When I last reconstructed my knee in 2006, I was fresh off a previous injury and furious over the loss of two back-to-back seasons. I went into surgery sad, rehabbed in anger, and came back to sports scared; my knee had nothing but bad energy going into it from day one.

Of course, bad energy can’t stay in you for too long. I postponed it for five years, but the release finally came last week; a small drop starved for snow and the bones of my leg slipped over each other in that sickening, familiar way. I curled into the slope and screamed out everything; all the anger, fear, and pain left in that joint. Then I skied down and called Alpine Orthopedics.

Now I have no visible kneecap, three fresh scars and a burly new ACL. My fourth, including the one I was born with. I spent my first lucid day indoors yesterday while my friends flocked to the new snow, and felt once again like some kind of crazed, trapped animal.

But, I don’t feel anger. I don’t feel fear. I feel sad for the lost potential of the next six months, but I’m already creating other things to get excited about. Above all I’m focused on simply pouring as much love into this new joint as I can.

Oh, and hey, I might just give that “biking” sport a try.

I’ve lived in Montana, more or less, for five years now. I’ve loved it and hated it, left and come back- always I come back. I’ve seen a fair bit of it, and whether I’m getting personal with the geology or just passing through, I like to think I’m building a pretty good idea of what this place is about. 

But then there’s always a new bend in the road.

It was the first day of the year, and we drove and drove, passing by ranches and grain silos, stranded-looking cows and battered-looking signs. Just a few hours in a new direction and we found wide horizons and small towns; it was amazing how quickly our music began to sound out of place.

After a while we climbed a pass in search of snow, but we coasted down the other side, still filling couloirs with our imaginations. The terrain was there; the deep pow of our dreams, unfortunately, was not.

Somewhat desperate, we framed a summit with the windshield and decided to get there, pulling over next to some sort of warehouse just outside the town of Neihart, home of Bob’s, the only source of food after 7PM for 45 miles around. A sign outside read “smile dammit, we have wifi!” (but further investigation revealed that they didn’t really.)

Clad in our silly, colorful plastic boots and softshell clothing, we unloaded not haybales or machinery but skis, those subtle, strange, joyous planks, from the back of a car that was otherwise useless by local standards in that it simply could not haul any kind of trailer. As truck after gristled truck rumbled by, I clicked the tab of my toepiece up, grabbed my poles and tried to shake the feeling of opposing realities.

Yet the edge was never far away as we skinned through what was likely someone’s backyard- an old mining road had once been cut into the slope, and the occasional tailing pile punctuated sunsoaked woods. On a ridge at the end of the road we found a deep hole in the hillside and an old cabin, battered yet sturdy; this was not the pristine backcountry environment I’ve gotten used to enjoying. This was once someone’s life.

We climbed on, searching for a summit as the snow thinned and the trees began to look more and more tortured. The wind howled as the sun began to sink, illuminating the low clouds and bathing the prairie in pink. We reached a top, took a breath, ate some licorice and soaked up the view. Then we turned around. 

To say the least, it was a sharky descent from the ridge; the snow was sun crusted, wind buffeted, and shallow. Rocks lurked everywhere, sometimes throwing sparks off our skis in the failing light, and we found that the road, which had been a pleasure to skin up, had became a nice crusty luge for the way down. The snow had an alarming habit of pitching skis and bodies forcefully towards the woods at the slightest chance, so we became very aggressive snow-plowers.

And it was just as our thighs began screaming their loudest that it ended- the luge terminated abruptly, depositing us unceremoniously in a dirty snowbank on the side of the highway. I can only imagine how our headlamps must have looked from the inside of one of those gristled trucks, winking and bobbing our way back into town.

Sometimes simply passing through a space is enough to earn a little perspective, but other times you have to leave the road, gain some altitude, and have an honest look around, in whatever way you know how. Sometimes you don’t see much, and sometimes the return trip’s pretty crappy, but somehow it’s still, weirdly, worth it.

Sometimes my family did the Church thing which, although agonizingly dull, provided a nice contrast to the orgy of shredded paper it usually preceded. Something about Christmas always made a little quiet reflection seem like a good idea, but we were always what you’d call seasonally religious, preferring a long day skiing to any gathering indoors for our spiritual fix.

