Beaver Creek Cabin

Skis? Check.
Boots? Check.
Widespread, cracking, woomfing, propagating snow instability? Check.

With our semester's finals over and nothing but pow in our future, a group of friends and I loaded the essentials (whiskey, M&Ms, and ski gear) into a car and took off for three days of skiing in the Southern Madison Range. We had rented out a tiny forest service cabin tucked deep in the Gallatin National Forest, away from all responsibility except to ski. We skinned in the 3.5 miles, the one sled present loaded down with an entire keg of Bozeman Brewing's finest ale, and dropped our packs at the cabin. The next several hours were spent perfecting our adventure-skinning techniques, fighting off the grasp of shrubbery while trying to maneuver our skis over deadfall. The touring-to-skiing ratio was heavily skewed toward touring, but provided both an excellent workout and an exercise in tree trimming. The next day dawned early with huge hunks of bacon in tow (Red, the dog contingent, slavered away to no avail). We tiptoed across creeks over snow bridges, fought off the forest once more, but did end up atop a pristine snowfield that we promptly decimated with ski tracks. That night, after several rowdy rounds of drinking games, culminated in a naked backflip under the stars, several barefoot laps around the cabin, and a quick and shirtless lesson in tele skiing. The final day found us touring up a ridge toward a distant peak, but when the snow suddenly whoomfed, settling into a scary silence while cracks shot out and up the steeper slope ahead of us. Needless to say, we hightailed it out and lapped the nearby meadow for hours on end, sculpting kickers, creating perfect figure eight turns, and smiling in the sun.

Creeksgiving

The desert holds an alien mystique no matter how deep you delve in it's fissures. It's a desolate and inhospitable landscape, but also one teeming with hidden life. Life held in the twisting claws of juniper, blossoming in the rivulets that run from spring to algae-laden pothole, and in the spirits of the few hardy people who return year after year. The few that arrive like clockwork each fall and spring come to dance up the sandstone pillars, glide down bike trails along the canyon rims, and explore the twisting labyrinths of the slot canyons. By the end of each trip their skin is stained the same deep orange as the desert, their pockets are full of sand, and their grins glint from freckled faces. 

We spent our Thanksgiving break climbing down in Indian Creek... Creeksgiving! Driving overnight after classes, we shotgunned PBRs with the sunrise in the parking lot and headed to the crag to climb some splitters. Jamming fingers in corner crack systems, thrashing up offwidths, thin hands soaring up inside a cave... we climbed it all. Life in the desert is so unique, so simple, such a vital part of me. The warmth that bathes your face as the sun rises above the far hills. The grit showering down into your eyes and crunching between your teeth on climbs. The hot flames and thin, fragrant smoke from a burning juniper. The brilliant purples, oranges, blues as the desert chameleons into night. The smooth, striped walls of a slot canyon twisting out of sight. An impossibly blue sky overhead. The swath of brilliant stars and swollen moon that submerges the landscape in moonlight. It's the stuff of Desert Solitaire, of adventure, the final untamable landscape. And Abbey is right, you have to leap out of your car, rip off your shoes, and run out into it all. You have to pull cactus spines from your skin, have to nap in the dirt, have to get away from society and up cliffs or down canyons or along trails. I had never been to the desert up until three years ago, I had no idea what I was missing. But now, from spending a collective month biking along sheer cliff rims, hiking in canyons with Anasazi ruins perched high above, jumping into icy potholes, and climbing the golden cliffs, the desert has worked its way into my life it a permanent fashion. I've become part of the annual desert pilgrimage, the mass migration to seek sunlight and adventure and a freeing of the soul. 

Preseason Training

Skian With Rhys - Episode Uno

We dropped the first of (hopefully) many "sweet" edits today... Preseason workout tactics including proper nutrition, beacon practice, and weightlifting. Check it out!



Skian WIth Rhys - Episode Uno from Kirra Kirra on Vimeo.

Back on the Slopes!

I stomped into my bindings, looped my poles around my wrists, and made one, two, three hop turns before BAM! I'm sliding headfirst down a couloir with my left ski riding down abreast of me. I reach out, grab it and barely arrest with my other ski. I click back in, shake off the snow crystals, and continue shredding down my first run of the season. 

The morning of Halloween, a crew of thirty skiers rallied to hike, skin, and ski blade our way up into the bowl of Sacajawea Peak. We hit the base of the bowl and fanned out, smaller groups kicking their way up various couloirs and skinning up snowfields. I and my backcountry buddies of choice picked a line off of Hardscrabble Peak, an aesthetic pair of narrow couloirs that intertwined their way down. As the pitch mellowed out toward the base it turned into a tight luge run that snaked down through the field of rocks, requiring last minute ollies over strips of scree, tranny gaps, and the occasional one ski navigation. Bombing down through the trees below the bowl we stumbled upon some young jibbers in the middle of an impromptu forest rail jam. This species is normally found seshing in urban environments, but with all this climate change they're being forced into high alpine environments. They threw down on the rails while we ate their snacks... As a reformed park rat myself, I assure they didn't care, those kids were busy eating s***! 

Bangtail Edit

Went for a mid-october bike ride on the bangtail trail. Hit some mega-puddles, busted a rear shock, ate four and a half feet of fruit rollups, and had a helluva good time… with Matt Forbes, Ren Egnew, Above Average Matt, Michele Rockwell, and Big Bertha - the baller landcruiser. Made my first edit too! Check er out…

Bangtail Bike Shenanigans from Kirra Kirra on Vimeo.

Night Bouldering

There's something about warm, starry nights that awakens some sort of latent nature-ADD. Evenings when you have to get out, go run, feel the air currents brush your skin. Last night was one of those nights. One of those rare October dusks that feels alive, that draws you from your house and sends you spinning through the dim streets by foot or longboard or bike. Mid street-twirl, a buddy called me up, having acquired three 1600 lumen bike lights (my car headlights are only 700 lumens for reference) and with a wide open schedule for the evening. We biked out to one of the Boulders, one of several climber-made public boulders sprinkled around the city of Bozeman, and set up the lights. The sharp contrast created by the lights added an element of surprise: not knowing if a promising shadow was a solid crimp or a smooth sloper fading into the night. It was my buddy's last night before a two-month-long yosemite dirt-bagging adventure, and so we celebrated in fine style with peanut butter sandwiches,  games of add-on, and a bit of dry-tooling.

Salkantay

If appreciation of a landscape increases with the effort required to arrive there, our five-day trek over the 15,000 foot Salkantay pass must have ended with absolute worship at Machu Picchu. Those days encompassed such a wide range of experiences. Starting in a tiny arid mountain village swarming with a particularly vicious species of biting fly, we followed a deep valley as it twisted up through the snowy giants of the Andes up, up, and over the barren, cairn-covered pass. Then, over the next few days we descended into the jungle, the "eyebrow" of the Amazon. We clambered into trees to pick wild bananas and avocados. We watched leaf-cutter ants meander and transparent-winged butterflies flap lazily. We slept surrounded by ancient ruins with Machu Picchu just a green saddle in the distance. To approach from so far, reliant on only our feet for transportation instead of the technology-based norm, gave us an insight into to the land and the lives of the Peruvians that we otherwise would have missed.