Travelin' Light - Part VI

** If you want to read this whole piece from the beginning, check out previous post listings in May and start at Senior Project. Oh, and sorry for no pictures, they're coming.


It’s time for another movement after we help Natrisha close up her condo. It’s just Jeffries and Dave who keep me company on my last day at Copper with friends. We ride for a couple hours, picking some of our favorite runs that include making laps on the Mountain Chief lift that take us through the expansive back bowls, then down the back of Golddigger to the bottom of the Timberline lift and it’s seemingly impossible long line. We take a last run through the terrain park where we fail miserably at photographing some jumps and almost all crash disastrously.

We exit Copper without emotion, trying not to think about what we’re leaving. We head towards Silverthorne and our hostel, the Alpen Hutte, where we’ve reserved the last three available beds. Since the hostel doesn’t open its doors until 4 o’clock, we park the car and, craving Kentucky Fried Chicken, embark on an adventure with the Summit County bus system. Its map seems decipherable. Waiting anxiously inside the station’s hut, I slurp down some hot sauce with snow – I’m hungry.

We end up with a grand tour of Dillon and Silverthorne. We could have walked to the transfer station in three minutes but instead take a half-hour ride. Eventually we find the KFC we’ve been questing for but miss the return bus to Dillon. It’s snowing hard and the wind is picking up.

Dave’s instincts from a summer traveling Alaska kick in, and as the weather keeps deteriorating, a thumb from his lanky arm goes out in hopes of a ride. We wander in a general direction and eventually, without hitchhiking, stumble upon the Backcountry Brewery on Main St. in Frisco. It’s not as good as Dillon Dam. The beers lack flavor and the place is too busy. They seem more worried about catering to tourists like us than the local constituency we hope to find.

We move down the street and slip into Po’ Boys – it’s packed with attitude and good tunes, and a dollar cheeseburger during happy hour, to boot. The woman of our dreams– a blonde with a Scandinavian accent – is serving us beer. She was a good hire because the three of us hang around as long as our wallets agree.

A couple blocks down we find a beacon of the old mountain town, a local hole called the Moosejaw. It’s cheap, only sporting two beers on draught, and has taped up wooden stools that must be a safety hazard. Ceran wrap seals the space where a window used to be and an enormous plaster hand with an outstretched finger looms overhead pointing you to the restrooms. We fit the dress code still donned in ski regalia – other places might have expected something classier.

The weather isn’t better when we emerge, but at least we are warmed by a couple pints. Hunting for the elusive bus becomes increasingly frustrating as an hour passes. The wind exposes us – thumbs are outstretched again. Passes are made by ten SUV’s with only a driver and we’re curious about their obvious gaze at the other side of the road trying to avoid us, especially when several two-doors stop and see if they can help out, but they’re all headed the wrong direction.

Finally a bus shows up and takes us back at the Alpen Hutte. We quickly unload my Subaru, which looks like a clown car at this point. It’s packed to the brim with stinky luggage. In the conservative culture of America, our hostel is trying hard to live up to its European counterparts. I flashback to the Salmon Weir in Galway, Ireland and eight different nationalities all spouting stories in the broken pieces of languages none of us really knew. Those images aren’t rekindled by the Alpen Hutte living room.

Though dogs roam the living room and swigs of beer are taken in between pauses of conversation, everyone seems to be just passing time. The owner says the hostel is full but there are barely a handful of people in the common area. As diverse as it seems, everyone remains separate in their ethnic groups while a European hostel seems to have a power of bringing people together in a collective experience of travel.

We never get comfortable and the fact that it’s not particularly cheap doesn’t help. We’re charged over thirty dollars for a space with no linens and a shitty pillow, no breakfast and a midnight curfew. Contrary to its free spirited image, the hostel is a tightly run ship in a jam-packed town.

Our distracted wandering for food makes it too late for a trip to Breckenridge; by the time we arrived we’d just have to turn around. We quickly escape the clutches of the hostel, diving in and out of side streets we don’t know, aimed for the bus station. A local jumps on the bus with us and we ask for guidance. We find out it’s his first night out in Dillon after moving from Breckenridge. He’s looking desperately for foosball in a stupor of marijuana and booze and he’s coming up empty handed. He drunkenly chastises us for trying to travel this late to Keystone or Breck, so we loosen on grip on the reins of fate and see what plays out when we follow him to a local joint called Pug Ryans.

Immediately in the door we find the ATM busted. Our new friend furiously exits because he doesn’t have any cash. We find ourselves a seat next to the place’s fish tank and open our ears. The place brings a good vibe right away as I watch the hated Cowboys season slip away in front of my eyes when their celebrated rookie quarterback fumbles a snack on the last play of the game.

