Negative Degrees, Positive Attitude

I burrow deeper into my sleeping bag, grateful for the extra pair of wool socks I decided to put on before getting into bed, and listen to the howling wind angrily course through the Moraine Campground in Rocky Mountain National Park.  Like a swaddled baby in an oversized crib, I try to let the gusts of wind gently rocking the van carry me off to sleep. 

I scrunch my eyes tightly together transporting myself to my bedroom in Rhode Island on a stormy night.  Our house on the point, extremely exposed to the elements, takes a beating.  Waves crash over the rocks spraying the lawn with salty water and the howling wind reverberating through the house shakes the hurricane glass windows.  Despite being built to withstand flooding, hurricanes, and high winds, on nights like these I know my mom lies awake, like I am now, paranoid that by morning everything will be in ruins.

With each gust, I inhale sharply.  I wonder how much wind it would take to send my van off the side of the mountain, but quickly push the thought from my mind.  I exhale slowly as it passes.  I’m getting out of these mountains first thing in the morning, I tell myself.  

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“Weather is not a factor” is a saying that was drilled into me by my high school lacrosse coaches as we shoveled snow off the turf with our sticks before practices early in the season.  I can still hear it echoing through my mind whenever I’m about to complain about the conditions.  There’s no such thing as bad weather, just a bad attitude and under-preparedness.   It shouldn’t have come as a surprise to me that Colorado’s Rocky Mountains would be cold in the winter.  

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Three frosted faces emerge from the cloud of white coming towards me on the trail.  

“You can’t make it past Dream Lake, the wind gets too strong about .2 miles further,” one informs me.

“We were trying to get to the top of Emerald, but are turning around,” another continues.

I size them up.  Two girls and one guy about my age.  No packs, dressed pretty adequately, but wearing standard snow boats.  I think of my spikes, poles, and goggles in my backpack.

“Ah that’s a bummer, thanks for the heads up!” I reply and continue on nonchalantly.

5 minutes later, no longer sheltered by the trees and standing in front of what must be the frozen over Dream Lake (supposedly one of the best views in the park) I’m met by a surge of wind that sends me backwards.  I lower my head, put on my hood, and attempt to take a few steps forward. I look up briefly and see no trail in front of me, only whiteness.  I’m met again by a combination of wind and snow that whips me around and sends me back into the protection of the trees. I retreat back the way I came.

A few minutes later down the trail, I encounter four middle aged snowshoers.  Like the three that came before me, I warn them that wind picks up at Dream Lake. 

“We brought rope to tie ourselves together.  We’ll be okay!” the man leading the pack announces.

I laugh to myself, hardos. 

“Have a nice hike!” I say with a hint of sarcasm and continue on down the trail.  

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I spin the rack of postcards, stickers, and magnets around slowly.  I already know what sticker I want, but I linger, pretending to be conflicted, and examine all of the different options biding more time for my fingers to defrost.  It’s just me and the owner in the store at 10 A.M. on this Friday morning in the town of Estes Park right outside of Rocky Mountain National Park. 

“You’re up early braving the cold!” she says to me as I walk over to the cash register with the sticker to be added to my collection on the inside of the van’s rear doors.  

I’m not exactly braving the cold I try to explain.  As I tell the cashier about my two windy nights in the park, the white outs, the frigid temperatures, and how I was stopping to warm up and grab my souvenir before making the drive to sunny, blue-skied Boulder, I watch her facial expression morph between that of horror and sympathy.

“Oh honey,” she says, “come back in the summer!”

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Winter in the van has been an entirely different ball game.  It’s much harder to find places to park at night due to many campgrounds being closed for the season and towns not allowing overnight parking in order to snow plow.  My water tank is filled with chunks of ice, requiring me to crack open a pair of hand warmers after doing dishes at night.  I clutch the hand warmers as I journal and read and then deposit them into my sleeping bag before going to bed.  I purchased a portable heater which I crank on for an hour before going to sleep, but by morning the van’s an ice box.  Some mornings I lay awake not wanting to get out of the sleeping bag until my bladder is absolutely about to burst, then quickly sit on my frozen portable toilet before starting the van and turning the heat up all the way.  Getting changed is such an unpleasant task that I wear the same thermal base layers until the smell is overpowering.  I don’t even have my fridge on as things stay cold enough as is.  And, I’ve convinced myself that I actually like my bananas black and mushy.

