Moving On

I'm definitely not on the Western Slope anymore, so WesternSlopeExile is going to go dormant. You can still follow all the transitions, observations, season changes, and discoveries. Change those bookmarks to:

www.bozemanographer.blogspot.com

My three years of western slope life were amazing. It's hard to even remember life before the move. Colorado has been home for most of my life. I try to leave but can never find a place as good. How can you top the scale of Crested Butte, the high desert and orchards of Paonia, the vibe of Fort Collins, Denver's proximity to the goods? Montana is a very close rival, and has it's own twist. Nature is a conduit for the connection between God and man, and presents a unique interface as the geography and culture changes. Montana is vast, rugged, wild, and a little unnerving.

I am always investigating the question, how important is our geography to our happiness? Why do I need open space and topography? I don't know why it's important, I just know that it is. And, how important is career? Is it crazy to leave family and friends behind to make a living? I feel like my adult life is a pie cut into thirds. One piece is career/purpose, another place/adventure/discovery/recreation, and the third is family/friends/relationship. The three share mutual exclusivity as well as some interdependence and commonality - meaning that I can get two of them down at one time, but I've never been able to get three. When my career is on fire, it's not always in the place I want to live; sometimes I'm in a place I want to live and my career is going, but then I'm isolated from friends and family. I spent a lot of years being bitter about all of this, anxiously wondering where and when it all comes together. I've said that I'm more about the question than the answer. I don't always live that, but lately it's coming true. Bozeman is not about fixing problems. I reluctantly admit that there is no perfect place. It's about experiencing a beautiful, wild place; taking an active role in a company that strives to be different; righting my career; schralping some fatpow. Here's the real deal (and pardon me for getting all spiritual, my roots are showing):

Jeremiah 29:7 "seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper."

Move on over to the new blog.

Pump It Up

So I'm driving to REI to look at collar heights on Backpacking boots - I know, who really does that on a Friday night besides footwear developers - and I see an Indian restaurant. One of the hardest things about living in places like Paonia, Crested Butte, and Salida is the absence of Indian food. So I'm stoked. I'm smiling really big and I turn to drive past it just to make sure I remember where it is. I circle around the block to get back onto N. 19th street, headed toward the highway exit and big box stores and I catch a flash out of the corner of my eye. It's a kid launching himself into the air on a dirt-jumper. Not only did I find Indian food, I found a cultural center of bike sub-culture. I walk up and start talking to the riders who are MSU students. I figured they'd either brush me off or wonder what the old guy is doing at the pump track without a bike; but, as people who ride bikes generally are, they were all super friendly. They asked me where I'm from and I said Crested Butte and had instant credibility and was granted temporary, peripheral bro-ness. These guys were destroying it with a really fluid style - tail whips, creative lines, and soft landings. They told me about some downhill trails outside of town. It's a scenario that is universal to mountain towns where the guy starts talking and all the other guys looks at him like he's crazy to give away the goods. He hesitates, sizes me up, and offers up the name of a trail - Leverage Canyon - and then stops short after saying something like "there's some other cool stuff around if you look for it". I'll have to spend some time here before they tell me where the real goods are. All the way to REI I envisioned a pump track session followed by some Tikka Masala, then spinning home on a Shonky in a ridiculously low gear with the saddle all the way down.





I get to REI and spend some time scoping out shoes. It's funny how all the brands "borrow" from each other. Not a lot of innovation out there. I did see some very interesting stuff though. Teva has some beautiful women's autumn boots - calf high, nice full grain leathers, beautiful patterns. Something about them felt very familiar when I realized they were almost identical to what we were doing at Ulu before they got bought out - with the cork/EVA midsole even. Hmmm. TNF has a shoe called the Snow Sneaker that is very cool. The upper is similar to a standard 5.10 or Patagonia causual/outdoor upper, but it has aggressive, spike like outsole lugs (without being clunky), a burly textured toe bumper, and 100g Primaloft insulation - all without being bulky. It looks like a normal shoe, but it's a winterized tenni. On top of it all the quarter has a beautifully executed way of incorporating a pattern split (pattern splits are used to reduce material usage but are often hidden under other pieces or are just exposed and look ugly). Man, I try to hate that brand, but with products like that it's difficult.