The place is really breathing and everyone working seems to have a good time. They playfully jostle with their patrons – a British accent behind the bar leads to high fives and hugs around. Shouts are sent around the bar. In the corner are five girls playing a card game. We get free bread sent over to our table. Warm talk abounds of the ski day past and the neighboring table even donates some of their leftover ribs. Another round of beers makes its way to the table while a waiter takes a shot with friends.

We think we’re lined up for a return bus trip at quarter after eleven, which gives us plenty of time to get back to the hostel before it locks its doors at midnight. After shivering out in the bus station for too long, we realize something has gone wrong. Closer inspection of the faded schedule peeling off the wall reveals we were reading the weekday times – it’s Friday. We frantically call a cab company but they tell us a ride is just not going to happen because the few on duty are already busy.

So we start running in the general direction of Silverthorne. We’re laughing raucously in the dark while the odd car passes us wildly. Breathing heavily, I keep pulling the drawstrings on my hood tighter to shield my face from the cold. Dave’s beard is crusted with ice. It’s very possible we won’t make it back in time.

The shore of Lake Dillon appears on our left, letting us know we’re not too far off. At this point we’re cutting it awfully close to sleeping in the car. Jogging backwards, downhill, on the side of an icy Rt. 6, a car responds to our desperate thumbs. It noisily veers over to the shoulder and just when I think it might clear us out like bowling pins, comes to a stop.

I don’t know if I have room for all of you but how far are you going?

Before he finishes his sentence we’re packed into the backseat of his aging BMW. Its windshield is cracked and the engine sputters, then stalls out, whenever we stop at a red light. Maybe we’re not going to make it out of this one alive – I envision the driver skipping past the road that leads to our hostel while the three of us exchange glances and from the backseat I’ll give Jeffries a tap and nod and when the driver has come to a stop and has to turn the engine back over we’ll make our move; it will be a quick jab to the head and Jeffries will dive out the door, hiding behind it while keeping it open for me and Dave to escape. My paranoid vision evaporates when the driver delivers us pretty much to the doorstop of the Alpen Hutte and after many thanks we wish him luck getting to Vail. Who knows how far that car made it.

When we get inside, the hostel seems even less friendly than before. Our room smells like sweat and stink. We all suffer under the heat that’s choking after the temperature outside. We’re awake most of the night even without blankets. Rolling around uncomfortably, I just keep reminding myself we’ll be at A-Basin in the morning.


My eyes crack open and I’m struck by the oppressive funk; it makes me double step my morning routine. I stumble out of the bunk after my phone vibrates against my face – it’s Drew. Luckily he’s not calling and asking where we are, because our party is still two thirds asleep. Drew’s stuck in traffic, but I still force everyone moving. After living with Jeffries for three years, I know the extent of his morning lethargy. I make as much noise as my snow pants can manage and eventually they grumble and rub their fists against their faces.

A black lab rests peacefully by the fire in the hostel’s living room – two paws grounded while its head rests on the others perched up on the mantle. The room is much quieter than last night but the tender seems unmoved, still watching TV, still reclined in the closet of a reception room. His frayed gray hair and permanent dishevelment makes him looks like a mannequin on display, a relic confined to his workspace where he’ll serve his function and expire in time – hopefully after midnight.

The roads haven’t improved since last night, and after some greasy Mickey D’s rises to the challenge of crushing our hangovers, we tenderly drive past Keystone Resort and climb another ten minutes to A-Basin – the Legend. Our cautious driving is vindicated after passing a red Civic that was on the wrong end of a fight with a bus; its hood is pressed up against its windshield. A couple miles later we hook a right into locals’ paradise – there aren’t a whole lot of mountains left where you can park not only for free, but within a short walk to the lift.

There aren’t any lines but the whipping wind makes the morning painful. The arctic temperature can’t keep smiles off faces though, and the sun manages to withstand the snarling gusts. There’s no cell phone reception, so I wait, huddled inside my jacket on the lookout for Drew and Arienne, who we’re supposed to meet. I’ve known Drew for a couple years and he’s already living the vision I had for myself, moving out West with a cute girl that loves to ski, working at a ski shop and riding every day that he has off.

Finally everyone arrives and my reservations over paying the fifty dollars for a lift ticket dissipate once the lift crests and A-Basin’s three hundred and sixty five degree view unravels. Dave is gone almost as soon as we’re off the lift, disappearing quickly with his now infamous phrase, “fuck it.” It’s his version of magician’s “abracadabra.”