Besides being cold and everything freezing, I’m actually alone now.  I decided to leave Churro with my parents when I visited them in Telluride, because I didn’t want to subject her to the cold. Though, selfishly, I wish I still had her companionship.  If there was ever a time I could use her snuggles and aggressive face licks, it is now.  We will be reunited shortly in Park City, where I will be taking a little bit of a longer break from winter van living before departing on the next segment of my van adventure at the end of March.

This stretch of the journey has tested me and pushed me to my comfort’s limits. However, it has also made me appreciate the places, activities, and everything I’ve done recently that much more. I learned from my time in the Rockies that perhaps hiking is not the best activity this time of year. However, skiing on the other hand… 

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My love for skiing was instilled in me at a young age by my Mom.  At 3 years old, she had me on a harness skiing down the bunny hill.  As the youngest, I was told that if I couldn’t keep up I’d have to go to ski school. I hated ski school.  I not only quickly learned to keep up with the rest of the family, but became a little speed demon.  To this day, I wear my neon green helmet and jacket so that my family can easily spot me in the distance.

Before our winters became completely consumed by squash either with junior tournaments or more recently college coaches forbidding skiing in season, my family spent weekends traveling to Vermont, New Hampshire, or Maine, took annual spring break ski trips out west, and then, while living in Switzerland, skied every chance we could in the Alps all the while collecting pins from every new mountain we visited.  Our family room at home is lined with family photos from each big ski trip as well as each of our pin collection boards. Leave it to the Blasberg’s to make a recreational family activity some sort of competition.

At 11 years old, on a beautiful bluebird powder day at Heavenly Mountain in Lake Tahoe after complaining of a debilitating stomachache on the chairlift, I was told to sit in the lodge so as not to ruin a perfect ski day.  When the rest of my family came in for lunch, I was found curled up on a bench clutching my stomach.  An hour later, I was getting my appendix out in the local Truckee Hospital while my brothers continued to ski.  A powder day in my family is worth almost having an appendix burst. While my parents look back at this time as perhaps a moment of parental negligence, I have no doubt that somewhere down the line I, too, will tell my future child, “Suck it up, there’s fresh snow.”

Here I am now, enduring a little pain and some discomfort while on a hunt for fresh snow and collecting pins from new mountains along the way. I’ve skied at Telluride, Crested Butte, Bluebird Backcountry, Snow King, Jackson Hole, and will be making my way to Sun Valley, before hitting Park City. In addition to overcoming the winter conditions in the van, I’ve also introduced myself to a new form of pain when it comes to skiing. At Bluebird, a no-chairlift ski startup cofounded by a Dartmouth ‘06, I did a series of three backcountry ski touring clinics and fell in love with skinning. As lift tickets have started to add up, I recently invested in a used touring set up I found at a gear consignment shop in Jackson, WY. From now on, I’ll be earning my turns as many mountains allow free uphill access before the chair lifts start running. Though I love to speed down the slopes, ripping wide turns like a Super G racer, after skinning a few miles up the mountain I take my one run nice and slow, savoring every turn.

Besides skiing, my other favorite activity has been seeking solace from the cold in hot springs. Soaking for an hour in natural hot water surrounded by mountains and snow is a magical experience. I would go as far as saying my hot spring soaks are spiritual like a baptism or going to the mikvah. I don’t even mind the shock of the cold when it’s time to get out and hike back to the van, because I’m filled with such an overwhelming sensation of warmth and happiness from the experience that penetrates me to my core.

Unlike the stretch of my journey from the south to the southwest, my stay in Colorado was filled with many friends, nights in beds, and showers which I am very grateful for.  During these visits with friends, I was also reintroduced to an old acquaintance, alcohol.  And, all I have to say about that is wow, I am not in college anymore.

I left on this journey without a plan or an end destination and was just figuring it out as I went.  I embraced the uncertainty and the freedom that came with it as I wandered discovering new places as well as new things about myself.  Unlike before when I had no clue where I was going, I now have a semblance of a plan and an idea about where I want to end up.  There’s something exciting on the horizon ~ stay tuned.