This Is Fun

http://obozfootwear.wordpress.com/2010/09/20/meet-oboz-abby-and-dave/

Here's a little write-up from the Oboz publicist. I'm a pretty big on the world wide web these days.

Hi. I'm in Bozeman. Wish I had some great pictures of the mountains, sunrise, sunset, and cool town - but I've spent most of my time staring at this monitor, setting up my work computer, and figuring out how to transfer email from macmail to Outlook. All is well. We reviewed Spring 2012 color this afternoon and made some decision about what needs changed, and what gets sampled. Bozeman is pretty awesome. I haven't had much time to explore...the extent of my recreation has been watching the sun come up on a nice morning run and getting a food coop membership. My stoke is masked by fatigue. I hope all is well in your corner of the universe. I'll get pics and thoughts up this weekend.

Homeward Bound

I've been listening to Bruce Springsteen and craving a cheeseburger. It's time to come home. China is a trip. The level of progress, growth, and change is staggering. Start brushing up on your Mandarin because you might need it. I can't even explain how different things are. Have to catch a flight from Hong Kong to San Francisco. Looking forward to getting back, spending a few days in Denver, then off to Bozeman. At this point though I just want a nap. Then some endless single track and some nachos would be sweet.

Exit from The Exit

I left Salida today. Very bittersweet to leave my Crested Butte/Salida life. I took one last ride on the SMT trails, said goodbye to friends at the bike shop, and tore myself away from the river. Made an overnight stop at the Rice Peeps cabin...they live completely off the grid at 10,000 feet, a couple miles off of a county road, with a humongous panorama view of the Buffalo Peaks. On to Summit County tomorrow, then Denver, then China, then Bozeman. Not much else to share, just that packing usually takes twice as long as expected.

When the Circus Comes to Town

I had the privilege of being in temporary possession of a Yeti Big Top. They were kind enough to drop a demo off at the shop for employees and friends. The Big Top is a big deal - Yeti has been resistant to building a 29" wheel bike and this is their first crack at it. I was concerned that they would be behind the curve, but they've done a beautiful job - it descends like a dream. I forgot I was riding a hardtail and was ripping through corners and taking step-downs and ledges very confidently. Oh, and it goes up too. Very efficiently. My new dream is to have a Big Top and an ASr-7 - I think that would cover every riding situation I could ever think of from X/C racing to lift served.

Movin' to Montana Soon...

It's true. I've accepted a position with a very cool company in a very cool place. I am Bozeman bound. Packing, moving, settling up, and closure have all prevented me from getting time to post all the details here. So much to share, so many things have happened. I move in October, with a trip to the PRC in mid september to visit a factory. Stay tuned.

Matty, I have no email address for you. Send me a note: ddolph at hotmail dot com. I was at the Y Yesterday! Weird to be back there.

It was a nice weekend in the Exit. Fred and Heidi tied the knot (and what a beautiful knot they've managed to fashion) - in a meadow, in the forest, with dogs playing, kids laughing, and everyone smiling. The rain held off long enough to finish the service and then we huddled under tents and easy-ups and had a beautiful time. Thunder pealed in the place of bells and we even saw a through-hiker pass on the Colorado Trail.

The Omnium brought in a ton of folks for a good weekend of home-grown racing...a time trial in torrential rain Friday, big Crit around downtown Saturday, and a 74 mile road circuit Sunday. I worked a really fun corner on the circuit - the riders crested a big climb, hit downhill on broken pavement, rounded a 90 degree dirt corner, then picked up the pavement again at the beginning of a 40+mph descent. Some very sweet road racing.