We ride through the morning but dip inside after only a few runs to thaw out. When we emerge from the creaking lodge the weather is balmy by comparison when we arrived; I can actually feel my toes.

We finish the day of skiing at a particularly bad time for traffic, especially since we’re headed back through the mountains to Boulder, where our friend from school has volunteered his basement for us. It will be a good jumping off point for us in the morning when Jeffries and Dave need to get to the airport. Before the trip back though, we determine that pizza is certainly in our best interest after a hard day of skiing, so we head to Breckenridge’s Downstairs at Eric’s.

The pizza joint is a collage of sports paraphernalia, TVs and general insanity that’s overwhelmed by a clanging from the glowing arcade set in between the two dining rooms. I first came here with my dad almost eight years earlier and skied his favorite run today at A-Basin called Standard. It starts tamely and towards the end you start to wonder what the double diamond on the sign is all about. Then you rear to a stop because you can’t see the slope anymore, just the lodge a couple hundred vertical feet seemingly right under your skis.

It’s nervy, just scooting close enough to see the moguls that pock the steep pitch underneath a little ridge. Rocks and stumps peek out from under a noticeably thin snow pack. Skiing it this time around makes me realize how much physically stronger I am than the first time I visited Colorado.

Another run put me back in my place. The route was a four foot fide, unmarked chute pocketed secretively in the sprawling trees. After carefully edging past some rocks and straightlining through the chute’s hourglass middle barely a full ski length wide, I flew past Jeffries and Drew. I felt like a runaway truck with burnt out brakes, but I didn’t have an emergency ramp, only an imposing mass of trees below me. I’m smiling now though, merrily reciting the story over greasy slices and a weaving of tales that criss-cross the table.

The drive home is the worst of the trip; we’re crammed in between everyone’s luggage and the car barely crawls through the mountains. After the road finally unclogs, we hit a spot just after Idaho Springs where the wind must slice through a gap in the mountains and causes a whiteout; we’re completely blind. I don’t know whether to slam on the brakes or keep moving at the same speed and it’s like a game of Russian roulette.

We turn the music off thinking it will make it easier to see. Jeffries’ hands are pressed against the ceiling and every muscle in my body is tense. Only Dave is calm in the back, blissfully ignorant and unable to gauge the situation because he’s blocked in on all sides by ski equipment. I let go of the gas for a few seconds, coasting, before two red lights dimly appear and relief crashes into my brain. I breathe again.

Just out of the foothills we crush three snowboards that are strewn across the road, though we surely must not have been the first to hit them. I mentally thank Drew and Arienne for taking my skis in their car so I didn’t have to leave them to the fortunes of my untrustworthy ski rack. Over three hours later, double the normal time, we make it into Boulder after the scariest drive of my life.


The decor of some homes says so much about its inhabitants. I think of Jeff’s parents, who wanted a ranch style house with a southwestern motif years before they moved to Arizona. It was obvious in their Virginia suburban house they had earthy tones and artwork with Native American motifs. When they moved to Denver, they at least could see some mountains before minimizing to the single floor when both children went to school. They finally made the move to Phoenix last year, actually realizing what they had been invoking for years.

The same goes for Zach’s house, but instead of desert and adobe there are evangelical books and biblical adages adorning the wall. After staying in basement, I notice how everything is religious on the main floor and it makes me a little uncomfortable while we eat a light breakfast of eggs and bagels.

After I get Jeffries and Dave to the airport I’m on my own for the first time, but I decide to bum around Denver for the night and give my body a little rest. That night I slept in my eighth different place since I left home. For some reason, Jeff, who Ashley and I stayed with our first night, seems reluctant to put me up for the night. I force my hand because I don’t have much of an option.

He’s still scared by his decision; I can tell by the way he doesn’t want to get settled. Everything is still packed in boxes after almost two weeks, like college might not be over, or his parents are going to call him back, apologize and say bring yourself home. Maybe it’s easier for me to say that as an observer while he’s still trying to cope with such a shift in life.

I’m alone in what is supposed to be Jeff’s bedroom, but he sleeps in front of the TV and is out early to rest for his accounting job the next morning. My thoughts drift to more unnerving areas listening to the sad tones of Jose Gonzalez. Even though we talk every day, I’m miserable at letting Ashley know how much I miss her over the phone.

Seeing a Woodstock ‘99 poster, still stowed in a moving box, makes me think of my mom, who chaperoned us there when I was just fourteen. She’s always allowed me the freedom to move and try new things; I promise myself I’ll call her tomorrow. Lack of permanence is starting to wear down my spirits as my eyelids close together.

By the time you reach your goal, tongues will be twisted,

to the point where you'll lose track of your soul,

distorted pictures is all you deliver.


