As I sit here listening to a crazy lady yelling as loud as she possibly can about wanting her job back at a person who is “not her mother”, I’m thinking about two things. One, this blanket is really itchy and two, she has a really annoying voice. But I feel for her. I take that back she has a really annoying voice. Go away! I do however, also feel like yelling at someone. I would make sure to make it less annoying though. I don’t have a job yet, and I started applying for them back in September. The company decided not to tell me they weren’t going to hire me, even though they said they would let me know if I didn’t get a job. Now she’s banging on someone’s door. I went to investigate and turns out she is saying “give me my dog back”, not job. So my segue (had no idea that’s how that word is spelled) from crazy lady with job and mommy issues to my job issues just fell apart. Shoot. The point is I’m not happy about being unemployed. I’m also not happy that this freaking girl won’t leave the parking lot.
Because of my incessant email checking, waiting for some dang job new, it has been to hard to enjoy my time away from school and have some adventures. However, that doesn't mean I haven't had more adventures. Things have changed since my last post...mostly snow. Oh man has it snowed alot, apparently it has been a record early season! I've been taking advantage of it by doing some skinning, at night, in the middle of the day and at the wee hours of the morning, which is absolutely ridiculous because I have nothing to do all day. The few popular trails I've been on since it snowed are really well traveled and make for surprisingly good running. So that makes me happy because the one run I did on the roads from here was awful. A 400ft decent out the door on sidewalks to get to the busy dirty roads in town, coupled with not having run for a while, plus coming back up aforementioned hill makes for an unhappy Simon. What makes for a happy Simon, is weaving through a thick snowy forest over half frozen streams up and down hills in complete silence etc.
Speaking of thick snowy forests and streams and hills,Scott and I went on a winter backpacking trip in the backcountry. At this point I'd like to point out my amazing segueing skills. I'd also like to point out that the lady is back and annoying as ever. Anyway, we started from the rock creek trail head outside of Silverthorne, immediately took a 3 mile warm up hike/detour/we missed the turnoff, eventually got back onto the Gore range trail which 5.5 miles later met up with the salmon/willow lakes trail which we got on for a 3 mile accent to bring us to the Willow Lakes. That was a run on sentence if I have ever seen one. I learned a few things on this 12ish mile hike to our camp site. Everything is harder in the snow (i already knew this...wait for it) with a huge backpack on. Turns out its hard to pack light when you're going to be sleeping in the snow. The last three miles I was breaking trail up what was 2/3 of our elevation gain for the way out. Half way up as I was feeling super tired, grumpy, and fed up with my weak ass shoulders which haven't had a heavy pack on them for way too long. As a familiar burn crept up in my legs I started thinking about how nice it would have been to have snowshoes when I ran the Rim to Rim to Rim last March (the last mile and 1000 feet of elevation gain I was slowed both up and down with 2-3 feet of snow) which made me think about my other ultra marathon training runs, which made me think about my first ultra which made me think about how my second and third and fourth ultras will go which made me think, "I love this pain" and then I started going faster. What? Yes. I don't know either. But whenever I start thinking about stuff like that I go from feeling like crap and not loving it, to feeling like crap and feeling just the opposite. Anyway, eventually made it to our camp spot right next to the first of three completely frozen completely flat and completely white lakes. It was perfect.
We saw absolutely no one the first day (ran into a mule train on the way back) and were surrounded by wilderness which to us appeared completely untouched by humans. Not even having a trail to follow or evidence of anybody else ever being there made me feel so much more detached from the world...there is nothing better. Massive peaks with aggressive ridges and steep slopes rose straight out of the basin we were in only a few hundred feet from us and wrapped around us increasing the sense of isolation. I love mountains!!! (see earlier blog post). Though I didn't get much sleep in the cold and everything is much harder winter camping, that 20 mile trip was one of the best trips I've ever had. I can't wait to get back to that deep silence again. Turns out we could have made it a 10 mile round trip...20 is way more badass.
Well the girl has left, I am tired, and my warm room that makes far too much noise at night is calling. Tomorrow: get a job (this is a nightly plan), do some backcountry skiing, hottub (naturally) perhaps make something delicious for dinner, and try to forget about my troubles and enjoy the amazing life I'm living.
