed it with a bunch of folks snowplowing old avy debris, it was lumpy and frozen and full of huge chunks of hard snow. The crashes were terrific and terrifying.

Pepi and I met up despite the threatening weather, I was so happy to finally meet him, I'd heard so much about he, and his daughter Resi, who is now recovering from her second knee surgery and is getting ready to go into hard core rehabilitation aimed at getting her back on skis and racing this season.

We hiked from Pepi's house with Natos two dogs, Ruby and Bodi straight up Snowking as the mist turned to drizzle. Pepi is strong and hikes with the regular stride of a confident back country man, despite his 72 years and the fact that he has Multiple Sclerosis to contend with, he is hale and hearty, still every inch the athlete.

Driving over, I hoped that we would have things to talk about, even though we both love to ski, that topic can get easily exhausted, and I was curious where skiing would lead us, what kinds of things we might find to say to each other as we walked along.

As we walked up the trail, the rain increased, and our happiness at being outside amplified. Pepi is easy in his spirit, easy to talk to, and glad to be out and moving around. Every inch the gentleman, he checked in with me frequently to see if I was up for an adventure in the rain, as it began to come down with a purpose when we started into the switchbacks. The rain and the excellent company just made me want to hike more, and we headed up into the clouds with the two dogs loping along ahead of us and not another soul in sight.

We found common ground in our training back grounds, although Pepi lived it at a much higher level than I did, and was a member of the incredibly disciplined Austrian ski team, and we started to chat about discipline in training ski instructors, a topic I feel a bit passionate about.

I believe in hard work and in training with intent to learn as much as I can, to gain a continuously evolving clearer and clearer understanding of every aspect of the sport, whatever that sport may be, including ferreting out your proclivities for blocking learning and removing them.

Pepi told me that he feels that while he loves discipline and comes from a very disciplined environment, that is not what the American public wants, they want FUN.

I told him that I agree, the public wants fun. And it is the instructors job to teach the public how to have the MOST fun. How to be a great skier, how to play in the snow well.

But I also feel that while the public can say, hey, make it fun, the instructors should be lining up for discipline. We shouldn't be whining that its not fun. It is our job to learn and understand the concepts, to dig deeper to ask more, to find the process of discovery and the discipline to train fun in and of itself. To put ourselves in the same position as our clients all the time robs us of a certain level of professional obligation.

Yes, skiing in and of itself is fun. Great trainers can make the hardest work fun, which makes working hard that much easier. But there is something to asking more from ourselves because this is our job. Being willing to get to work, to apply some discipline, to go again and again, to be able to withstand critique and criticism.

I think that being able to understand what our clients want does not remove our obligation to understand our sport and passion to its depths. The season is short. There is work to be done. To have the vast knowledge that we all need in order to communicate well with our clients, we need a modicum of discipline. We need to be willing to get to work. And we need to be able to take the work we've done and translate it into the language of the guest, applying knowledge we have gained through specific, disciplined work, investigation, and training to the every day language of play in the snow.

Pepi and I talked about this, about what it was like to train at an Olympic training center, versus what it is like to take the average PSIA clinic, versus what it is like to be a member of the paying public. We had a wide ranging conversation, which was fascinating, while we tromped up onto the ridge in the pouring rain.

We did acknowledge that perhaps we are coming from a different perspective than many, Pepi made a remark like; "Just two crazy athletes jabbering on about discipline while hiking through freezing rain for hours while everyone else is inside." I noted that they were either smarter than we were or missing out on the lovely sensation of hiking in the rain with good company. Pepi unscrewed his thermos and we enjoyed a mug of steaming milky tea under the umbrella of some pine trees after gaining the small summit.

These days, Pepi is touring more than skiing in-bounds, the footage I've seen of him skiing, in Olympic Holiday and in Dick Barrymore's "Last of the Ski Bums" was all of him hucking himself off of huge cornices in leather boots. Pepi could go big. I love to watch these films, his ability to carry the line without reaching for the landing, his willingness to live in the air is breathtaking.

