The ski season in Steamboat finally ended last weekend. Sunday, closing day, was picture perfect with beautiful blue skies, and by the afternoon it was above 60 degrees F, warm enough to ski in just a t-shirt and board shorts, a new yearly tradition for me. The snow got slushier and slushier--nothing compared to fresh powder, but nice and soft and a lot of fun nonetheless. I skied with my brother, Eric, the whole day. We stayed mostly on groomers, not daring to venture into the trees with the snow like this. As the snow has melted more and more over the past month, more and more rocks and other hazards continue to be exposed, especially at the bottom of the mountain, where the snow cover is a pathetic fraction of what it was earlier in the season. Looking at the brown, dirty, melting snow and the ever growing patches of earth replacing the trails was a haunting reminder of my own mortality. In the prime of winter, the snow at Steamboat is dominant, forceful. After a blizzard, when everything is powdery white and bitter cold, nothing, it seems, could vanquish the winter. Nonetheless, the forces of nature are patient, and to me, the gradual but unstoppable changes the mountain undergoes is a metaphor for the aging we all must confront. On the other hand, viewed from a more positive perspective, it is also a metaphor for the natural cycle of life. The mountain has merely changed forms, temporarily, and will once again be reborn next winter and return to its former glory (unless of course global warming ruins it for all of us, but that’s another story!)

One of the benefits of the warm weather, besides the fun of skiing in shorts, was water-skiing over the a small pond which formed at the bottom of the Sundown Express lift. By the last weekend all the tourists had gone home and it was just locals out, and everyone was having a great time skiing in the sun. The highlight of the day was the party at the top of the mountain after the lifts closed. At 3pm, closing time, the Storm Peak lift was more crowded than I’d ever seen it, with people in all sorts of costumes, beers in hand, waiting patiently to go up the lift one last time. At the top, there was a steady line of hundreds of people hiking the last few hundred feet to the top of Mt. Werner. It was an unforgettable site. You couldn’t pick a sweeter setting for a party--2 miles high, surrounded by snow and pine trees at the top of mountain overlooking all the double diamond extreme terrain. The snow cover was still excellent up there, and some ambitious people had spent the entire weekend with shovels, digging out the snow for the party, making elaborate passageways and rooms through the snow (think of WWI style trenches made of snow, just more fun), as well as an enormous, 20 person igloo. Some guys also made a mammoth ski jump, right on the steepest slope of the mountain. It was intimidating, seeming to just fly off into outer space. Since it was so big, and the slope below it dropped off so steeply, it was virtually impossible not to hit it without getting quite a big of air. People soon starting hitting it, and the few brave souls that had the guts to straight-line it without turning to slow down managed to get nearly 100 feet of air, no joke! They also impressed the crowd with an assortment of aerial tricks and acrobatics. In the most impressive ski jump I ever saw in my life, I guy I work with at ski school did a DOUBLE back flip! As the crowd roared, I just stood there in disbelief, taking a minute to comprehend that he had actually managed to do two complete rotations of his body before landing. I’ll take risks, but still have the fear of death in me strongly, so I was happy just watching others jump that afternoon, where they usually ended in a crash landing in the soft snow far below.

I have mixed feelings about the season being over. On the downside, I already miss being out on the slopes, the freedom of being able to carve across the enormous mountain (although there are a few higher elevation mountains still open which we hope to visit in the coming weekends). But it’s very nice to finally have some free time for a change. For the last two winters in Steamboat, my time has for the most part been spent doing one of the following things: sleeping, eating, working, skiing, or vegetating on my couch in front of the T.V. in an exhausted stupor.

The most exciting week of this season came at the end of February, when it snowed on and off for an entire week, dumping over 5 feet of fresh snow. While I work every day during winter, the tradeoff is getting to ski every morning first, and I was up skiing first thing every day that week. The feeling of skiing through fresh powder is indescribable. A totally euphoric feeling, its quite an addicting sensation. That week, I was delighted with a few days where the powder was literally waist deep in some spots. While other mountains in Colorado have enormous open bowls, the best powder skiing in Steamboat is through the glades of trees, which are spread apart perfectly to ski through, while also protecting the snow from being blown away by the wind. After a storm, the fresh powder slows you down enough so that you can go virtually full speed through the forest, snaking your way around trees, snow flying across your whole body and onto your face. After a few hours of skiing it would be time to go into work. I would always be disappointed to end my skiing, but the adrenaline rush was enough to keep a permanent smile on my face throughout the entire day.

The most memorable day of skiing the entire year was the Saturday after that epic week, when I was able to luck out and get a day off work. The storm had finally subsided, leaving behind glorious blue-bird skies and cold, crisp air. The frustrating thing about powder is that, like a drug, it doesn’t last. After a day or two, most of the fresh snow has already been skied off. I met up with my buddy Aaron, and we decided to hike out of bounds to Fish Creek Canyon, where there would still be fresh powder. The canyon has some of the steepest, most extreme terrain I’ve ever skied. This fact, combined with the need to hike in, then back out again, which takes about an hour to do, deters the vast majority of skiers from going there. Another danger is getting stuck or lost, since the area is well out of bounds of the official ski area. For that reason, I never go out there alone, so I jumped at the chance to go with Aaron, who knows the area quite well.