Crest II

Here's an alternate way down from the Crest. It's not as blocky and steep as Silver Creek and is more flowing.

Happiness By the Pound

Hotchkiss cherries showed up at the farmer's market today. It doesn't take much more than that to make me very happy.


Here's some more homegrown goodness. I crashed and broke the tab that holds my brake lever to the reservoir body. The shop called Shimano to get a replacement and they don't stock the parts. Shame on Shimano, not only does the M575 provide weak power and no modulation, you can't get parts. Are they trying to create a throw-away product? I showed Anton and I could sense the wheels turning in his head. He took a hacksaw and notched the body, looped a wire around the lever to hold the lever bushing in the correct position, and then made a groove in the bar side of the clamp to pass the wire through for the right pull angle and so the clamp can sit flush on the bar. Brilliant! It was supposed to get me a couple of days until I could order a new assembly from a shop in New Hampshire, but I figure if it can survive 5,000 feet of descending on the Crest I'm going to just continue to roll with it.

[Update: Shimano sent a new lever assembly about 2-3 weeks after this. Thanks, Shimano. I'm still riding the wired lever that Anton fixed as it works just as well and am waiting until I need a brake bleed to install the new one]




Speaking of the Crest...I finally rode it yesterday. It's a pretty amazing ride with some big scenery and big descents. But I was surprised to be climbing on single track and descending on double track and fire roads. Something about it feels very backwards. I think there are endless opportunities though to turn that single track to downhill - a 6-10 mile out and back from the tram; or a ride up Marshall Pass road to link up with the Silver Creek section; or just bomb down Fooses or Greens from the top. Any thoughts, ideas, or experiences?

The Pumpfarm

Pump tracks are all the rage in The Exit. There is one public track and 4 or 5 private tracks. The tracks are fun; a great core and cardio workout - seriously, I know it doesn't look like it because you don't really pedal much but your heart rate tops out quickly; a safe way to learn advanced skills (sort of); and 4 year olds and their parents can ride at the same place at the same time. I was really intimidated by these things at first but then my buddy Brendan spent about an hour with me at the town track a few weeks ago breaking it down step by step...how to get my whole body into it, look down the track, commit to and rail corners. Centrifugal force is your friend. It's the closest thing I've seen to perpetual motion. Here's a little video from the Pump Farm track.

Tour Divide

The Tour Divide race covers 2700 miles of dirt roads, byways, old rail beds, and trails from Canada to Mexico. Racers travel solo, border to border, at their own pace over the course of about 3 weeks; they carry everything they need, sleep in the open, under bridges and in doorways, and resupply in the small towns along the way. Salida is the last major stop and last bike shop on the route before riders hit the New Mexico desert. This brings them through the shop for service, parts, and a lot of Clif Bars. We saw the race leaders trickle through on Tuesday.



Scot helping Matt Lee with a freewheel overhaul, shifting setup, and brake bleed...all in about 45 minutes. Matt came in about 7 hours ahead of the other riders. I'm learning that the longer the race, the mellower the racer. All these guys are kind, personable, and unpretentious.




Matt's bike with 3 weeks of camping gear and some food weighing in at 31 pounds. That's not much more than the bike you're riding this weekend!




Here is Blaine Nester getting ready to head out after some shifting work and a massive meal at the cafe next door. Again, calm, calculated, unhurried.




Erik Lobeck's Moots YBB loaded and waiting. He had some major drivetrain issues in Montana that sidelined him for 36 hours. I can't imagine what that would do to a person mentally. Even so, the guy has made up ground and is back in the running. Note that the three leaders in the race are all on Cannondale Lefty forks. Lefty domination!

