Just now riding the sainted bike to nowhere through the Austrian Alps (nice!!) I thought about a similar landscape here in Colorado, a hike I loved. It was reachable, doable, beautiful, rewarding and little traveled. As I rode I thought about what was maybe the best experience (there is a LOT of competition for this) which was in February 1981. I had my first pair of cross-country skis, Karhu Whisper Bear Claws, fish-scale skis I bought from the Campmor catalog along with boots, three pin bindings, and poles. I’d had two lessons. I’d also bought a very simple ski rack I put on top of my 70 VW bug, just a couple of racks with a rubber strap to hold the skis down.
It was a perplexing but happy moment in my life. I’d just had a one-woman show of my paintings. Some confusing stuff was going on, as per natural for a woman in her late 20s, I think. Three men in the periphery, one of whom I would marry. I had not yet learned I would have a job in China.
I was doing linoleum cuts at the time. It was a great balance of things. Come home from work on Friday and cut the first color and print it, then cut the second and go to bed. Wake up, print the second color and, if there were a third, cut it. On that particular day, there was no third color and I found myself at loose ends. Outside my apartment (which was much like and the same age as my current house) was a foot of snow. I looked at my skis. I investigated my solitude and decided, “Fuck it. I want to be a back country skier when I grow up.”
I put on my ski clothes and strapped these skis — which were by no means back country skis — to the top of my car and took off for Boulder, then up Boulder Canyon to Nederland, then up a small road to Eldora and up THAT to the townsite of Hessie. There, when I could go no further, I parked my car. I got out, put on my skis, and headed up the trail. My objective was Lost Lake, two miles up, two miles back. The first part — almost the first mile — was a very sharp and rocky uphill, but there was a lot of snow on the trail. I ran into a couple of hikers but I don’t remember our conversation. I just climbed until I got to the corderoy road where things were a little easier, though still uphill, and the trail wider.
The lake — a glacial lake in a U-shaped valley — was mostly but not completely frozen. The cup of mountains was covered in snow. The old mine hanging on one face had snow on its roof. I looked around for a few minutes, but winter is not really the season for lingering beside a glacial lake and pondering the wonders of existence. It’s more for participating in the wonders of existence. I turned around and made my way down the hill, sometimes skiing, but often side-stepping the steeper, narrower parts. I ran into (not literally) the hikers who were astonished I was already on my way back.
It was wonderful, one of my earliest solitary adventures in wild country. I suspected that I should have been afraid, but I wasn’t. Still, I didn’t tell anyone. I didn’t want to hear the objections and the lectures.
Today, after riding the bike to nowhere, I went online to see the hike. I was dismayed that it is now so popular that there are shuttles carrying people to the trailhead from Nederland and that campsites need to be reserved. I backpacked up there a few times when I had a longer journey in mind — up to Devil’s Thumb Pass (WOW!!!). It was so simple. Carry your stuff, park your stuff, hang food out of the reach of Bears away from camp and there you go. I looked at a map of the trail and recognized every turn. Then I read that it’s a year round trail, in winter for snow-showing and cross-country skiing though, one site writes, it’s very steep and challenging skiing for the first mile and half.
In my mind’s eye I can see my herringbones up the extremely steep and narrow first part of the trail. I thought it was fun because, you know what? It was fun. One lucky thing for me that day was the snow was a little wet making it a little grippy.
You can learn about the trail here
I was enchanted by that kind of skiing, skiing that took you somewhere and after I moved to Southern California I very very seldom missed a snowstorm in the Laguna Mountains. I think living in California made me really appreciate the miracle of snow. There was no way I could ever take it for granted since I couldn’t count on it falling more than two or three times a winter. When it fell, a LOT fell — usually between 18 inches and two feet; sometimes more. The snow was great, but, being in Southern California, it also melted fast. I could count on two or three days at most. I would call in sick from teaching if it snowed. Priorities, right? Once the good X and I were skiing to the top of Cuyamaca Peak (7000 feet, from the top you could see the Pacific Ocean) and encountered fresh tracks of a mountain lion — we turned back. Another time we skied to the top of Mt. Palomar to see the observatory in snow. The list is long and probably pretty boring, but it really all began for me that February day alone heading to Lost Lake in the Indian Peaks Wilderness of Colorado.
And every fall I train, my act of faith on the Sainted Bike to Nowhere that this year will bring snow and I will seize the day, maybe not like that but who knows?
Featured photo: Self-portrait from back in the day. Linoleum cuts in the foreground; skis in the background. I’d turned my bedroom into a studio and slept on a daybed/sofa in my living room. Again, priorities.
Here’s my wolf/husky Ariel in the snow in the Lagunas in 2004.
“Summer is the season of inferior sledding” - Inuit proverb 
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