The Liberty Bell
When we pulled off the highway at the top of Washington Pass to sleep inside Mort, Peter's big ugly van, it started raining hard. Pleasant for sleeping, unless sleeping will be followed by skiing in the morning. It had occured to us that it might be snowing on top, but probably only the very top of the mountains. When we awoke to see snow had covered everything, we were pleasantly surprised. We might have the last powder day of the season on our hands. Sure enough, up top it had snowed up to 10". Not bad for mid-May skiing.
The Early Winter Spires with Peter Hudnut and Travis Solberg. They call the mountains around here the American Alps. And any reference to the Alps around Herr Solberg and he's ecstatic and instantly in love with whatever it is.
Driving down the North Cascades Highway our eyes were glued to the windshield. At one point, Peter, driving, told Travis behind him to stop shouting "Holy Shit!" in his ear, and that we were not going to pull over for pictures anymore. So we conitinued down the road a bit more quietly but no less awed by the gigantic mountains that rise so sharply.
When three skiers who all like to make decisions come together for a day in the mountains and the decisions do not agree with each other, there tends to be a bit of angst in the air; each skier defiantly leading his own skin track, wanting to do his own run, and stubbornly disagreeing about safety issues. We finally agreed that no matter what, majority rules. So it was fortunate we had three people instead of two. Even so, when the majority ruled and Travis still disagreed, he wouldn't let it drop. He fought for his decision very hard and, happy to be on the side of the majority, I kept replying, "Majority rules, majority rules."
The Early Winter Spires look like miny Trango Towers. With the clouds moving through them to provide many different dramatic looks combined with varying sunlight, I continually nagged Travis for his camera, insisting that they looked even more stunning now.
After deciding the avalanche danger was just a little bit risky to do the chutes between the spires, I saw this chute and instantly wanted to do it. Travis yelled his usual, "Conor, you're an idiot!" Peter was sold on it too. It just looked so good. But we slowed down to discuss it further, and that Travis needed to stop calling people idiots so frequently but that he was right, and decided that it would have been do-able a couple hours early in the day before the sun heated up the slopes, but not now. I'll be back there.
It was fun to finally ski with Peter again, my primary ski buddy at the Colorado College, who had been through many injuries since graduation. Although he'll be walking like a 70 year old by the time he's 30, he still skis hard, telemarking on 190 Made 'N AKs with Bomber Bindings, the steel contraptions that look like bear traps.
Driving back down the highway to Seattle, we pulled over at the sight of a winery to do some taste testing and eat some cheese and crackers. Hmm, why yes this Chardonne is quite fine and oh this Merlot is simply marvelous. Could we get a little more cheese and crackers, bitte? I'm not a wine guy like Peter and Trav, so I was going to ask, "Do you have any beers on tap?" but thought better of it. So I tasted the wine and stuffed myself on the cheese and crackers, and filled my pockets with pretzels. My hair needed a bit of grooming for the situation so I grabbed a fork and stepped outside for a minute.
We were asked where we were from and we talked about that for half an hour. "Crested Butte, Jackson, Seattle, Milwaukee, Chicago, Fort Collins, Germany, New Zealand, Colorado, Gloucester, Alta, Tennesee, Italy, Virginia." We told stories to the woman behind the counter, Travis telling his Italian winery story for the fifth time in two weeks, and his storytelling made me think of Norman Maclean's advise, keep them short and full of action or you'll lose your listeners quickly.
With all the food and wine we feasted on, it would be very rude if we did not buy a bottle. We all agreed on that. So at that point Peter asked, "What's your cheapest red wine?", another thing we agreed on, and bought it. We escaped to Mort and calculated with all the tasting and food we ate, that we actually broke even from the bottle of wine. Smart shopping eh? Despite Peter's large settlement money he acquired from his biking accident, he has still managed to tenaciously hold onto his parsimony.
