Down the Drainage

Over the weekend J and John and Brian and Katie and I headed for a relaxing ski-/snowshoe-in weekend in an undisclosed yurt in an undisclosed Utah mountain range.

We had two options for reaching the yurt: a) skiing on a closed and pretty much idiot-proof road or b) a short pleasant ski on a trail followed by a long bushwhack up a creek drainage. Needless to say, we chose the latter. Humans are incorrigible optimists, and thus, regardless of how many times in the past John had turned a pleasant stroll into a white-knuckle adventure, we trusted him when he wrote in an email just before we left:

"I'm not seeing a coffee shop in XXX ... how about let's meet at 1:00 PM at the bridge where XXX Highway crosses the XXX? This should get us to the yurt before dark with plenty of margin for error."

Flash forward, pictured here, to said margin of error circa 6:30 p.m. Friday (hint: we haven't arrived at the yurt yet): 

I'm all for the time-honored tradition of finding a supreme and properly short pre-trail espresso, but maybe instead of worrying about that we should have spent a little time with the map. 

But actually, if you're wondering why we seem so happy in the above photo, this is because it captured the best moment of the trip: the instant when we reached the path on the way to the yurt and thus finally knew for sure that we weren't going to spend the night in the woods walking 50 minutes per hour to prevent frostbite (says the guy who has already had frostbite). John was so happy that he shotgunned a beer before proceeding. Let's just say that we had a little more adventure than we bargained for.

The afternoon had started out with a beautiful ski. Though maybe, as shown by his expression here in the parking lot, John might have had a sense things would go awry from the outset.

After a mile or so of actually kicking and gliding it was time to leave the trail and switch from skis to snowshoes. No problem so far, especially after a WheatThinspause, to invent a German word.

As you can tell, J is accustomed to stopping for Wheat Thins in strange places. The slog went fine for a while, until it dawned on us that breaking track on snowshoes is hard work -- despite the relatively poor snow year, it was over a foot deep in most places and at some points up to J's waist -- and especially when some of us were carrying very heavy telemark skis. And especially when we were bushwhacking up steep hills full of crappy brush and small trees. When we turned off the trail, we were only about 3/4ths of a mile from our destination, but, after establishing a pace of about a half-hour per tenth of a mile, it was pretty clear we weren't going to make it in by nightfall. Of course, there are advantages to staying out on the trail too late ...

After a bit farther we made the decision to ditch our skis, which at least gave us the chance of sleeping before midnight. Look, J and I love winter hiking with headlamps and full packs carrying skis somewhat lost as much as anyone (it's hard with a GPS to be really lost, of course), but the low-point was definitely the scramble up one last steep, snow-free hill -- but at least here we learned that snowshoes are pretty effective on mud. Sometimes the best laid plans do down the drain(age) ... Finally, however, we reached the awesomeness (pictured the next morning).

And it's funny how steaks and quadruple ales in a yurt can make up for almost anything.

The steaks were tremendous. Not sure what John was reacting to here. 

It's also funny that the yurt had a disco ball.

Dirty socks and smoky air always make for good photos.

It's also funny -- or tragic -- that the biggest downside of the weekend ended up being not bushwhacking with headlamps in the cold but the unbelievably poor sleeping conditions. It seemed on the surface that the bunks had nice pads on them, but these pads turned out to be the hardest surface known to humans -- I think they were 1970s foam mattresses left to freeze in the yurt for 40 years. Between the rock-hard pads, and the resultant incessant human shuffling, and the snoring, and the temperature vacillating between 75 and 19 degrees (the latter when the fire went out), "this might be the worst night's sleep of the century," as I announced at 12:45, maybe 9 minutes after falling asleep for the first time, an hour before screaming, in response to John's snoring, "Hit him!", three hours before, bizarrely, I successfully and instantaneously shut John up with the simple command "John, stop snoring!", four hours before J said "the whole left side of my body is asleep, but the right isn't," and five hours before John said "I can feel every rib in my body." How strange and bad were the pads? Katie decided that she preferred to sleep on the floor, under the table. As she moved from the pad to the floor, Brian left the yurt -- and when he returned, apparently I asked in all seriousness, "Is that a moose at the door?" Later when I turned on my headlamp, Katie asked similarly whether there was a car outside.

