How to (sort of) Be a Ski Bum

Every year, we take a big climbing trip.  This year we said, "let's do a big ski trip."  Then the weather looked at us and said, 

"haha, not."  But we are trying anyway.  Skiing on rocks is still skiing.  True skibumhood would involve us being badass backcountry shredders, but we are still struggling with our gaperdom.  Hence this guide to (sort of) being a ski bum, largely based on being one during a year without snow, and also assuming that you live in a van. 

1. No money on the mountain
Being a ski bum by definition means you're broke.  Other wise you'd just be a skier.  It's hard to save money when you insist on participating in one of the more ridiculously expensive sports out there, but there are things you can do to help.  One of them is to leave your wallet in the van when you head for the mountain.  We don't bring any cash or credit cards with us while we are skiing, because spending $25 on a burger at lunch isn't going to help your bottom line.  Instead, we pack a PROBAR and some trail mix, and we usually head back to the van for lunch and a midday break.

2. Sleep where you can, and not where you can't

Seems obvious enough, but this can be tricky.  Navigating different resorts' attitudes towards #vanlife can be difficult.  If there is a sign that specifically states "No Overnight Parking," you shouldn't risk it.  No specific signs?  Probably a safe bet, and you can always claim ignorance if someone disturbs your slumber with a flashlight and an order to move.  Then there are places like Taos, that straight up say, "7 Day Parking Limit," which anyone who lives in a van immediately recognizes as "Yes! Please Camp Here Because We Are An Awesome Place."  Can't sleep at the resort?  Learn your way around National Forest Land, BLM Land, stealth camping, and of course, the Walmart parking lot.

3. Find the free

There are plenty of deals, free things, and hook ups waiting for you, the poor and hungry skier, and if you know where to look you'll end up saving lots of money, getting fed, and getting psyched.  There's the small things, like all Vail Resorts give out free Nature Valley granola bars.  When you're in the ticket office selling a kidney to afford your lift ticket, stuff a few of those in your pockets to ease the pain a bit.  Some places, like Aspen Highlands, have skier appreciation days.  Whether this happens every Wednesday, or if we just got really lucky on the day we were there, it was pretty sweet.  Check out your resorts calendar to see if they have one coming up.  Some of the perks we experienced were free parking, free muffins, free coffee, and free hot dogs (you had to be fast on the hot dogs, they ran out quickly).  Get it.  

Another great option is to volunteer for events.  Chelsea and I put in about three hours of volunteer time for a big event at Vail over a long weekend, and in return we were gifted a $300 down jacket, a 5-day lift ticket, and meal vouchers for the entire weekend.  Sound too good to be true?  We thought so too, but here we are sitting in the van wearing matching jackets.  

There are tons of other deals out there.  For example, each of us recently put in 10 gallons of fuel at a Shell station and we each received a buy one, get one free voucher, which could be used at several different resorts in Colorado.
Enter contests!  I've won a GoPro and a free movie download through Instagram contests, and we are always entering our emails for chances to win gear, food, money, etc.  Someone has to win, it could be you!

Perhaps the best deal of all, is the pass we bought this year- the Mountain Collective, which gives us 2 days of skiing at 7 different stellar resorts throughout the west for $380 (at the time we purchased, cheaper if you bought earlier!).

Lastly on this topic, it never hurts to ask.  We've contacted a few companies along our route, stopped by their HQ, and gotten hooked up with tours, gear, and food.

4. Set low expectations

If your expectations are low, you are more likely to be pleasantly surprised!  This really applies this year because of the dry winter.  We arrive at the mountain expecting low coverage, rocks, ice, etc. and when we don't end up seeing dry ground all day, we are pretty psyched.  When we do get a new core shot in our skis on the first run of the day, we can shrug and say, "yea, I kinda figured that might happen."

