Winter's here already?

Out of 13 blog posts in 2011, only 3 published.  My, what a year of unfinished business, but then again, what a year of change.  New job, new house, new Jeep, and Amy and I are -finally- engaged.  I say finally because in hindsight, though we've been together almost 3 years now, it should have been 17.  But hey, that's old news, what's important now is what's next.  And now that winter's here....

Skiing has always been part of my life.  I started when I was 14, and being a Phoenix native that's a pretty odd thing.  But nonetheless, I spent the better part of the 10 years between 1996 and 2006 getting in anywhere from 10 to 45 days a year.  I even got this crazy idea back in 03 and decided I needed to telemark, so I spent the better parts of 03-06 buying tele equipment and teaching myself the art of the soulful turn.

You know, free the heel, free the soul...

Fortunately for the aspiring telemarker in me, I lived in northern Indiana at the time and had a ski area 20 minutes from my house.  At least, it was called a ski area because it had a lodge, lifts, and snow, but the two bumps in a farmers field are hardly what I knew as skiing, having grown up skiing the Rockies.  But nonetheless, it afforded me the opportunity to drive to Swiss Valley every night after work for a couple winters and do laps, refining my technique and getting the feel for the tele-turn.  3 minute ride up, 30 second ride down.  Repeat until 10pm. 

And it was great.  Each of those winters I got one or 2 trips back west to ride "real" mountains and had the legs all tuned up and ready to go.  No 2-5 days getting my legs in shape for winter, they were already where they needed to be to handle days of deep-quad burning tele-turns.  I even ventured into "the backcountry" a few times in central and northern Michigan and once in Flagstaff.  Nothing extreme or avalanche-prone, but an opportunity to slap some skins on my skis and do some climbing and winter camping. 

Moving back to Phoenix in late 2004 and re-kindling my love for mountain biking sort of killed off my skiing a bit, to where I have only gotten about a day or 2 a season the last 6 years.  But, for reasons I can't yet explain, the bug is back to make some turns, and do it often.  However, this time around, I don't have a nifty ski area just out my backdoor to tune up my legs.  I knew this, after a year or 2 back in Phoenix, which is why most of my telemark gear has been sold off replaced by traditional Alpine and an an AT setup. 

Telemarking is great fun but only if you're in shape to do it and have the legs, which on average takes 3-5 days to regain every winter.  Without the luxury of 30-40 skiing days anymore, I had to turn to the dark side.  I had to lock down my heels.  No more soulful turns.  No more knee bent close to the mountain and and grinning ear to ear as my tasseled sherpa hat's tassels blew in the wind behind me.  No more conceited happiness as I comfortably walked around in my boots at the lodge or in camp.  No more smug glee as I carved my beautiful turns beneath the ski lift, believing I was the top of the snow-sports food chain.  Nope.  I had returned to tier-2.  I had to put on my training heels.

Well, to quote Andrew McClean, fix the heel, fix the problem.

And until I can live somewhere that will allow 30-40 days a year again, I'll probably keep the heels locked down.  Sure, I'll lose all credibility with the counterculture, patchouli-smelling, anti-resort crowd, but sorry guys.  A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do to get some turns, and this man's just going to have to man up and admit it:

I am an AT skier.