Snowboarding in September! (Days 78-80)

Jeez Louise, I am SHOT. I thought I was getting back into shape, but I have humbled myself greatly. No, I didn’t even do that much, looking back on it; and the myriad of health issues I am going through, coupled with my less-than-ideal diet, probably aren’t helping; but, man I feel like I shouldn’t be this tired. If I’m being fair to myself though, I think most people would be pretty tired after these last 48 hours as well.

Monday was my day off from work this week. I had planned on heading up the glacier to find some snow and poke around with my shovel and my snowboard. I am living in this area for the year-round snow access, so even with the worst winter in history behind us and the mountain morbidly expressing it’s effects; well, I gotta make the most of it. So I crawled the steel box i call home up the access road and set off on foot for whatever patch of snow I could first find.

I got a late start to the day and quickly realized I was very unprepared. And in the silliest ways. I brought a subpar amount of water, severely underestimating the intensity of the sun up in this alpine environment. By the end of the first leg of the hike, about 1500 vertical feet in a mile, my shirt was off and sweat mixed with sunscreen was constantly finding its way into my eyes. I encountered a surprising amount of other skiers and riders, all of which seemed to be struggling just about as much as me; which made me feel a little better about myself, in a way. The thing that gets me is that this is nothing new to me and was a pretty daily occurrence in my life prior to moving west some three years ago. I’m also not used to doing these things sober, so I should cut myself some slack and just keep it up.

Close to another mile straight up this monster of a mountain, I found what I was looking for. A long, thin patch of snow, somewhat sheltered from exposure within one of the canyons created long ago by volcanic eruption and glacial formation. After re-applying sunscreen and starting to dig, a familiar face collapsed on the snow next to me. A co-worker from the kitchen I work in had stumbled his way up to continue his streak of snowboarding at least one day each month for some years now. As I said before; the locals have ended up here for a reason, and it sure as shit isn’t the economy or local infrastructure.

I shoveled for at least an hour, probably closer to two, and got a little snowboarding in. I had wished to spend the whole day up here; but with no food in my stomach and my water empty, it just wasn’t working out. I left my shovel with my coworker to hide in the rocks so I wouldn’t have to carry it back up the next hike; part of my exhaustion I think was surely due to carrying too much shit in my hands.

The next day I had work selling everything from Shining merchandise to custom steelwork to tourists. It was an early shift I had picked up, so I was to be off at 1 in the afternoon; perfect timing to head back up. We were significantly understaffed; so I happily agreed to stay until 2:30. I figured that just meant I had to hike faster.

And that I did! It was no less exhausting, but I got to my spot in around half the time I did on Monday. I also took a much smarter route; so that was obviously helpful lmao. But I think I only took two breaks; one of which was unplanned as I ran into the coworker I had found the day before. He was heading down on his way to work, but assured me he did a little more building and had left my shovel in the same spot.

The sun was also less intense, making it about 20 degrees cooler. Monday; shirtless. Tuesday; shirt, hat , hoodie; MUCH more comfortable. I got to work fixing up what Sean had left me; not that his work needed fixing, but if you’ve ever tried to build something in summer snow you know that shape deteriorates VERY quickly. You need to maintain it essentially every hour up here. I wanted to get some clips so I set up a little phone tripod with a hiking boot and coffee mug… and well, kind of completely failed.

I was rusty, I couldn’t get anything to look the way I wanted it to. Which meant I couldn’t move on to the next feature or trick; damn my self-criticism. When I finally did do a couple things that felt alright, I noticed I had sprayed my tripod-boot with snow on the in-run; causing it to shift downhill. So I had just been filming nothing for about half an hour prior to realizing so.

At this point the clouds had rolled in heavy in anticipation of the upcoming, much needed, rain. The light was shit, the temperature was dropping quickly, and my liquid supplies were dwindling. I stuck a stupid little piece of bamboo into a lip I had built and started playing around on that; because, god damnit, I’m leaving here with something. After hiking that for a solid 45 minutes, I was ready to go.

I made a short, stupid little edit from the last little half hour there while I was packing up my stuff. I would like to share some video here, but I am having trouble figuring out which video platform is best to use for Hive and Blurt. It’s been many years since I last did so on my old account, and the platform I used then has seemed to have died. So, any suggestions are gratefully welcomed :)

By the time I looked up from my phone, the clouds had disappeared and I was left with the most stunning view for the ride “down”(the snow probably went less than a hundred yards. To my left, a rainbow had popped out of nowhere, and the light was absolutely GLOWING on the crown of Mount Hood. It was honestly unbelievable. I wanted to really take it in, but at this point I was aware of how quickly it was about to get dark and my snow-covered hands were FREEZING. So I enjoyed it in motion instead.

As taxing as it was, these types of days are exactly what I need. By the time I got back down to the town of Govy, it had been dark for hours and I was so ready to just lie down and relax. That’s all I really need in life right now; something to keep me busy and get me tired enough to actually want the day to end. So, I really hope this becomes a much more regular occurrence for me. And I hope to make some videos of this little adventures coming up. This week’s forecast is filled with rain; meaning i likely won’t be going back up there until my next day off… but who knows, with the elevation, that rain might actually be snow up there.

Once I figure out where and how to share videos here, I hope to start doing that much more often. It seems the big two from what I’ve seen are something on Steemit, which I no longer use, and Blurt.Media; where I’m having trouble figuring out how to actually upload. But I’m working on it. Much love everyone 🐥