Follow their progress here: www.tourdivide.org/leaderboard

FIBark Boater X

Nick and I headed up to Pine Creek north of BV to check out the FIBark Boater X. The paddlers race through class V holes in sets of 3 or 4; pine creek has about 7 massive, powerful holes and a nice rock garden. The action was amazing and really fun to watch. One particular hole kept swallowing people. The video shows a guy get surfed, enveloped, and spit out. FIBark was fun to experience and I'm glad that it happened...but I was also glad when it was over as the festival headquarters was literally across the street from my apartment raging until 2:00am for three nights.

Post #100!

Here's a bunch of random crap:

Working at a bike shop has some perks...the discounts and prodeals, shop tools, meeting people to ride with, etc. But this gig has a benefit that is unique: the shop is in an old feed store with a 3 story grain elevator that we occasionally get to throw stuff off of. The gig is a nice supplement to the contract work. I'm learning a ton and even got to rebuild my rear shock!


Sad and happy news for the bike. I had it in the stand to do a few adjustments and found a good size crack in the head tube. Then started looking around and found another in the bottom bracket shell. Sad to see it go. Now, I'm not posting this as a dig on a certain manufacturer out of Colorado; to the contrary, they stood behind it and had a replacement waiting for me the next day. It's a wonder that the poor frame lasted that long under my 190 pounds.



The finished product, good as new:

When I went to pick up the new frame I was met by this view. Holy Shmoley.


Made another trip to the Front Side for Mother's Day. Mom had another top done. It's not quilted yet...you have to contruct the blocks, sew them together, and then start quilting the top. Most sewers would take 9-12 months to do a project like this but she pumps out 3-4 a year. She's ridiculously talented.

Incredulous that I was actually imbibing, Matt snapped a photo during the first backyard BBQ of the year. You may know that I don't drink much - after living with gout for 15 years I'm always careful no matter how well the gout meds work.

Sam looking formidable. Wish that came in an adult size.


I made a quick trip to CB to say hello and check the PO Box...and revisit the winter that won't go away. 5" of snow in mid-May in town. Here's a pic of John, fully upright and mobile after a successful disc fusion surgery.


So there's some randomness for post #100. Time marches on. All is well. I have a bed to sleep in, a roof over my head (even if the landlord shut off the pilot light on the furnace), a sandwich and some grapenuts in my belly, trails to ride on, family and friends. I just finished a book set during the Great Depression and my perspective right now is one of gratitude. Times are thin for all of us, but it's also beautiful to see people spending less time stressing out about buying needless crap and spending time BBQ-ing, quilting, recreating, living, and loving. We're all going to make it...and we might just reconnect with our souls in the meantime!

Fruita

Sunrise, Sunset, Fruita... sure as shootin, the sage wakes up, the hillsides turn green, and little desert flowers come out of the ground. The single track is payoff for a winter of down coats, snow shoveling, mud trudging, and tourist dodging.

I ran into some complications driving out of The Exit; Monarch pass was closed with a foot of snow at the top. I finally slipped through and was Fruita bound. Fell asleep in my tent Friday night to the sound of pattering rain and woke up Saturday morning to sunshine, no wind, and a perfect 70 degrees. Short sleeve jerseys, shorts, sunscreen, and a world of trails beckoning. The ex-Pearl crew and Summit County/Chaffee County hut trip crew merged and we proceeded to eat us up some desert singletrack. My cameras both crapped out so there's very little photo documentation. You'll have to take my word for it. It was fun.

Boulder County Open Space and Mountain Parks should annex 18 Road as there were lots of team kits, scowls, and race bikes. We did our best to make up for it by smiling, giggling, and wearing thrift store and hand-me-down jerseys. The Horsethief Bench side was a little less crowded as there is more room to spread out. I think next time a weekday trip will be a good idea. Weekends are getting a bit nuts there lately. Not like I should have a reason to complain - Fruita is one big bliss nugget. At one point I caught myself riding along with a big stupid grin on my face thinking about....absolutely nothing.