The next morning, the men chivalrously set out to retrieve the skis. I mean, how manly is it when three guys stare at a GPS screen to make sure they don't get lost, and one guy points optimistically in the general direction to be taken? 

Speaking of groups of men, soon after we headed out we came across two surprisingly social male moose (sorry, small camera only).

Luckily the skis were no worse for the wear.

At this point, John could no longer take it, so he bailed back to his car via the flats, while Brian and I set out on the last bushwhack up to the yurt.

At this point, we had the option of a) another sleepless night, albeit in a gorgeous setting or b) an easy ski down the road, an espresso, a stop at a smoked trout shop, a warm restaurant, and what became, as predicted, no exaggeration, a 12-hour sleep at home. We chose b. The weather changed during the ski from snowstorm to too sunny for good photos. 

It was unfortunate that Katie missed the moose in the woods, but the restaurant made up for that.

After trudging up those hills in the snow, we have new-found respect for moose -- and a new aversion to the word drainage.

The Entry With No Theme

Happy 2014 everyone.

Well, I made it to 43 entries last year. I didn't quite reach my goal, which was 52 -- Sam says that in order to be worth its salt, a blog needs to average an entry a week -- but at least I'm ahead of that pace so far this year, even if I can't think of a theme for this one beyond "what I've been up to the past few weeks."

I don't remember a lot from early December, though I remember the holiday colors.

Tallgrass Brewery has a fun open house every so often where one can wander around the brewery and drink. It's like a little bit of Portland in Manhattan. Not sure what Carla was holding me back from.

 

Velvet Rooster is my current Tallgrass favorite, though Brent's Belgian is just as good (and 8-Bit is pretty good, too). Forget about 99 bottles of beer on the wall. Think 9900 cans of beer on the wall.

Arriving in Salt Lake meant endless delectable Italian cookies by J.

And the Christmas week meant cioppino with the Maloneys, Sam and Carla's butternut squash and sage tart (pictured) with the Regehrs, puzzles with the Berrys, the absurdly decorated house in the Aves (what pollution?), and -- new baby alert! -- brunch with Ben.

But it was also time to get serious ... at least about the one and only skating race I'll do this season. As a training dork, I was extremely curious about how I'd do in the 15K given I haven't been running (whereas last ski season I was coming off the marathon). TUNA seemed to be all-knowing, however, as they seeded me and Gary right after one another ...

and, in fact, Gary and I finished right after one another. (Remember Senator Paul Simon and his bow tie? I am proud to wear the TUNA Lycra racing suit with the fish on it ...) More precisely, I doggedly pursued Gary during the final kilometer and then took him in a sprint during the final 100 meters, leaving the throngs of fans speechless (and look, who's counting the fact that he started two minutes after me?). The short answer to how I did was ... about the same as last year. My fitness was much worse -- all those running intervals do in fact do something -- but my skiing was better, thanks to West Yellowstone and Laurie, our former Olympian guru. Now the truncated classic race season starts.

While we're talking about ski racing, how cool is that an American male -- Simi Hamilton -- won a World Cup race for the first time in 30 years, with two bad ass moves in the final 30 seconds to boot? The EuroSport announcers suggested, correctly I think, that the margin of difference was shaving his Movember stache. Kristen and Jay, show Will the final starting at about 38:30:

http://vimeo.com/83061607

I miss Switzerland. Martin, do you have any friends in Lenzerheide we could stay with?

photo credit: noahhoffman.com, a great blog with tons of European dessert porn

I'm willing to go out on a limb and claim that the air in Lenzerheide is cleaner than ours even if, once in a while, we can muster a decent sunset.

Photo credit: John Regehr

Um, it's not like our esteemed legislators can't see the inversions

If anyone is frustrated by national politics and wants to do something local, head on over to Breath Utah. 

Sorry for the boring entry ... if J were the blogger, she could tell you about private showings of Winslow Homer paintings in Bermuda.

