Day at the Bird

I headed up to Snowbird today with my friend Jen. Jen and I go way back. I met her the same day I met my college boyfriend, Mike. It was the fall of 1998. I decided to join the University of Utah's environmental club, Terra Firma. Jen floated into the meeting wearing a little sun dress. I kinda wrote her off as one of those "out there" hippy chicks. Then Mike walked in, and that was the end of me noticing anything about Jen. Over the course of several tree plantings and loosely-environmentally-related trips to the desert, I began to realize that Jen wasn't a hippy chick at all, but more of a ski bum. I eventually moved into the house on D Street where she lived - a crazy post-college flop house that housed as many as 10 people at the time and was often referred to as the "commune" or the "Terra Firma House." Jen was always coaxing her childhood friends from Syracuse, N.Y., to come out to Utah and visit her, and two of them decided to stay. One of those friends, who she introduced me to, was my long-time-now-ex-boyfriend Geoff. Yeah, there's a lot of history there. Jen and I go way back.

Jen's still a ski bum and currently works at Snowbird. She was nice enough to accompany me around the mountain today, even though my skill level wouldn't even fill her little toe. It was a beautiful spring day. The temperature rose to 64 degrees, according to thermometers around the resort, and the snow, which started out great, began to turn into a thick sludge that seemed to trickle down the mountain as you rode, like molten lava. I felt pretty downtrodden most of the day, which I attributed to a combination of altitude (up to 11,000 feet), caffeine withdrawal and heavy UV ray exposure (that seemed to penetrate my thick applications of SPF 60). It was still a blast, and when we were fried to a crisp with snow-reflected-high-elevation sunlight, we just headed over to Alta and lounged in the pool for 90 minutes.

We also hooked up with a friend of mine, Eric. I refer to Eric as "a high school friend." He was actually my first serious boyfriend, through half of my senior year in high school and first semester in college. We met when I was a grocery bagger and Albertsons and he was the manager of Video Shark, next door. I was 17 and he was 21, which I thought was so, so cool. Nearly every day he would come pick me up from school in his Saab. He was the person who really taught me how to snowboard. Then, one day (a date for some reason we both remembered - March 26, 1997), we went spring snowboarding on a hot day in a lot of slush. He launched a jump in the trees and landed badly on a patch of ice, and broke his wrist. He wouldn't even let me drive him to the emergency room (I was 17, with a fairly poor driving record already, and his car was a Saab.) He drove himself there with a broken wrist, and wore a purple cast for the rest of the spring. It's really fun to go back 13 years later and laugh about things like that. It's even more fun to introduce him to a good friend who goes way back, but not that far back.

It;s been so fun to come back here and reconnect all the pieces, just to see how much things haven't really changed.

Right place, right time

During the three days I spent in Southcentral Alaska last week, the weather was absolutely gorgeous. Temps in the 40s, sunny, no wind. I felt a bit reluctant to leave it all behind for April in Utah - the one (and only) time of year this state is even the slightest bit wet. But when I talked to my roommate in Anchorage today, she informed me that the city had been inundated with a 10-hour blizzard that left 6 inches of snow, with 4 more expected tonight. It was all I could do to bite my lip to keep from saying, "Ha, ha, guess where I am? 70 degrees and sunny! One day after a spring snowstorm that's keeping the mountains quite pretty. I'm going to go ride some singletrack!"

This is Ashlon. He's my Facebook friend who's letting me borrow his bike (his old bike. The new one is completely pimped out.) We had never met face to face before Sunday, but because we share a common passion for cycling, we got along like old friends. He recently moved to Sandy from West Virginia, so even though I'm the visitor, I felt more like the guide, pointing out the places of interest and we traveled through my childhood stomping grounds. That all changed when we reached the trailhead in Alpine. People who know me mainly through my blog tend to have this preconception that I'm an expert cyclist. I may be a passionate cyclist, a dedicated cyclist, even an obsessive cyclist, but I am anything but an expert. I'm flailing and timid, sometimes at the same time, and I can't roll away from even the simplest singletrack ride without a few cuts and bruises. But it doesn't mean I love it any less. It's a lesson I'm going to tell my children (or at least my nephew) someday: You don't have to be great at something to pursue it with all your heart, and even get your name on an ultra-endurance records list somewhere.


