Editors' Notes |
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“Situational awareness!” Arlin’s constant, disparaging shouts sounded like they came from a hoarse, constipated Yogi Bear. It was a stupid mistake. I mean, a threepound sledge hammer is difficult enough to hold overhead for any length of time. Click. It's the tiniest sound, the closing of a camera shutter. Each one represents a stoppage of time; Suffer-fest, slog, epic; everyone has a moniker for this kind of outing, but my friends like to call it a “Pogge Adventure.” There was an entire herd up there, 10, maybe 15 of them, climbing over rocky outcrops and around four-story cliffs. The last thing Sam Bass saw was a horizontal, dark striation eight feet up on a 10-inch aspen. Powder markets throughout Asia traded at all-time highs. Records broke and roofs collapsed throughout Japan's Nagano Prefecture I'm struggling. It's noon, and whiteout conditions make incandescent what would be the horizon between the sky and the Wapta Icefields Locked in and standing on rocky ground, it occurs to me that my skis are the short, narrow, stiff skis I wish they weren't. High pressure ushered the coldest temperatures of the year into Gunnison Valley on the coattails of the season's first three inches. I ran into "That Guy" at a wedding last summer. His dark, cherubic face was devoid of sun wrinkles and I guessed he was pushing 30, but he could have been older. |