The Backyard

The Backyard has abundant recreational opportunities. There's a sweet trail network that starts about a block from downtown. Some folks here had the foresight to get these things built and the network is growing weekly.

Andy, Rebecca, and I went out to explore. We ran into Wes, the mountain bike Welcome Wagon, who showed us some fun stuff to ride.



A few days later, Kelly made it down from BV for a nice hike. We followed a faint trail into an arroyo; the trail faded in and out as the route wound its way up the drainage to connect with some more established trails. We looped around on the SMT network and back to the river.

Pulling Down the Sick Gnar.

Jake, Courtney and I were having dinner with friends the other night when someone asked "why do you guys take such risks?" After exchanging puzzled looks, Jake's response was pretty smart...the risk is only perceived: working your way up a route, placing nuts and cams along the way, with a (hopefully) reliable belayer working the other end of the rope can't be that different than buckling a seat belt and turning the ignition. You can look at life as having danger lurking around every corner or you can take reasonable precautions and let it unfold.

I'm not much of a climber. I have the vertical reach of a hobbit, an even shorter attention span, and I can't fit into 90% of what Prahna manufactures. The only reason I know anything about climbing is from living 10 years in Boulder. I learned terms such as "pulling down" and "nasty flapper" so I could mock the annoying rock jocks surrounding me. But lately I've been thinking about climbing. I'm not under the illusion that climbing is without serious risks and consequences, though it is a progression of calculated risks, moving from protection piece to protection piece. You're as likely to see an engine fall off an aeroplane onto your house or to be struck by lightening before you were involved in a serious climbing related incident. I feel like life lately has been comprised of moving from cam to cam. Sometimes the run-outs are long. But I'm clipped in along the way. The belayer is attentive, relaxed, but ready. These are the realities that I have to remind myself of when I feel too far off the ground, when the bank account is low and why the hell does it take a client 8 weeks to pay an invoice, when I walk around a new town feeling strange like a stranger. That's when the connection points are nice. So thanks, all you nuts and cams. And The Belayer.

Spring, Sprang, Sprung

Guess who skate skied in short sleeves this afternoon!

Looking back at posts it seems that Western Slope Exile exists to document the changing, passing seasons as much as anything else. Spring is here in the figurative sense. Flowers are still germinating underground. Torrents of chocolate brown runoff are still locked up in the snowpack; but I showed up this morning at the Magic Meadows trailhead to catch one of the Nordic regulars in a tank top and see chunks of ice floating down the free-flowing creek; my tele boots are covered in mud from hiking through a half mile of muck on Brush Creek road; a winter's worth of dog poo is thawing in the alley. Close enough - spring has sprung.

Change is coming...and not just switching wax from extra blue to klister. I've just begun the reflection and processing that comes from the transition of one season to the next. What was this winter all about? Chasing that elusive storm cycle, finding the rhythm of a double pole kick, going from shuffling around the pancake flat Poop Loop on skate skis to pumping out a respectable V2 on The Bench, skiing Hard Slab and Hawks Nest without peeing my pants; watching the Alley Loop and Grand Traverse flow by from a volunteer's viewpoint; slinging rentals, waxing advice, and trail recommendations at the Nordic Center; my first consulting check from that big ski company....many goals accomplished. My current state of Adult Onset Adolescence makes introspection of the existential variety more difficult. It's a sad cliche of ski town life to tick off the ski resume accomplishments and ignore the stuff that really matters. Thankfully I have people close who push me, ask the difficult questions, and gently expose my inclinations toward mediocrity; people who support my desire to be more assertive and honest in my relationships. Big changes indeed.

Western Slope Exile. Well, "Western Slope" is soon to be an inaccurate geographical descriptor. I'm relocating to the east side of the Great Divide. I'll still be at 7,000 feet, under the watchful gaze of the 14,000 foot peaks of the Sawatch, but without the real and perceived isolation of being on the West Side. Most CB folks have responded to this change with a big "WHY?". Why leave paradise to live in a valley that is being encroached upon from the East Infection of the Front Range? My heart has been headed in the direction of the Arkansas Valley for over a decade. So I'm going to try it out for a season with full intention of returning to the the snow globe (CB) next ski season. I'll never know if the Ark Valley can be home until I try.