5. Remember that Instagram lies

Ever get the feeling that everywhere you're not is getting dumped on?  As you scroll through your feed you see glorious pillows, face shots, snow beards and fresh tracks, and think whyyyyy am I not there?  But then you continue to scroll to the feed of where you are and... wait, what run are they on, because nothing you skiied today looked like that.  #whiteroom #epic #bestdayever #powder #bringyoursnorkel Don't forget that the professional Intagrammers that work for resorts are marketing geniuses and they are paid to make things look awesome so you'll want to jump on a plane and leave the ho-hum conditions where you are, for the excellent snow where they are.  They aren't going to post a picture of a gaper skiing over sticks on Bobby's Run.  Whether or not the picture you're looking at was actually taken recently will always remain a mystery, but remember one thing: if they're posting a lot of sunset and sunrise over the mountain pictures, the snow probably sucks.      

6. No skiing on the weekend

As a ski bum, you have free rein of the calendar, and should thus use your advantage wisely.  You don't have to ski on the weekends.  Most people do.  You don't have to ski on holidays.  Most people do.  So ski during the week, avoid the crowds, and keep the secret powder stashes to yourself.  Wait, secret powder stashes?!  Yea, I haven't found any of those this year either.       

7. Have a plan B

We loaded up the van with snowshoes, cross country skis, downhill skis, hand warmers, tons of jackets, a portable heater, tire chains and several pounds of hot chocolate, because we were expecting an epic winter road trip.  But, we also packed climbing gear, paddling gear, hiking boots, running shoes, and a grip of tank tops because why not be prepared for it all (/because everything I own is in the van?).  We've been skiing and having an awesome time, but because the weather is more spring than winter, we've also been doing lots of other things.  We've visited national parks, gone on many miles of hiking trails, done a bunch of climbing, and otherwise explored when there isn't enough snow on the ground for winter activities.  You can't control mother nature, but you can always find something to do outside.

8. Don't take yourself too seriously

As I mentioned at the onset, we're total gapers.  So despite the fact that I've been making jabs at the conditions this year throughout this whole post, I'm just doing it in good fun, and I really am enjoying every moment of this trip.  Sometimes you have a good snow year, sometimes you don't.  Sometimes it snows a whole bunch right after you've left one place and headed for another.  You can't predict these things, so there's no use worrying or stressing or trying to be in each place only when there is powder.  Being outside in the mountains is such a gift, so just go out there and enjoy your skibumhood!  (But also join POW, and reduce your impact, and vote, because climate change is really scary).

Diversions

Technically, we are on a ski trip.  But the nice thing about being on the road is that you can actually do whatever you feel like whenever you want.  So when the snow was melting and the sun was out in California, of course we had climbing on our minds.  And we brought that mindset with us through Southern Utah and into Colorado and along to Utah.

After leaving Mammoth with a new core shot in my skis, we stopped in Bishop  for a day of bouldering.  We hiked up to the Druid Stones to avoid any early MLK weekend crowds in the 'Milks.  I kind of forgot how hard that hike is, until I was halfway up sweating through my t-shirt and blowing snot rockets every ten seconds (I had a really bad cold).  Once we were at the top and filled with snacks, it felt so good to be on the rock.  It had been a little while and I was feeling a little out of shape, but having a blast.  Bishop never disappoints.  

The next day, we knew we needed to get out of town before the hordes of people came pouring in for the holiday weekend.  We headed south to Lone Pine for a day of climbing at Alabama Hills.  We had our sights on a very aesthetic climb, The Shark's Fin.  The Shark's Fin stands alone and looks exactly like it should.  You can see Mt. Whitney in the background behind the climb, and all in all it's just a beautiful setting.  Pair that with the fact that we didn't see any other people, and you have the makings of a perfect day of climbing.  The routes on the Fin are all pretty easy, so we had a really mellow day of sport climbing.  

After leaving Lone Pine, we headed for Death Valley.  Our time there was fairly uneventful except for a run in with some park rangers.  We came in at night, and seeing as we hadn't passed the entrance kiosk and pay station that usually symbolize that you have entered a National Park, we thought we were ok to go down a side road and park in a large pullout for the night.  Apparently we were already in the park, and unfortunately for the rangers that were assigned to educate us, we didn't wake up until about 10:00.  They didn't knock on the van, they just waited outside until we came out.  Once properly educated on the park boundaries, they sent us away with a warning.  We then drove further into the park and went into the office to show our parks pass, which I always present with my ID.  The man at the counter read my name off my ID and laughed, "you guys just had some visitors didn't you?" "How did you know?" we asked.  He laughed and pointed to his radio.  He then pulled out a backcountry roads map, handed it to us, and said "I'll give you ladies this, because it seems like you like to stay off the beaten track."  Yes.