When the snow flies again, you can bet I'll be knocking on his door. We made some tentative plans to go ski around in the Beartooths next season, and tour around Colorado a bit in the spring as well. Fingers crossed, I have a new ski buddy, we move at about the same pace, and we both like to hike in the rain.

It was an honor and a privilege and a thrill to hike along side him, and even better to realize hes another friend, someone who wants to live his life outside, share it with his kids, kill his tv, and share his tea.

Girl Clothes in Jackson Hole, The Teton Bouldering Project inspires skirt wearing and fund raising

Tonight, I went out to the Performing Arts venue in Jackson Hole with my new friend, Bill Briggs, to see the movie 180 Degrees South.

I wasn't really sure what to expect, I didn't know what the movie was going to be about, just that Bill asked me to go, and that Yvon Chuinard would be introducing the film. That was good enough for me.

I decided to scrounge up some girl clothes, since I only brought ski gear and dirty jeans to Jackson. I headed over to the thrift store here to see if I could find a skirt and a nice pair of flip flops to wear to this shindig, but the store was closed.

Counting my money carefully, so far, its on'y cost me $27 to be in Jackson Hole for three days, I decided to head over to the Teton Mountaineering, since I hadn't been in yet, and I do like to visit the mountain shop in whatever town I'm bumming around in. (By he way, thanks, Nato for letting me sleep in your guest room, these are luxury diggs! It beats the heck out of sleeping in my Suby (although that's fun, too...))

I finally settled on my first ever Patagonia dress, comfortable, flattering, only $65. I ran around town trying to find a cheap pair of comfy heels to wear with my new girl clothes, a very tall order in Jackson, and finally, with about 20 minutes till the movie started, I found the perfect pair for about $30. It took some looking. I changed in the shoe store, wiped the hiking dirt off my legs with a paper towel while the shoe store girl laughed at me, put my hair in a clip I found at a souvenir shop for about $5 and and went headed on over to the event.

I wasn't sure how I was going to find Bill with the phones off, and I didn't know anyone else in town, but I figured, what the hell, the movie is bound to be good. It turns out I was overdressed, but I didn't really care, I so rarely put on a skirt and feel feminine that I enjoyed the hell out of it.

I found Bill almost immediately, and he brought me over to introduce me to some of his friends. I found myself standing in a small group of people having a conversation about how it was hard to climb when you are in your 70s, and so these guys are spending more time fly fishing. Arthritis in the fingers makes it painful to spend much time on rock. I suggested that they get on that new self healing soft fake ice inside, (I was KIDDING), and that of course is like suggesting that if you can't hike anymore you should go watch IMAX movies about wildflowers.

These guys need to be outside just like we all do, and leaving a part of your life that has been so essential for so long has to be painful. It was cool to hear that there is life after climbing, which they've found in fly-fishing and surfing.

It turns out I was talking with Yvon Chouinard, the founder of Patagonia, and a legendary climber, and the event organizer, Christian Beckwith, the erstwhile founder of Alpinist Magazine, who is now up to his eyeballs in all sorts of new ventures, including the Teton Boulder Project.

I asked Yvon about the film, and he told me that he and his friend Doug (Tompkins, founder of The North Face) had taken a trip to Chile in 1968 and filmed it, and this young guy Jeff had found the footage and wanted to reproduce the trip. Doug and Yvon ended up becoming a part of Jeff's journey, and the result was a really wonderful film. Yvon said he hadn't planned on getting so involved, and in the end, he found himself climbing on camera yet again.

It was a treat to chat with Yvon, I loved to hear his stories, and it gave me an idea about cataloging all these amazing off the cuff stories that I'm hearing from so many people, from Cal Cantrell, to Mike Hickey, to Weems, to Bill Briggs, to Pepi, to my own ski partners, Alisa, Angela, Kurt... we all have these stories of adventure. So there is this thing percolating in my mind... stay tuned...

Anyhow, it was a wonderful night, they raised a bunch of money for the Teton Boulder Project, which will be the largest outdoor artificial bouldering in North America here in Jackson Hole.