"Exile" no longer seems to be an accurate descriptor as well. I've grown so comfortable with Western Slope life, running along at a nice lope with an unplugged power cord trailing behind me. But I have the URL and I don't want to make my dozen or so faithful readers have to change their browser bookmarks. WesternSlopeExile stands for now.

Here are some photos of winter from the start to almost the finish:

Timber

Boyd, Dena, Rigal, and Ohana lost Timber to cancer last night. Rest in peace my furry buddy. When we're both on the other side we'll go for a good long run.

Spring

What do you do with the tons of snow that are left over from a winter of snow plowing? Make a 30 foot jump downtown. Colorado Freeskier revived Big Air On Elk this year. It works like this: dump a bunch of snow onto the main street in town, push it into a pile, and tow in skiers and riders at a bizillion miles per hour with snowmobiles. It's like watching airplanes take off and land on an air craft carrier. The riders went huge. These aren't the best pics, but they show the scale. It seems like the whole town turned out and it was shoulder to shoulder on both sides of the street for two blocks. Every shop and restaurant was full and it was a brilliant way to kick off spring.





Earlier in the day I took a tour up Slate River Road and the Oh Be Joyful trail. It was overcast but really warm. So warm, in fact, that I punched through knee deep into slush a couple of times. It made the creek crossings interesting, not knowing if the snow-bridges would hold or not. I ran into a couple of groups coming down from the north side of Mt. Emmons, training for The Grand Traverse (Crested Butte to Aspen backcountry race). My trip was much less ambitious. I wanted to see if the snow is setting up, what different aspects are skiing like, and how prevalent the suncrust is. It's still going to be another week or two before things set up and we have corn. Spring is in the air.

Will I remember how to ride a bike?

Temperatures have been in the upper 40's and the snow is turning to mush. There's still a lot of skiing to be had and the yard is covered in 4 feet of snow...but remember mountain biking?

oie de canard de canard

Hut Trip 2010

A full moon, my 40th birthday, widespread natural avalanches, sunshine, clouds, snow, new friends, old friends, curry, chocolate, bacon and eggs....a great hut trip. 11 came from the Front Side and SumCo. We made a trip to the Gothic town site to the Maroon Hut. The snow was cooked and crusty; slides were coming down on nearly every slope on every aspect, but we managed to find some pockets of gladed goodness to ski where the snow was stable and buttery. The skin in was pretty easy so we loaded down with lots of luxuries and ate like kings. No major mishaps except for Ruth's broken binding for which Mike had a handy fix. I spent the beginning of my 40th year on this earth with some good friends making good turns in a place that makes me very happy. It was a good time and place to reflect. I'm pretty excited about 40. I can sport mismatched socks, wear the same pants two days in a row, get orange juice instead of an $8 martini, and smoke a pipe. I'm twice as fast and can go twice as far as when I was 20. I'm more interested in the question than the answer. My life has history full of adventure and friends. Gauging from the past 40 I'm definitely stoked for the next 40.

Mordor

Saturday was the perfect day to ski Mordor, a very unique trail on the Crested Butte Nordic system. It may sound counter-intuitive to pick a grey, snowy day with a couple of inches in the tracks, but I wanted slow conditions. There are a couple of hills on Mordor that are comparable to a steep blue run at the ski area. Doing the trail on skinny skis can be intimidating, and having the extra drag and cushion of the new snow helped. It was a beautiful day in the woods. The route roughly follows the summer single track of Tony's Trail and Upper Loop. Here's a video of the ride. If you get motion sickness you may want to skip it as the footage is from a head cam and I apparently swing a bit when I'm classic skiing.