After Death Valley it was a short drive to Vegas where we braved the scenic drive to get to some bouldering.  We started on a rather overhanging bloc on a hillside, which when paired with gravity was actually kind of terrifying.  Next we moved to Get to da Choppa, which I mostly wanted to try because of the name.  There was no way I could do the big barn door move so I tried a work around with moderate success.  Next it was the Carpace, a slopey V7.  Slopers are my weakness (well, one of them).  But it was such a beautiful problem I decided to give it a shot.  I started making moves and then making links, and I eventually had all the moves done except the last one!  Then my finger started  bleeding everywhere and we decided to call it a day.  Not willing to pay the exorbitant price for the Red Rocks campground for another night, we hit the road again for St. George.  

I was feeling pretty wrecked from climbing hard in Red Rocks, but I tried some of my old projects in Moe's Valley and had a really fun day.  We spent two more days in the St. George area and went sport climbing at Chuckwalla Wall and the Black Rocks, both new areas to both of us.  The St. George area is awesome, there is so much to do and it is all super accessible from town.

After four days on, it was time for a rest day from climbing so we headed out to Zion for a beautiful walk, and then we were on our way again, this time to the permit office in Kanab, UT, to try to win the lottery for a permit to visit the Wave.  Unfortunately we were unsuccessful, but there is plenty to do in the area so we went on a 7 mile hike to some really interesting hoodoos in Grand Staircase Escalante National Monument.  The following day it was on to Horseshoe Bend, a very scenic stop indeed.  From there we motored to the four corners national monument (not recommended) and onto Albuquerque, and Taos (which I've detailed more in another post), and up to Colorado, where it was time to climb again.

We met up with Trevor and Andrew in Eldorado Canyon and started the day with our teeth chattering, but ended up with some lovely sunshine and pleasant temps.  The climbing was fun and techy and the company was great.  A few days later we somewhat met up with Alex at the Terrain boulders at the base of the flatirons.  Mostly we spent the day lost, trying to find Alex's pin drop.  By the time we got to the boulders it was super cold and our minds were on dinner and beer, so we headed back down soon after.

Following a fantastic stay in Breckenridge, we headed to Apsen (I'll post on these spots in a later blog!), and then on to Moab for a day of bouldering at the Big Bend boulders.  As I've mentioned before, these boulders are super stout and I spent a fair amount of time working on a V1, which thankfully, I managed to finish.  We met some super friendly climbers who gave us suggestions for later on our trip, then went for a lovely run along the river.  Next it was showers (finally!) and burgers (much needed), and then we were off to the Creek.  Despite it being a holiday weekend, we found camping, and had the climbing to ourselves.  The climbing in the Creek was obviously stellar as always, the weather was warm and summer-like, and I even led something without scaring myself too much!

So despite being on a ski trip, we are fitting in lots of other activities and having a blast.  We are keeping a positive attitude about the less than stellar snow conditions, and exploring lots of new places.  Life is good!

Taos

Before we decided to do a road trip this winter I had texted Chelsea and said, let's see if we can get jobs at Taos Ski Valley this winter and live there.  Neither of us had skied there before, in fact neither of us had even been to New Mexico before, but it seemed like a great idea and we were pretty set on it for a while.  After more thought, we decided we had been working too much and should take some time off for retirement and another big trip.  We decided that we still wanted to ski Taos on our trip even though it wasn't included on our pass.