This is a truly revolutionary community project, it reminds me of a lot of projects like this that tried for years to get off the ground in Southern California, and its wonderful to see it coming to fruition here in Jackson, really a central home of the birth of American Alpinism.

When you get to meet your hero. Lunch with Bill Briggs.

A few years ago, I was hanging out with my friend Selko here in Jackson Hole, climbing around in the pass, and just kind of rediscovering that I loved tromping around in the mountains, and also discovering that doing it on skis was really quite fun.

One night, he asked me if I'd seen the movie Steep, which had just come out the year before. I hadn't, I actually hadn't seen any ski movies, not even a single Warren Miller film at that point, and realized that maybe it was time to start being a bit more embarrased about that.

Selko was great, very encouraging, pointing me to lots of books and resources, sketching in some history for me, especially in Ski Racing, so that I could go fill in the blanks with more research. I pestered him quite a bit with questions, and his patience and willingness to point me in the right direction was immensely helpful.

We sat down to watch the film, and one of the first people who speaks is a man named Bill Briggs. He is immediately engaging, one look at his boyish smiling face made me wish I knew him. I listened to his story with a sense of growing awe, not only because the feat he accomplished, that of skiing the Grand Teton before anyone in the US had even considered such a thing, was so amazing, but because he spoke from a place of quiet passion.

This was no rabid insane "no fear" extreme dude. This was a man who loved the mountains, and who wasn't held back by ideas of what could and could not be done. His glee at experiencing life was palpable.

I sat there, in Selkos office in front of the computer watching this film, and realized quite suddenly that I was crying. Not crying. Weeping. I was uncontrollably snotting all over myself, and I couldn't stop.

I had never heard anyone express what I had been feeling in my heart for so long. I felt as though Bill Briggs was reading not my mind, but my spirit, and saying the words out loud. I felt, for the very first time, like I was understood.

Selko was kind, I was so far gone, I couldn't even be shocked or mortified that I was crying all over the place, he looked at me and said something like, "Its okay, Kate. I understand how you feel. Its strange to have someone say what you are feeling, isn't it?"

Bill said so many wonderful and profound and simple truths, but one of the things that I've used in my own training, in real time, was the statement that after climbing the whole mountain, the second part of which he had to do by himself, as his partners were too afraid to continue, and skiing back down for five and a half hours, when he reached the valley floor, he said:

"And I reached the valley floor and I'm really tired." I laughed so hard when he said that. What an understatement. I don't think I'll ever say I'm tired again, I thought. I don't know that I've ever actually been tired, now that I think about it.

And now, when I hike around, or I'm training, I hear Bill's voice in my head, happily reporting, "I'm really tired." And because of that, I keep climbing.

I discovered after I came home to Bozeman that Bill is still in Jackson Hole, he's the director of the Snow King resort there. I emailed him because I was making a series of inspirational t-shirts, hoping to raise some money for my own training, and I wanted to make one about Bill. He agreed, and I sent him one as a thank you.

Since then, we've been occasionally emailing, and today, I actually met him.

I came up to Jackson to spend a couple of days while the boys are visiting with their dad, and I thought, what better to do than to continue my quest of filling in ideas on the history of skiing, and saying thank you by listening to those who have lived their lives in this sport.

I met Bill at the Virginian restaraunt, and I have to tell you, I was scared! I sat in my car for about ten minutes before I went in. Now I had a hunch that we'd be fine, find lots of things to talk about, but I wasn't sure. What if it didn't go well? What if he didn't want to talk about skiing and that's all we had in common? What if I asked him all questions that he'd been asked before? What if he didn't like me? What if I didn't like him?!

I seriously considered calling in sick, and then I took a good look at myself. Sitting inside and expecting you, Kate, is a man who inspired an entire nation to go outside and play in the snow. You will GET YOUR BUTT IN THERE and at least say hello.

I plucked up my courage and went in. I wasn't sure that I'd recognize him, and I asked the young kid at the counter, "I'm supposed to meet someone, I'm not sure, he might be here... his name is Bill?" I said, a bit appologetic. The kid looked at me, surprised.