As years passed and my passion for accumulating random gifts began to fade, this pagan(ish) tradition did just the opposite, becoming more and more of our annual focus. A mellow day spent outside with my family came to mean Christmas more than the pendulum swings of religious boredom and materialistic euphoria; eventually fresh snow became the sole gift on my list.

Then came this year, my first Christmas without my family. It was weird enough not to see them, and between nonstop shifts at work and the complete lack of snow, it was a bit of a struggle to create any kind of festive feeling. My man is the kind of person who will bake three batches of Christmas cookies and then build a tree out of dead sticks – but despite his best efforts and all the Linus and Lucy we could handle, Christmas just wasn’t coming.

So we went back to our mutually pagan roots on Christmas Eve and dreamed up a climbing and skiing adventure big enough to bring us both some holiday spirit. At this point I’ve read enough Alpinist literature to know exactly how I don’t want to relate my adventures, and anyway I’m far too much of a padawan to write about what’s harrowing or what’s mind blowing. You know those things for yourself and I know them for myself. All I can really tell you is that I am beginning my mountain education in earnest, and I’m learning beyond bike racing what it means to get really, really worked. I’m learning how it feels to go to the places people don’t go, how to hold it together once you get there and of course, the ever-valuable art of peeing with a harness and crampons on.

Also- fresh snow still might still be first, but now I can add “sticky ice” and “a rappel in the dark, with skis” to my list. To me those two items, while still somewhat unrelated, look a little better alongside world peace. So here’s to an always-improving list, the gift of knowledge, and creating holidays with people you love. It’s shaping up to be a nice winter.

The way I remember it is that Dessert, with its extra helping of “s,” is the one you always want more of. Desert is more parched. It’s good to keep ‘em straight, although if you find yourself in New Mexico for the holidays, you’ll definitely get hearty portions of both.

Last week I went back to the Southwest for the first time post-bike. The high desert has always been a winter and spring training ground for me, so the trip was not without a little nostalgia. The tableaux of pinion and adobe, the quality of the light and the smell of the air, even the unique pale color of the sky in the morning-all those little deserty things tended to hit me when I least expected them to, and it was with some dismay that I caught my brain more and more often in bike mode.

The thought of riding has made me consistently nauseous since May, but somehow waking up last week felt pointless without a training plan. Raucous quiche breakfasts and holiday baked goods felt wrong when desert mornings (in my mind) have always been reserved for black coffee, oatmeal, and the quiet that comes before a six hour ride. My hands suddenly didn’t know what to do without a bike to maintain; my legs twitched a lot.

But what I found beneath my inner antsy was exactly what I’d been missing as a racer. Like a speedboat skimming the surface of every place I visited, when I was training I didn’t tend to find a lot of depth; all surfaces feel the same under your tires if you go fast enough. Yet finally, with a little time to actually look around, as well as some actual Southwest residents to show me the ropes, I got a chance to taste a few new layers of desert.

We started off the week with a bike tour on the banks of the “mighty” Rio Grand, though it was like no ride I’ve done in the last year. Wearing grins, sneakers and nothing resembling spandex or helmets, we ripped through bermed, rabbitty trails and ducked low hanging branches, spraying each other with dirt and leaves, v-brakes squealing. It was the almost-forgotten feeling of riding for the sake of riding, now with the added bonus of a deep-fried turkey feast afterwards.

Oh, you’ve never seen a turkey deep-fried? It takes two beers to heat the oil and three beers to cook the bird- a measure of time I rather like. Especially because we happened to be drinking homemade wine.

The next day was a departure from the horizontal world with a chimney scramble up Cabezon Peak. Named in spanish after the word “head”, the “peak” is actually a gigantic volcanic plug, which is what happens when magma cools in the neck of an volcano. When the sides of the volcano erode away, we’re left with these basalt formations, perfect for clambering around on. 

And of course, no departure from bikeland would be complete without a trip to the gun club. 

I was amazed at how profoundly I was affected by holding a weapon like this. Sure there was the basic thrill of making a really loud noise, but then there was the stunning accuracy and the realization that I was firing something designed specifically to poke holes in other people. I wasn’t about to pass up the chance to pull the trigger a few times, but other than that I felt instinctively wary of these machines; I prefer ones with two wheels and parts that don’t explode. I’d probably make a terrible soldier.