We arrived in New Mexico earlier than we had planned.  I had texted an old friend in Albuquerque and said, "I think we will be there in a few days" and the next day I sent her another text, "We'll be there in four hours.. surprise!"  Lissie was not thrown off by our surprise, and welcomed us to New Mexico with open arms.  I volunteered with Amigos de las Americas with Lissie in 2006, when we lived together in a rural village in Honduras.  I hadn't seen her in about nine years, so it was wonderful to catch up.  We spent a day exploring Albuquerque, mostly through our taste buds.  We started with a loaf of New Mexico Green Chile bread that popped out of the oven only moments before we began devouring it.  We moved on to tortilla soup at the Frontier and just got fuller from there.  In the afternoon we drove up to Taos and were very surprised at how big it was.  We hadn't really realized that there was the town of Taos and then another 20 minutes away was Taos Ski Valley, the actual resort, and a very small town itself.  

In the morning, we headed up to the mountain and immediately felt we were in a good place when the parking lot had a sign that said "7 day parking limit," essentially a free camping sign.  We were also encouraged by the price of the daily lift ticket, $82, no where near the astronomical prices of California and Colorado (a daily ticket at Breckenridge is $140, I shit you not).  We had a great day skiing in the bright New Mexico sun.  Taos is a pretty tough mountain with about 50% of the terrain being advanced.    There is a lot of terrain that can be hiked to as well.  For some reason, I was skiing really terribly all day, and the mountain doesn't really give you any breaks, but we still had a blast.  It was great to see locals skiing in cowboy hats and jeans with gaiters on.  The employee uniforms were Carhartt jackets.  The whole vibe on the mountain was very laid back and friendly and the right amount of funky.  

We decided to ski just one day to save money, and because the mountain could use a bit more snow.  We slept in the parking lot and took two really stellar hikes the next day.  There are tons and tons of hiking trails near to the resort.  The dogs had a blast, we saw lots of beautiful scenery, and we even happened upon a backcountry hut, which we will definitely stay at next time we are here.  When we hit the road again, we were feeling very relaxed and satisfied with our time in New Mexico.  Taos gets my #1 vote so far for best vibe at a ski area.    

     

Van Brownies

I have a very, very overactive sweet tooth (as evidenced by the fact that when I went to my dentist uncle in Colorado a few days ago I had 22 cavities.  1. Yes, I'm serious.   2. Yes, that is possible [I didn't think it was either]. 3. Most adults have 28 teeth if you were wondering. 4. If you need any dental work done while you're in the Denver area, please let me know, my uncle is amazing!).  Anyway, my apparent horrible dental hygiene aside, I'm always craving sweets and while we were in New Mexico, Chelsea and I were really craving brownies.  My friend Adam had recently told me about cooking corn bread on his camp stove using a double boiler method and I was pretty sure this would work very well with brownies.  We decided to give it a try, and it was quite successful!  Here is the method we used, as well as some things we will try differently next time:

1. Get your brownie mix.  Obviously living in a van this is sensible instead of trying to make brownies from scratch.  We chose this mix from Trader Joe's not at all because it was fat free, but because the only ingredient it required was yogurt!  This was a bonus because we weren't sure if our brownie would cook all the way and we didn't really want salmonella if we ended up with raw egg in the middle of our brownie.  

 2. Prepare your brownie pan.  We put coconut oil on our pan to avoid a sticky mess while trying to remove our brownie.

3. Mix

 4. Batter in the pan, water in the pot.  Set the pan so it nestles into the pot (if possible, if you have pots and pans that fit together!)  Next time, we would make only half a batch at a time.  This would allow it to cook faster, and it would also prevent us from eating an entire pan of brownies in one sitting.

5. Put a lid on it and turn on the heat!  Get the water in the bottom pot boiling, but then make sure it turn it down or it will boil over and get your brownie soggy.  Patience is really helpful at this point.

6. BROWNIE!  YUM.

Our brownies turned out really tasty, but as usual we weren't really patient enough to allow them to cook fully.  They were a little sticky, but seriously delicious.  As we stuffed our faces, Chelsea laughed, "my lips are so sticky" through chocolate coated teeth.  "I can't swallow" I gargled back.  We then laughed until we cried and continued to shovel brownie into our faces despite the fact that we could barely breathe.  Clearly, we have a problem.