Im almost 30. in like, 4 months I will be 30 years old. I didn't think it was going to be a big deal but it has been manifesting itself lately. It is interesting how when a guy reaches these mile stones he needs to feel reashured that his life has relavance, that he isn't just taking up precious space on his planet. We measure ourselves against the storries of successess around us and always come back feeling insuficient. In the wake of this dissatisfaction we frequently seek drastic change in a last ditch effort to claim the prestige, sucess, dignity, or relavance we think has been withheld from us.
Lately I've been fantacising about mounteneering, ski mountaneering to be more specific. I have been climbing mountains in order to ski down them since I was 13 or 14. My parents used to drive Trent and I (my best friend and climbing partner) into Turnaigain and Summit Pass before we were old enough to drive. They would wait hours in the car while we climbed. In those days it was all in the name of fresh powder, as the years progressed we began watch ski movies and dreamed of laying the typ of lines down like we saw on the television. We dreamed of throwing monster back flips off of 60ft cliffs, but as I get older I realize I was never going to be a Seth Morrison or a Tanner Hall. It was time for a pradigm shift.
Instead of pushing myself to do bigger cliffs, faster lines, and fancier tricks, I resolved to sit back and just enjoy the sport of backcountry skiing. No need to endanger my well being for a good looking line that would just be erased by the next snowfall.... right? I will enjoy each turn for what it is, a well earned trench through a blancket of white, momentary weightlessness as my body shifts its balance for the next turn. Well,that worked for a while.
3 weeks ago my buddy Trent came up to Anchorage. The idea was we would ski Flat Top mountain. A very popular mountain in terms of traffic from hikers, cross country skiers, dog walkers, etc. Sitting right on the edge of town with its back in the chugach, Flat Top has seen more hikers than probably any other mountain in alaska. We decided it was about time we skied it. Flat top doesnt hold snow very well due to the high winds gernerated by the Turnagain arm that sweep through Anchorage at higher elevations, so it was very cautiously and gingerly that trent and I picked our way up through the rocks toward the summit. As we neared the top, 2 chutes to the left revealed themselves as the best skiable options. These chutes were steep, very steep and exposed. Trent climbed into one to dig a pit in order to check the snow consitancey. We noticed that the snow inside the chute had been deposited there by various wind storms making the snow pack veriable and inconsistant. We also noticed there was only about 600 ft of skiable snow untill the chute opened up into steep broken rock. A fall here could be fatal.
Looking down into one of these chutes is very diffrent than looking up at one. You can't see the ground, it's to steep. You can only see the sharp rocks being puked out the bottom some 600ft below. It isnt untill you've rolled over that lip and are now committed to getting down that you can see the terrain you have to deal 
with. As I dropped in I was carefull to keep all my weight on the edges of my skis and keep my weight toward the mountain. Jump-turning around my uphill ski, I made calculated turns down through that chute. The Jump turn is easy.... except when terrain demands you use it. It requires both skis to come off the ground and the skier to perform a pseudo 180 and come down sollidly on the edges of his skies. On a 55 degree slope a skier will fall about 6ft with each turn. And trust me, when you're clinging to the edge of a narrow chute like that with nothing to stop you but sharp rock 600ft below you, the last thing you want do is to take your skies off the ground. As I picked my way down I began to pick up some sluff. Slopes that steep rarely avalanche but rather constantly sluff off. The sluff behind me was building up and I could feel it pushing me down so I traversed to the side and let it by. I came to a stop 50 ft shy of the exposed broken rock below and watched Trent pick his way down. It was then I realized I had been in a constant state of mild adrenaline for about 3 min. I looked up at the chute I had skied and felt a sense of accomplishement I had not felt in a while. We climbed up and skied the next shoot as well.
with. As I dropped in I was carefull to keep all my weight on the edges of my skis and keep my weight toward the mountain. Jump-turning around my uphill ski, I made calculated turns down through that chute. The Jump turn is easy.... except when terrain demands you use it. It requires both skis to come off the ground and the skier to perform a pseudo 180 and come down sollidly on the edges of his skies. On a 55 degree slope a skier will fall about 6ft with each turn. And trust me, when you're clinging to the edge of a narrow chute like that with nothing to stop you but sharp rock 600ft below you, the last thing you want do is to take your skies off the ground. As I picked my way down I began to pick up some sluff. Slopes that steep rarely avalanche but rather constantly sluff off. The sluff behind me was building up and I could feel it pushing me down so I traversed to the side and let it by. I came to a stop 50 ft shy of the exposed broken rock below and watched Trent pick his way down. It was then I realized I had been in a constant state of mild adrenaline for about 3 min. I looked up at the chute I had skied and felt a sense of accomplishement I had not felt in a while. We climbed up and skied the next shoot as well. In the days to come I played those runs over and over in my mind reherasing the turns I had made, the turns I should have made and my mind began to drift toward bigger and better things. Long story short, now I have the itch to climb/ski some big mountains. Mountains Like Redoubt and Spurr have always teased me with their presance looming over the cook inlet. Acessable only by boat or airplane, they are not easily gotten to. They are also not the sort of mountains one can climb by just jumping in a boat and walking to the top. Both are volcanos, and both are over 10,000 feet and peppered with cravass strewn glaciers. Getting up would be a slow technical climb.
I am not nieve enouge to think I will be be ready to climb one of these monsters in the near future. There is equipent to buy, lessons to learn, stories to hear, skills to perfect and a good amount of climbing inbetween. So for now I will concern myself with these while I bide my time waiting for the chance to ski a giant.
It's a good day when a man averts breaking his near thirty year old bones on near thirty year old (plus a few) mountain regurgitated rocks. Nice read.
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