Seasonal Transitions Vol. 2

Today I went on a hike in the rain, up White Pine, to retrieve a Wal-Mart sleeping bag that I left on West Pass while I was doing the WURL.

The rain came down hard at times and I watched it fall its hardest while standing under the shelter of three pines. I made it to the ridgeline as clouds moved in from the south, making the mountaintop and my surroundings disappear. I found my bag. Turns out snafflehounds (as Lane would say) didn’t eat it. I wouldn't really care if they did, though; I needed a good, cold soaking.

It felt like fall and so I went home and drank beer and tuned my snowboards. I listened to an incredible Warren Zevon album with a bunch of his unreleased tracks and some demos. It’s called ‘Preludes’ and its very, very good. He's most known for 'Werewolves of London,' which is a catchy and fun record, but most of his lesser known songs are beautiful and rather dark. 

I’ve decided that I’m going to ride my Prior split to start off the season. It’s broken. I don’t remember what term the guy at the shop used—something about the wood core snapping in half. Fine. But the edges are still in tact and the board hasn’t fully fallen apart, so a rock board it will be.

I’m also setting up a park board; my trusty old Ride, the first one I ever owned. The guy who sold it to me let it go for the price of a tattoo ($80). I can’t believe I still have that thing. But here I am, dusting it off and probably setting myself up for a season of soft-tissue injuries. I suppose that's the price I pay for doing tricks. I can't seem to get enough of them, probably because park snowboarding leaves me with the same sense of satisfaction as does skateboarding, and even bouldering to some extent. It's grounding, and afterwards I usually feel better connected with those intangible things like my soul. 

An Injury Story

I ate a lot of wild raspberries this past weekend. This was unusual for me, as I don't often stop to forage on wild fruits—even in peak season. I'll notice them, feel good about their existence, and continue on. Perhaps I'm jaded from an entire summer of working on a blueberry farm. Or perhaps I'm too "on the go," always heads down ambling toward the day's objective.

But on this day in the Uintas my knee had been hurting, and as my feet pruned in the cold water cascading through Shingle Creek, these wild raspberries beckoned, almost every one of them ripe, bruised red, and nearly falling from the branch. 

I cleared the whole bush. I even spent time recovering the ones that fell to the ground to hide among tall stalks of meadow grass.

Now that I think about it... 

When I was a loud and energetic child, I would go to the gigantic berry bush in my family's backyard and pick and eat for a long time. It was probably late summer, and probably before a baseball practice I didn't want to go to. 

And now it's late summer again and I want to go to baseball practice more than anything, but my knee would scream at any hard stop or change in direction. No taking off from home plate nor crashing back into it.

And so I'm backing off, slowing down and eating wild raspberries.