"Bill Briggs? Sure, he's right over here." He took me over to where Bill was sitting, working on his latest project, and Bill stood up and that beautiful, contageous smile lit up his face.

"Hi, Kate!" he said, enthusiastically, and put his hand out. I couldn't help it, I felt like I've known him so long, and I felt like he knows me so well, that I forgot to be scared and I gave him a hug. We sat down and got right to it.

"What are you working on?" I began to ask him questions, and then I had the undeniable privaledge of sitting and listening to the answers. Bill is, unsuprisingly, an incredibly intelligent, engaging dreamer, who tells wonderful stories and has that giddy glee about him all the time.

I got to hear stories of his travels in France, of his journey through the unraveling of ski technique, of his thought process as he looks for new movements in skiing over the years, and his thoughts on what hasn't changed over the years.

We talked about Georges Joubert, as I'm finishing up "How to Ski the New French Way", written in the 60s, about what movement is, and how to teach it, talk about it and ski it.

Bill is currently producing a series of DVDs on Rhythmics in skiing, a fascinating grid of movements with the emphasis on getting that sensation of repeatable, rhytmic movement early on in skiing. It reminds me a bit of PSIA's movement matrix, but its broken down in a very interesting way.

For instance, in what circumstances would you make a long, slow turn? Some of the answers Bill came up with were: On easy groomed green terrain, if you are a low intermediate skier and haven't yet developed the ability to steer your skis when they are also edged, when you are learning to carve, if you are in very deep powder, if you are on straight skis, and if your heel is free.

What I love about this grouping is that there are all kinds of factors that come down to the common denominator of the long turn, from gear to snow to ability to understanding. Grouping movements in this way makes a through line or common thread that is easy to follow, and opens doors for rapid improvement!

It was a fascinating discussion, and he gave me one of the DVDs, which I can't wait to bring home to study with my MA group!

Bill also had brought some things to show me, and I was surprised and very flattered that he'd done this. He was inducted into the Ski hall of fame last year, and I got to hold his meadal, heavy, and beautiful, it was really something to put my hands on. He was proud of it, and I could feel that pride in the medal itself. I wasn't ready to put it back in the box when it was time to go, there was a lifetime of positive achievement hanging on that ribbon.

When I read his Ski Hall of Fame induction, I found out, of course, that he had done so much more than just skied the Grand. He was also the first person to do a modern ski descent of Mt. Rainer. And when I had the great pleasure of walking around the town of Jackson Hole with him later that afternoon, I got to hear the story of what he thought would be the last mountain he would ever climb, his surgery after that climb, and his remarkable recovery.

I'm eager to write more about that story, but Its now very late, and I have to get some sleep as tomorrow, I get to climb up SnowKing with Pepi Stiegler and pester him for some stories. Then, I'll get to meet Bill at the 180 Degrees South film event at the performing arts center tomorrow night, which I'll tell you all about!

The adventure continues!!

OH did I mention he was wearing the T-Shirt? I couldn't believe it, I was so excited and flattered that I got all flustered and couldn't ask him if I could take his picture while he was wearing it. I'll ask again tomorrow. :-)

BASE jump off Cajun Couloir

Ahhhh, watching what went in to getting this started is really great, I love to see that he rapells down on it, checks it out, looks at it from all angles, and then finally goes for it. Patience and smarts pays off!

The Best Movie I've Ever Seen, and A Truly Amazing Day on the Snow

Click here to watch the trailer.
One of the funny things about being totally new to skiing is that I have SO much to learn! Its pretty amazing, every single day I learn a HEAP of stuff that I didn't know before. And I understand skiing in a totally different way at the end of almost every day. I am so totally enthralled by this, and here in Jackson, I am just steeped in skiing history.

For the last few days I've been skiing with Jonathan Selkowitz, who I met at Demo Team Tryouts this year. As we've been touring around in the Teetons, he's been telling me the incredible history of Jackson Hole and the people who have really shaped skiing here. One of Jonathan's good friends was a man named Doug Coombs. now, because I am a total neophyte here, I had no idea who Doug was.

