d a w n p a t r o l - a slice of life
by david huebner

--Me

It¹s four twenty a.m as I drag myself out of bed, and the cat "Porch" is rather disturbed by the light - I can tell by his face he¹s thinking, "hey, what the heck man?" But he's over it soon enough and settles right back to curled up sleep. What the heck is right, as if I'm the kind of person who gets up at four twenty in the dang morning, but yeah, I'm motivated, heading for first tracks up high, north facing, steep, and dry, widely spaced trees. By moon light, head lamp on my head but off, I skin up the road, and wow, what a morning, no hint of sun yet, the sky is dark and the stars are bright and my poles squeak incessantly and my bindings, and skins and skis do too; it is really cold, I'm on fresh groomed. As I turn the corner to head around the lake, I notice the parralell with my life in general: rotating ever on in this granite and snow world, thrown to the wind, wherever the breeze carries me.

There's the sign, and the trail breaking begins...bringing the tips of my skis to the surface with each step in shin deep snow. I read the terrain by the open areas, the bright spots, avoiding grim talus fields and dark dense forests; I've never skied up through this spot before. The feeling of just doing something and not really knowing exactly what to expect is the true feeling of being out there beyond the easy comfort zone of ordinary existence; the sort of go with it, fly by the seat of your pants attitude that I give to the backcountry lifestyle. There are people who would plan for a day and drive for another and spend a morning organizing for something like this, but maybe that's just because most people live far from the mountains. Here I am under the moon, before dawn, doing it with nothing but my day pack with a bottle of water and my camera around my neck. And living in the mountains allows this.

I top out on the bench, run into the clearing of the summer trail and feel back at home, I've hiked the trail bunches in the summer. Soon the regimen steps up a notch as the climb up to the gully begins. There it sits before me, light blue spreading from the eastern horizon now and I look up at my objective, the beautiful main gully loaded with powder. Many steep switchbacks later I stand on top looking at a dream line, and the sun is approaching, and my legs are feeling weak from the climb and I drink some water, and snap a few photos, and my soul just soars loud and clear and far. Looking across at the crest of still bigger mountains, I feel a vision, looking back at myself and what I'm doing and that this life I live is beautiful, perfect, pure, and yet there is no word, or combination of phrases, or language that can explain this feeling of standing there alone on a mountain, having stretched myself to a new height, a new level of euphoria, and right there and then I remember my past, my city life long gone, my three-years-ago-thought that no way in a million years could I ever be standing here doing what I¹m doing now, that I would never be a bum, living free.

Snap a few buckles, pull the skins, flex the toes, the legs, quads still shaky, blown out, and look down on heaven. Pulling goggles over my eyes, taking off pole straps...first tracks of the season for this slope, and just then the sun pokes over the crest. I look up, take it in, another "yeah" to the air and I'm off, like a drop of water, a breath of wind, flowing, and fast, and soft, dry, deep, past pines, around pines, off rocks, ooohh such sweet soft landings and down into the main gully, pulling out right on the powdery white wave, for one last swing back down the second fall line and out to the skin track and a few more turns and cruising back the way I came, and god, smiling big now, as the sun works its way down the peaks, fresh powder all over me from the knee deep and deeper exploding face shots, and just the overall sense of going big before breakfast and pulling it off in time. I reach the flat again and head down the rocky, bushy, aspen slope I skinned up. The morning has begun; it is eight a.m. when I put my skis back in the rack in the store, walk to my room, change into my hawaiian shirt, and get ready to wait tables at breakfast.

--Jan

When I get up, Jan is still sleeping. She's in a different cabin, her little house, and she's in the so-called "non-motivational groove". After five a.m., she wakes up and goes out on her porch and splits a little wood for her fire to warm her place up. In her mind this is a clothing optional use activity, and the bare skin feels suddenly cold against the morning air. Once the fire is stoked she lies in bed and loves it. Sleeping in. Later, maybe an hour and a half, she looks out her window at a 12,000 foot peak as the sunrise is beginning. She goes back to sleep briefly and then decides to get out of bed for good, grabbing clothes from the closet. Once up, she heads to the kitchen, as she has been for the past eighteen winters. The same footsteps, the same swish of nylon pants and warm boots stamping out the same path through fresh snow. The familiar trees laden with a dash of powder, the memorized layout of the buildings, nestled in their white blankets. The internalized feelings and memories attached to nearly every structure: by looking at the kitchen she knows instinctively how it feels to open the door, turn in, and start the grill. She knows how cold the dining room will feel, and where she will sit next to the fire.

This year has been easy for her so far, and she's happy about that and just plain happy at the water ouzel singing out on the creek behind the store as she approaches the kitchen. She can't think of a better life, and I can't either at this point as I rip down the powder almost two thousand feet above her. The water ouzel sings a beauty this morning. Jan gets a fire going in the cold dining room, gets out preparations for breakfast, wishes she had running water, gets the coffee machine going, some leftover hot water boils, and a cup of tea wakes her up to yet another beautiful day in the mountains. The kitchen is cold and quiet. Back to her cabin for a bit, then returns to the kitchen and fires up the grill. Today: pancakes, eggs, and bacon, for 10 guests. She thinks about whether she really wants to keep doing this, after so long, and yet it doesn't feel like it has really been that long, and where would she go? Home right now is The Promised Land, a paradise, and she feels it, especially in her morning tea, getting ready for breakfast in the cold quiet kitchen as sunlight paints the snow covered peaks orange and yellow, and the Grandfather tree sways ever so slightly in the tips of the top most limbs as the cold air rushes into the valley.

She knows her home, these trees, the creek, the pond, the lake. She loves her home. She knows and yet she also continues to debate her 18 years spent living in the same canyon. She wonders if a woman like her will finish her life in the mountains single, working till the end? She wonders if all those she knows who have left, and apparently "moved on" are somehow living a more fulfilling life. Jan steps outside briefly and sips her tea, she knows I'm out, gone up high early. She smiles because that is what we do here. She knows that really at that moment, watching a wild natural world awaken all around her with a rushing creek for constant background, she would not want to be anywhere else. She thinks that living day to day, moment by moment, in the rush, flow, and feel, is the way to live. She tries to put the thoughts of the future out of her mind, trying to focus on how beautiful the moment is.

Jan walks back into the kitchen and gets to work, starting the bacon, adding a log to the dining room fire, dealing with no running water; the garden hose running our system froze with the three degree overnight low. It's thawing in the sauna. "Nothing's ever easy", she thinks. I walk in, and she's got the operation in full swing, still no running water, drain's frozen too. As I step in the door my smile runs from ear to ear, she turns, flashing her great smile and asks, "So, did you do it?" Like Austin Powers I respond with a swagger, "Yeah baby, yeah."

©Copyright David Huebner 2000

Close this window to return to the writing contents