I might be beginning to miss the quiet mornings and black coffee, but I’ve seen that life post bike has a lot of richness and love if you keep your arms and eyeballs open. Last thanksgiving was spent mostly trying to stay lean in my off-season. Not only was it kind of bland and anxious, it was a losing battle. This thanksgiving I got to meet some folks who taught me about fried turkeys, assault rifles and volcanic plugs. I got to ride a bike and eat plenty of dessert in the desert, because it’s all on-season from here.

Amazing what a year can do, eh?

fot: Sam Atkins

Stupid arms: What happens when you get so pumped that you can’t even put your coat on anymore. See also: “Times you wish you had leashes.“

Aaaannddd a new pony to whoever can guess what I did with my Saturday night. Hint: If you guessed “unsoberly drytooling in the woodshed” or “listening to techno?” then you’re on the right track.

If you thought “dry? tooling? That sounds both dirty and uncomfortable.” You’re with me. And you’re right, though probably not in the way you thought.

To be honest, I cannot crawl around on the ceiling with icetools yet. I tried without much success to do more than one pull up, then gave up and took pictures instead. The next day I was sore and slightly hungover, but it didn’t matter because this happened:

After running all over the woods of Hyalite looking for some ice without six or more people

rapelling! Ice! Both things I used to not do last week!

already on it, we made it to a climb called Hangover and proceeded to get really, really cold. About thirty feet off the ground I realized two things at once: One, that my fingers were already flopping like useless rocks in my gloves and two, that I’d forgotten to attach leashes to my tools. NOooooOOb.

Stricken suddenly with a fear of dropping them and stranding myself, I did something perhaps even more stupid and actually took my gloves off so I’d have enough tactile feedback to attach my leashes mid climb.

There’s something inspiring about the screaming barfies… sure you want to toss your cookies (or in my case, scones) and curl into the fetal position, but to me it’s kinda cool to learn that your extremities have the tenacity to come back to life so violently. By turning into angry red sausages and making you want to puke, your fingers assert their right to be attached to your body. I like that.

The rest of the climb was thin but sticky, and we had a rewarding thermos of soul-saving, mouth thawing coffee for afterwards. There’s nothing like some steaming caffeine to make butt-sliding back to the car sort of ok.

cj doing something with crampons

I’ve never wanted to go ice climbing. Tales of broken ankles and the legendary “screaming barfies” had sufficiently dampened my interest. I mean really, the acute sensation of wanting to scream and barf simultaneously occurs so often in this sport that there’s a designated name for it? I’ll stick to skiing, thanks.

But when it doesn’t snow I start to live more and more in the horizontal world. Too cold to ride, but not cold enough to ski- it’s the worst time. I dont get hungry but I eat out of boredom. I don’t get tired, but I can sleep until noon if I don’t set an alarm. I run errands, I go to work, and I watch my winter blubber develop with a sort of detached, vague interest.

I didn’t realize it but climbing some ice was just what I needed. On a very base level it’s kind of like a vertical tantrum. You’re pretty much just kicking and punching at a wall, which is quite satisfying, but there’s also a beautiful, simple absurdity to it. It shouldn’t be possible to move vertically up ice, but somehow the ground shrinks away and then you’re just listening to the distant blurble of water, searching for the next dish to whack your tool into. Three quarters of the way through, your hands do indeed get so cold that you want to scream and barf at the same time, but somehow that’s less important than you thought it would be.

it snowed on us! + KT and Kevin gathering gear

]]> http://lydiatanner.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/noob/feed/ 0 lydiatanner twins2 twins http://lydiatanner.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/shoulder-season/ http://lydiatanner.wordpress.com/2011/10/27/shoulder-season/#comments Thu, 27 Oct 2011 17:45:26 +0000 lydiatanner http://lydiatanner.wordpress.com/?p=1569 Continue reading →]]> We got a little snowshower yesterday, but other than that it’s just been lots of leaves and sunny days. Myself and everyone I know have all been stricken by this animal urge to either hibernate or ski our faces off, but there’s no snow and if we hibernated we’d lose our jobs.