Over the last three days, I feel like I've actually gotten to know Doug a little bit through Jonathan's stories. Then, last night, we watched the movie STEEP for the first time, which features Doug and his wife, who pioneered Big Mountain Skiing in Valdez, Alaska in the 1990s. I am just barely beginning to realize how beholden I am to this amazing man for being so giving with his love of skiing out of the resorts.

Most sports are very elitist at their highest level, and for Doug to have been so excited about how he felt when he was skiing, that he wanted to share it with anyone who wanted to try it is just truly giving and pioneering. I think it shows a tremendous example of the fact that the mountains don't "belong" to anyone in particular. That if you love them, you should come and play with other people who love them, too.

This has been my experience so far learning to ski. Everywhere I go, people seem excited to share their favorite experiences, to help me and teach me and show me how to do it better, and safer, and to have more fun. There is no exclusion, just new friends, good friends, and skiing. And I thank Doug for that.

I have to tell you, quite to my total shock, I cried through most of the movie. Like, bawled uncontrollably. We had to pause it so I could find something to wipe my face on so I could see the screen. GOOBER. But here's the thing: something about the way these people talk about living in the mountains, and what its like to feel alive, and to know the mountains are alive, and what it feels like to make a turn, and another, and to ski something steep and challenging that requires so much individual focus...

I felt like someone understood me. I felt this overwhelming feeling of calmness, like other people could describe what it was that I was feeling, and I felt so very happy to know that there were more people out there who feel the same way, I'm not strange or different.

I dreamt about skiing all night, fell asleep skiing the lines from the movie in my head and woke up understanding something about movement on steep terrain in a fundamentally different way. I feel like something is happening to me. I woke up excited and still skiing, and knew, just felt that it would be a phenomenal day.

I woke up this morning at 5:45, rolled out of bed and straight into my ski pants and a tank top. I stood up and the first thing I put on was my avalanche beacon and checked the batteries. I grabbed my backpack and headed down the stairs, pulling my hair back on the way. I was eager eager eager to eat well, look at the mountains in the early morning light from the dining room table, and get hiking. It felt like a rhythem, the third day in a row, familiar with what the peaks looked like around me, excited to put my feet on them where they haven't been yet, excited to feel the skis turn under me, excited to ski in the sunshine with new friends.

The morning felt easily methodical, calm and happy, and we all piled our gear in the truck and headed up the pass. There wasn't a car in the parking lot, and I feared that it was just too warm, we wouldn't be able to do it. But we made the call to go up and look, with some bale out options, and sure enough the snow was firm all the way to the top.

I hiked much faster than I usually do, and it was all bootpacking today, up Glory Mountain again, then across the ridge a ways out to the Great White Hump.

I felt full of energy, just like I could hike all day long, and I felt so strong on my skis, solid, happy, present, focused, and I skied over my feet rather than behind them, and it was easy, fun, light... and I had so much fun playing in the variable snow...

It was a really magical day, with great company: Bob Peterson, who I met on Epic Ski, and his wife Ruthi, who rips, Mike Maples a ski instructor from Jackson, Jonathan and I. The snow was just firm enough to make some amazing turns in the sunshine, Ruthie and I sang out "WE ARE THE CHAMPIONS" from the top of the Great White Hump, it was such a great day and the group had such great energy that Jonathan couldn't help but ski around in circles on the corn snow.

This leads me to Perfect Moments, which are a post of their very own, but that will have to come AFTER our windsurfing adventure this afternoon!!

If you have to talk on the phone...

THIS is the way to do it. Took a beautiful walk down the bike path, then poached the long grass on the golf course, laid down under the Osprey nest and answered my phone calls. Ahhhh... Jackson is magnificent! Time to go cook a batch of most excellent vegi spaghetti, watch STEEP for the first time ever (the education of Kate continues) and then make a plan for the ski tomorrow. The current thought is that the snow in Corbett's will be too funky, so all KINDS of options are being floated now. Depends on how much it freezes.