We had a great, relaxing late afternoon ride. I complained about the elevation and the alarming shortage of caffeinated beverages, and we both complained about how dry the air is. (Ashlon: "That crap that builds up in your nose, what is that?") Ashlon made fun of my tights and wool socks. (Me: "I rode up to Snowbird yesterday and it was really cold! How was I supposed to know it was so warm today?") I casually listed my weekend plans: Snowboarding in fresh (if now a bit slushy) powder on Thursday, river trip on Saturday, hiking in the desert on Sunday. Gotta love Utah.

Spring storm

When I was a kid, I loved April snow. It always came after a bunch of 70-degree days coaxed new colors out of the shadows. Spring painted the grass with vibrant greens, buds opened up on the trees and daffodils sprouted from sweet-smelling mulch. Then, suddenly, almost without warning, I'd wake up one morning to a fresh coat of winter.

Adults liked to stand at the window and complain loudly, but it was like Christmas morning to me. I'd rush outside into the moist air, infused with the same sharp coolness as a glass of water full to the brim with ice cubes. The cold made me feel alive, and I'd often break out in a run along the wet sidewalk, trying not to disturb the pillows of snow that covered the bright green grass. I'd bend down and grab a handful of wet powder, letting it drip through my fingers. I'd return the seashell-shaped snowball to the grass and giggle about the novelty of it all. April snow wasn't just unique and fun; it was a completely different way of looking at the world - an affront to time itself. Sometimes I would stop and pretend that I had actually traveled back in time, to some happy day in the winter, in a place where I was free of the march of seasons, of obligations, of the inevitability of growing up.

Every time I return to Salt Lake City, I feel the strange and halting sensation of traveling back in time. But it's different than my childhood daydream. It isn't a feeling of freedom, exactly, but more like a disorienting awakening - as though the last five or so years never even happened. Alaska, Homer, Juneau, snow biking, endurance racing, Iditarod, Anchorage - it's as though all of it was a crazy dream I concocted during an extended nap, and I've recently woken up to my real life. I have dinner with my family, I visit my college and high school friends, I go to shows downtown and dance around like a 23-year-old who doesn't have bad knees. I feel like I'm me again. I feel like I'm home.

So when I woke up this morning to an inch of fresh snow in my parents' front yard, many of those childhood feelings returned. I was giddy and I couldn't wait to get outside. Only these days, I put on all kinds of specific clothing. I hop on a bicycle and pedal away from the neighborhood, up to the foothills that in my childhood seemed impossibly far away, and into the canyons that were once mystical and unknown places - only now, they're close enough for a quick afternoon ride. And coated with fresh snow, the mountains are stunning and inviting, but mostly they fill me with longing for the place I now call home - Alaska.

Since I returned to SLC, just about everyone has asked me why I moved to Anchorage when I could have just moved back to Salt Lake City. It's a good question, because Salt Lake City does have most everything I love about Alaska and more - my family, good friends, easy access to the desert. My answer so far has been, "I don't know. I guess I'm just not done with Alaska yet."

It's difficult for me to explain how the place itself has become a part of me. How Utah is beautiful but Alaska can be downright otherworldly sometimes. How I know many of the state politicians by name and all of their quirks. How I appreciate those quirks and all the other funny customs that make life interesting. How it's relaxing to live in a place where judges wear Xtratufs and snow pants beneath their robes (right, Craig?) How I feel connected to other Alaskans in a way that never resonated for me as a Utahn. How those Alaskans have almost convinced me to use the word "snowmachine" (although I polled my Utah friends, and they agree with me that a snowmachine is a device that manufactures snow for the purpose of covering ski slopes.) And, most of all, how there are so many places in Alaska I have yet to explore, that I long to explore, that I have to explore.

They ask me if I'll come back to Salt Lake City someday. I probably will, just as I'll probably go back to Juneau, and even Idaho Falls. I never leave these places completely. They become a part of me, a part of my story, and like April snow, they sometimes return at surprising times that really make the passing of time seem more like a circle than a straight line.