The sun was shining bright on a saddle between Mt Adams and Mt Jefferson, somewhere around 5,000′ in elevation and well above a bank of smoke that socked-in the valleys below. I laid back on a rock daydreaming as part of the Mountain Camp group ventured down a spur trail to collect and filter water. Clouds drifted overhead.
A lobster.
Two race cars.
The swirl of a galaxy in dense water vapor form.
I rested the small of my back on some alpine vegetation, no doubt the kind you aren’t supposed to tread upon. I spun the brim of my hat from back-to-front, pulling it down over my face as I listened to the indecipherable hum of passing hiker conversations, the scratching of poles on rocks, and a light breeze.
People have these mountain peaks as a bucket-list item. Hikers utilize the huts for overnight stays just to reach the summits. Frustrated novice mountaineers probably turn back and give up all the time trying to get to where I was just lazily dozing off and debating whether to get pizza or hotdogs at the summit of Mt Washington, some 6 miles and another thousand vertical feet away.
Do we realize this? What we are capable of as skiers? I don’t mean compared to our fastest Nordic rivals on Strava or social media. I mean compared to what average humans get up to on a daily basis.
We are effectively superheroes, although I admit I am an aging one. Each year I get a little older, but each year the Juniors stay
Juniors. But what we do is nonetheless crazy when you think about it sometimes. I think we can all spend more time appreciating that. I know I certainly didn’t at a younger age…
We can put ourselves atop a mountain with such little relative effort that we can actually explore, relax, and climb around before we venture back down. Then later that night we can make an impromptu decision to go on a search for swimming holes at 8PM and still wake up the next day for a 3 hour rollerski.
There’s opportunity to see so much more of the world, and try so many different things, when we have the fitness and energy to take it all in. Skiers often think of training as a means to an end. Put time in, and get results out of it. And that is part of the equation, sure. But the more I witness the stress, pressure, comparison, and fear that pervades aspiring Junior skiers with big goals and aspirations, the more I find myself trying to enjoy the parts of training that don’t seem like training at all: clouds, grass, water, history, summits, valleys, stories, music, jokes, pranks, and growth.
I hope that the athletes themselves can embrace that while they are in their superhuman state!
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