Back to touching on the title of this blog. Earning Turns. Last thursday I fell skiing and fell on my side and knocked the wind out of me. Well, me being me, I raced my next run and nursed my side with some beers. Turns out I lacerated my right kidney with elbow. I pissed blood Friday morning and my girlfriend talked me into going to the ER. One CT Scan and a overnight in the hospital ( not to mention a likely large bill) I am to do no strenuous activity for the next 2 weeks, and to ramp up my activity level to normal concluding 6 weeks from now. 6 WEEKS!

Its the end of February and looking at the snow falling from the sky. The snow that I can't ski. Season over. Maybe I'll be back for Super Park? Maybe. But I won't be competing. Definitely not after not skiing for 6 weeks. If I even behave that long.

I guess I'll use this event to once again take stock in my life, and reevaluate old goals, and to make new ones. I've got a few on my mind: train for a Half marathon this summer & start doing yoga regularly per my yogi/marathoner better-half, stymie some bad habits, wrench on my mtn bike, drink better beer, start climbing regularly so I'm no longer the climbing poser that I am, read all the books I've been putting off for some lame ass excuse or another. Hell, even my puppy is more active than I am.

Now that I'm forced to sit on my ass, do I realize how much time I do spend on it. How much time do you spend on yours?

Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.
Henry David Thoreau

I need to move. I need to roam. There is an unsettling restlessness stirring in my bones. I can feel it. A calling. A force from afar pulling me back to it. Its not like I am far from nature here in Marquette. Its an affinity for the high alpine, the wild places. Environs where I am the stranger, yet I still feel just as welcome and at home. There, in places where life moves at its own pace, not on a created human schedule, is the weight on my back promised to be lifted. It really does feel as though I am have been gone for too long. I live a fairly simple life: two jobs and school. Blessed with a wonderful girlfriend and loving pup. Free time filled with skiing and the warm smiles of close friends. Yet, there is a beckoning in my soul.

Spicy pine sap warming in the suns rays. The days perfume.Winds whispering through evergreen boughs. A ballad of lifes' energy. Cold, clear brooks and rivers that simply rinse away your fatigue, and reintroduce new energy to your soul. Alpine lakes with a morning mist, only broken by the rising of trout nipping at floating, dancing gnats.

Wanderlust? Or just going home?

“Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.”   John Muir

Avalanche control near Stewart British Columbia

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul
-John Muir

Aware and Prepared

As a skier, I've always been drawn to the mountains, as I have an affinity for the High Places. Everything about them interests me; the individual topography of them, who each can control their own weather and climate, as well as  the included dangers.

Since living in Summit County, CO a few years back, and having traveled and discovered for myself numerous mountain ranges, from the Tobacco Roots in MT, the Bighorns and Tetons in Wy, the Ten Mile and Gore Ranges in Central Colorado, the Wasatch in UT and the Sierras in CA/NV, I've always been drawn to educating myself about safe mountain travel and wilderness medicine. There are stacks of books left behind on my travels that have been read through and through by me wondering eyes, and I've even takes several First Responder courses.

But anyways, here is a comprehensive list of next seasons avalanche and mountain travel tools to be released by the top companies in the industry. Enjoy!

http://skiingbusiness.com/9644/products/2012-13-backcountry-product-preview/