But you're stuck with me. Still, I promise in an interesting announcement soon.

Chicago to SLC to West (Yellowstone)

Thanksgiving brought an extended road trip. The first stop was Chicago for the Social Science History Association meetings, where, unfortunately, unlike in past years, I didn't run into the Swedish demographer who studies the comparative efficiency of various farm arrangements in eighteenth-century Sweden -- and, I swear, looks and sounds just like the Swedish chef from the Muppets. Canadian friends, the Swedish Chef also makes poutine here.

It was also unfortunate that, outside of my panel, I didn't participate much in the conference (besides giving my first-ever 90-second speech, to award a book prize). I was too busy finishing (I think) the Hoover Essay That Would Not End. I used to say that American history is so short that we Americanists deal in months, not years, but at this point I know the history of Hoover's policies from the October 1929 stock market crash through his stupid tax increase proposal in December 1931 week by week. Writing this essay made me even more obsessed with 2007-2010 -- and obsessed with the fact that Obama's entire presidency has been irrationally shaped by the 2010 elections he lost (which subsequently led to all the gerrymandering) in large measure because he pursued a policy -- a large fiscal stimulus -- desired (in large measure because of the ghost of Hoover's failures) by the vast majority of economists across the political spectrum (a policy largely begun by Bush; remember TARP?). Example: in 2009, economist Martin Feldstein, formerly chair of Ronald Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisers -- Reagan's CEA! -- testified before Congress: “While fixing the credit markets is necessary for sustained economic growth, it will not bring the economy back to full employment. Because monetary policy is not effective, reviving the economy requires a major fiscal stimulus from tax cuts and increased government spending. It pains me to say that because I am a fiscal conservative who dislikes budget deficits and increases in government spending.” Sigh. Lydia, what was he like in class?

I may have hit the wall on gastropubs in Chicago. The pork belly and egg sandwich at Revolutionary Brewing was delicious, if a cliche. But note to Owen and Engine, where I caught up with my college roommate Jason (and sorry Lydia, I forgot to mention that there's a restaurant by this name): it's fine that you make a decent pretzel, but your chicken wings are average at best, and above all, if it's so damn cold in the restaurant that you admit it's cold and have a space heater where we sat, for pete's sake, buy a ^%$# heater that puts out more heat.

I did have a nice view from the room in Chicago, though. There was a very tall building near us.

Salt Lake was just a quick layover, but gave us enough time for dinner with Kristin and Jason and Will and Allison (sadly not pictured), and dinner with Sarah and John and Jonas and Issac at our regular stomping ground, La-Cai Noodle House.

From there we hit the road to "West," as our local Nordic shop instructed us to call West Yellowstone. Here the goal was the iconic Rendezvous Trails. In one word -- perfect. The snows had come the week before, leaving this:

Thanksgiving at West is an alternative, Nordic skiing-centric universe. A large part of the community from across the country takes over the place. The results can be pretty unusual.

Thanksgiving dinner at a church with Jen and Dru and Ewan and Reese and the rest of TUNA, our SLC ski club, was a lot of fun. Everyone seemed surprised by how much food I took, but the plates were pretty small. The best part was Epic in Hammer cups ...  and Bonnie's pumpkin bars.

Sorry, no picture of Dru running the logistics of the clean-up ... and of the high-school kids outsourcing their labor to Reese.

It's important on Thanksgiving to help out those who've had a rough go of it.

JUST KIDDING Dru. That's a thumbs-down comment, and actually, I was sorry I didn't do more for Movember (not that anyone would want to see that). All the leading Nordic racers in town were rocking seriously good porn star stashes.

The American West is a big place, and yet we keep running into Sean and Gillian there. Amazing.

Look, I'm fully aware that the hat is absurd. But it's a World Championships thing.

West can be a pretty bleak place even when above freezing ...

 ... but you should have seen the place on Sunday morning, when we were making a break for it with a snowstorm and -28-degree temperatures on the way. Of course, one can only make a fast getaway in the snow properly caffeinated ... which in West means this place. Nordic store + coffee bar = way-station to Paradise.

 Visibility on the way home was a little iffy.