It’s miserable driving from Denver to the mountains everyday, so I’m trying to arrange something more permanent to abbreviate the drive. Without anything settled, I head back to Copper. I had been hooked up with the number for a kid named Ian but he never returned my message. Maybe I’ll have to call Jon, my slightly estranged roommate from sophomore year but Arienne gave me foreboding reports of the people Jon is staying with as disgustingly rude and generally unbearable. Heading up to Breckenridge again I wonder if they’re as bad as she suggests and concoct scenes in my head. I imagine something akin to a Jackass movie with incessant harassment of innocent people and beer cans littering the house.

The ski day turns out to be full of chatter. I meet a wife whose husband was in the army for many years; her children are both struggling with their undergraduate degrees, one as an actor, and the other as an architect.

My third is a photojournalism major still twelve credits short sand now waiting tables in Breckenridge. The school messed up her transcript and she’s too pissed off to even go finish school. She might be done for good.

Even a mother can admit the lifestyle sucks you in.

Another parent offered me their home after hearing of my plan for bumming around, although it wasn’t quite hers, it was her daughter’s.

After already giving me the number she asked, you aren’t a drug dealer, are you? Because if you are, then, don’t call her.

I rode up with a first-time snowboarder. She was quiet and obviously prepared for the worst. But friends were taking her along, trying to teach her the intricacies of unloading from the lift. Their attempts to console her alerted me that what I was missing today was someone to ride with. It’s been so long since I’ve been out without a companion, someone to rant about the ski runs past or what part of the mountain to ride next and I sit glumly in silence.

On another ride up I talk with Molly, who just moved to Copper from Seattle. She came out here to see some different mountains after working at Mt. Baker for two years. For some people, this is just the life they love.

Some of the workers speak very poor English and a lot of them come in and ask me for help because I can speak a little Spanish. There is such an enormous disparity in wealth, with most people either filthy rich or dirt poor but in love with the spirit.

I end the day by relaxing in the sun at the base of the mountain. Watching me claw at the top of a can of chicken noodle soup with a knife must be a spectacle. I’m vainly trying to pry the sustenance out of the can with my unbuckled ski boots sliding across the wooden deck like ice skates. A man from Iowa interrupts my efforts, asking me if I’m a local, and after several weeks here I feel obligated to say yes.

Finally breaking into the can I take a seat and scoop most of the soup onto a plate. My slurping instead of using a spoon spills the soup straight onto my black t-shirt. Unfazed by my mess, he goes on to tell me why he’s here without me asking. I halfheartedly listen, soaking up the sun and peering up at the halfpipe.

I worked IT for many years. Now I’m forty so I think I’ll buy a ‘Vette. Or get back into skiing. I need something to cure my midlife crisis.

He laughs and looks for a similar response. I don’t give him one, and he hurriedly bids me ado. Suddenly I can’t be bothered by the idle chatter from vacationers. I finish my meal, soaking up the soup with some pieces of bread, and casually take a few more runs before confirming that I can spend the night with Jon.

We’ve been through the friendship spectrum. Once roommates, we ended living together on caustic terms. After living separately for two years, we get along without any bad blood. As it turns out, when I give him a call, he’s staying in a condo given to him and some professional skiers for the week while they film around the mountain. He enthusiastically extends an invitation, and although I’m excited by the hint of celebrity, I try not to take the offer too quickly.


When I arrive at their condo in Breckenridge with a housewarming case of beer it’s nothing like Arienne’s report. Simon Dumont, a young skiing phenom, sits idly at the table with the keys to his Hummer spinning in his hand. Peter and Michael Olenick, two brothers from Aspen, and TJ Schiller, a gold medal winner at last year’s X-Games, are lounging quietly in front of the television with bottles of Gatorade rather than beer. They’re only around for one night before they have to go to a competition in Sun Valley, Idaho. I’ll see them on TV next week when the X-Games begin, but all I can think is how they all seem so much smaller in real life.

Jon introduces me to everyone and they politely return hellos. He fits the look of extreme sports, with a thick frame and a tan face from skiing daily in the sun. Long bleached hair protrudes from the holes in a home knit hat. He’s putting me up for two nights in a condo that must go for well over a thousand dollars a week.

I’m fraught with jealousy over them getting paid absurd amounts of money to play in the snow. Simon is on a contract with Target that pays him over $400,000 as a base, doing what I call a hobby. “Smelly” Pat paces in and out of the kitchen with the phone pressed against his ear, mouthing for us to shut the fuck up while he gives an interview.

