Tag: dirtbag

Best laid plans

I take considerable pleasure from meticulously planning my next outing—I’ve more than once been called anal-retentive—but you don’t need a fancy headquarters to do it. Some of my best arrangements have been made at dive bars, discussed in vacant classrooms, sussed out around a friend’s kitchen table, daydreamed from my desk at work, or, on occasions that required it, reworked from a soggy tent as Plan A fell to pieces.

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When I was in junior high, my school had a thirty-minute period after lunch each day earmarked for reading quietly. As a general rule, I struggled at this point in my life (and also now) to be quiet or sit still, but this wasn’t an issue for me during Charles O. Moore Middle School’s dedicated “Read & Relax” time. Most days, I’d settle in at my desk and pull out the same book I’d read cover to cover untold dozens of times. Continue reading “Best laid plans” →

Who’s rooting for you?

“Did you send it???” My text message whooshes into the vast internet netherworld. Seconds later, I’m greeted by the familiar dancing ellipsis, and the anticipation builds as I wait for my friend Pat to tell me if he’s finally sent Sonic Youth, a route described on Mountain Project as “one of Clear Creek’s best climbs.”

EmmaLeave a comment

“Did you send it???”

My text message whooshes into the vast internet netherworld. Seconds later, I’m greeted by the familiar dancing ellipsis, and the anticipation builds as I wait for my friend Pat to tell me if he’s finally sent Sonic Youth, a route described on Mountain Project as “one of Clear Creek’s best climbs.” Continue reading “Who’s rooting for you?” →

Kicking the Seasonal Avoidance Disorder habit: How I learned to love my favorite places all year long

We rented bikes and took the lifts to the top, from whence we careened back down the mountain on trails hidden all winter by feet of snow. The runs I’d skied so many times looked different, shed of their cold-weather clothing, but not at all unpleasant. It had never occurred to me that there was more to this place than the way I saw it between December and March, that there were nearly 2,500 acres of unexplored terrain beneath the mountain’s annual 300” of snowfall. It had never occurred to me that Copper Mountain had layers.

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I grew up skiing at Copper Mountain, a resort at the edge of I-70 just shy of Vail Pass. I skied there dozens of times every winter in college, and I could’ve recited the runs accessed by each lift from memory or told you exactly how to get from Super Bee to Spaulding Bowl and back again. I knew when, on any given lift, to look for the tree adorned with Mardi Gras beads and discarded bras—that ski area staple—and that I had precisely four-and-a-half minutes to choke down the disfigured peanut butter sandwich in my pocket before the American Flyer quad deposited me at the top of my favorite run.

I thought I knew Copper Mountain pretty well. Continue reading “Kicking the Seasonal Avoidance Disorder habit: How I learned to love my favorite places all year long” →

A dirtbag’s guide to self-selected families

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Thanksgiving was never a really big deal in my family, which is perhaps part of the reason that—despite gluttony being my favorite deadly sin—I’ve never felt strongly about it one way or another.

Continue reading “A dirtbag’s guide to self-selected families” →