I feel like an intruder when we stop by their favorite pizza joint, X-Treme Pizza for dinner and, shoot a few games of pool. They roar into the restaurant like movie stars, and to some people out here, like me, they’re more than that – they’re heroes. I sheepishly sit at the table while they woo our waitress with overly polite language every time she walks by flashing smiles and asking what she’s doing after work.

They carom from table to table, knocking beer onto plates of pizza and peering over shoulders to get a better look at some video footage they’re watching on portable video cameras. Many of them have baggy pants on with overly big shirts like you might see on a child when it’s time for bed. They’re screaming obscenities across the restaurant while employees look on, vainly trying to limit the damage. By the time we get through dinner most of the other patrons have evacuated the scene.

Later that night a couple of us decide to poach on a jacuzzi at another condominium community because ours is closed. On the way out, Peter Olenick eyes up the space between two cars that are parked against the curb. They’re making the normally two lane street precariously narrow for his vehicle that is a borderline monster truck. When he hits the side-view mirror of one car, he quickly throws it into reverse.

Getting out and looking at the damage he laughs, and in disbelief says I can’t believe I thought my car was going to fit through there.

Without further remorse or any effort to apologize to anyone, we jump into his sister’s station wagon and head for the hot tub.

We’re sharing the bubbling water with a liftie and Breckenridge native named Shannon.

I hate it when people suggest that they didn’t know people actually came from this area – they don’t know that my parents make a living off their tourism. They used to lead activities around the area but now they manage a travel website that’s basically a gateway for people to find stuff to do in Breckenridge.

I want to ask her where she’s traveled. Surely her view of tourists and travelers must be skewed from being part of the destination. I wonder if she’s left this town or this state. I understand a certain amount of bitterness towards visitors, but I can’t help but wonder if she isn’t jealous over their journey? If one of the advents of travel is discovery, she must have learned to stem that flow of curiosity. I feel sorrow for those who haven’t left where they were born and raised. How much can you really know about yourself if you don’t know about anything else?

Again I think of George Santayana writing about travel.

There is an acrid savor in their elderly sweetness: they believe they have missed something which they pretend to despise.

But I don’t think someone who has lived their life in one place is bittersweet about their unmoving. Many people probably think of vacationing as frivolous movement. If everything is provided for in a certain place – there’s food to eat and air to breathe – what more is there to find anywhere else. Sadly, in a time with more opportunity for movement and learning than ever before, some still plod from the beginning until the end, possibly cheated of an unfound love or undiscovered conversation.

I can’t trust that everything will be found in one place; it feels like a constant flame is burning just behind me and whenever I slow down for too long it flares up, pushing me forward. I hope I leave this world still teeming with curiosity, dissatisfied with the little I know.

My second night in Breckenridge is different than the first. The condo was less crowded. Even though I’m crashing on the floor of some of a condo full with the best skiers in the country, there is hardly a lick said about skiing, which is a relief for me. Even though I’ve skied since I was five, I feel like I can’t contribute to their stories of competition or mastering a difficult trick.

They spend most of their time talking about, and then actually chasing girls, like most sexually overcharged twenty something’s. You certainly can’t blame them; they spend ninety percent of their time with men, and the ratio in a ski town is something cruel like eight guys to one girl. Even the lone female in the house, Meg Olenick, is used to their lewdness, accepts it, and uses some of the same crude language.

Early in the evening, when Simon urges me to go get more beer from the fridge, I take a jump towards the kitchen and slip backwards on the heel of my sweatpants. On the way down I jam my chest into the corner of the counter, ripping both my shirt and my skin open. The room goes silent and starts spinning a little, while I lay there not knowing whether to cringe or smile. Later that night, Dumont almost meets the same lethal corner with his face when he somersaults out of a wrestling move applied by Jon in the living room.

Despite their seemingly reckless behavior and their thoughtless attitude, many of the skiers I stayed with were sincerely dedicated to advancing their sport. TJ Schiller and Peter Olenick were on the mountain with photographers before the sun rose. Their day was hours old by the time I struggled out from under the covers. They endlessly critique each other on hours of video footage compiled on a laptop. I can only watch in awe and reassure myself that what I’m watching isn’t done by someone supernatural; they’re right next to me on the couch.

Jon and his friends’ time in the condo is up the next day and I’m losing track of my dreams, of what I’m really doing out here. Most mornings I wake up with my mouth like sandpaper from a dehydrating day of skiing and then little to nothing except beer to drink in the evening. It feels like I haven’t slept in months. Without any income I worry about my slimming funds. I rejoice when it hits thirty degrees out, because when the sun peeks out from behind the snowy clouds my entire body warms underneath my ski clothes.