I’ll never forget the way the snow looked as we walked to the canyon. The path, created and trodden by people’s footsteps, bisected the meadow of untouched virgin snow. The cloudless sky gave the scene a perfection which was unreal. We stopped to jump into the snow and sank up to our waists, without getting a hint of where the real bottom was. Looking back, I saw the main section of the mountain growing more and more distant. I looked up and saw East Face and Christmas tree bowl, the only in-bound section of the mountain with double diamonds, from a far off perspective I’d never seen them from before. We continued on and soon arrived at the top of the Fish Creek canyon. Its name comes from Fish Creek falls, far below at the mouth of the canyon, which during the winter months freezes to a wall of solid ice. It’s possible to ski down to the falls, and from there continue on into downtown Steamboat, 4 or 5 miles away from the ski area, but I’ve never done that, opting instead to fork back into the ski area at the very bottom.

The conditions in Fish Creek Canyon are extreme, not just because of the steepness of the slope, but also because of other hazards. It is important to know the area when you’re back country skiing. In Fish Creek, if you’re not careful you can get “cliffed out”-- trapped on the side of a cliff, some of which are up to 60 feet high, with no way to get down. It’s very difficult to get down without jumping from at least some cliffs, but if there’s good snow it is relatively safe to jump off smaller drops if you do it cautiously. Nonetheless, I’m still very new to this type of skiing, and my heart was definitely beating quickly the whole time.

We were thrilled to discover that all the snow from the last week had been able to accumulate out there virtually untouched, creating the best possible conditions you could hope for: bottomless powder combined with sunny skies. We headed down into the steep trees, cutting fresh tracks the entire way. The deep powder made the steepness much more manageable (another time I skied the canyon later in the season with much less snow was a different story, which I don’t care to recall!) Soon we came upon a small, 5 foot cliff. Following Aaron’s lead, I jumped off into the soft cushion of snow below, landing unharmed. We continued on. A few minutes later we approached a larger, perhaps 10 foot cliff. Without hesitation, Aaron hurled himself down into the snow, and after picking himself up, urged me to follow. I thought about it, then I thought about it some more. In the end I decided to chicken out and just skied down and around the cliff and met Aaron below.

This scene was repeated several times during the run. At one point I jumped off a small cliff and landed right in a tree well and quickly discovered I was stuck. Tree wells kill people in Colorado every year, as people get stuck in them with their head under the snow and often suffocate to death. Fortunately, I managed to keep my head up out of the snow, and after a few minutes of squirming I was able to get myself unstuck. I came out of one ski in the process and also slid down a way in the snow. Hiking back up to get my ski was like trying to walk through quicksand. I was proud to have made it through the experience without panicking, but the close call also gave me a new respect for the inherent dangers of backcountry skiing.

While the fear of death was always in the back of my mind, it appeared my companion did not to share this survival instinct. 5-10 feet was about the limit I’d jump from, but Aaron was gradually increasing his range, jumping off cliffs I swear must have been 20 feet. Sometimes he even did multi-level jumps, dropping from the top of a cliff down to a pillow of snow on a ledge below, then continuing down to the ground. The snow was soft and deep enough that the fall itself didn’t appear too dangerous, but what worried me more was that he’d lose control on the steep landing and crash into a tree, rock, or over another cliff. Fortunately, Aaron’s experience and confidence proved to be well founded, and he was able to expertly handle all the drops without an accident. Aaron had brought his new camera, which appropriately was waterproof and shockproof. We got some unbelievable pictures and video clips of the afternoon, some of which I think could be in ski magazine.

We reached the creek at the bottom of the canyon a little before 3 p.m., a half an hour before the upper mountain lifts closed. Not ready to be done with our epic day of skiing, we decided to rush the hike back to the lifts in order to do another lap of the same run. My heart was pumping as we ducked under the rope to get back in bounds after 3:15. Skiing back to the chairlift on a green beginner run, we passed parents and kids skiing slowly, with caution, as we flew by on what to us was nearly a horizontal trail. It’s always a funny feeling for me to go back into the ski area after skiing out of bounds. Just a few moments ago I was in the middle of the wilderness, removed from the safety net of the ski area, dependent on my own skills and knowledge to overcome the dangers of the environment. And now I’m back skiing alongside someone who, for all I know, could have started skiing yesterday. The feeling is a lot like how I felt in the Malaysian rainforest when, after hiking on my own for several hours and getting lost in the middle of the jungle, I was picked up by a boat of middle-aged tourists, completely carefree and oblivious to the tension and fear I had been feeling a few moments before they arrived.
We hopped onto the Thunderhead express lift just after 3:20, and managed to make it back to the Pony Express lift just as my watch said 3:30. Jubilant to have made it in time, we did it all over again. This time, however, we were emboldened by the success we had had from the first run, and had an even better run the second time around, flying through the powder between the trees and jumping off cliffs. By the time we got back down to the bottom, the sun had set behind the mountains and light was quickly draining from the sky. It was the highlight of my season, possibly the best skiing I’ve ever done, and a day I don’t think I’ll ever forget.

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Of course, skiing was only a part of my life here in Steamboat, and there are many other unforgettable things I experienced while living here. I worked two jobs, as a preschool teacher and a ski instructor, both of which I loved. It was difficult working 2 jobs and only getting a handful of full days off the entire ski season, but the pros outweighed the cons. Of course I saved more money for my next adventure, and by working so much, I had less free time to waste my money (since I skied free as an instructor). I was able to make more than enough to pay rent just from my weekend job, and by maintaining fiscal discipline and keeping my expenditures down, was able to save over 50% of my gross income. Another benefit of my schedule was the comfort of having a rigid routine which, while something I would not want to be tied to permanently, was exactly what I needed after the last 4 months of traveling on my own with no structure at all. Opposed to the constant uncertainty I have as a backpacker, it is nice to know what I’ll be doing tomorrow, and the day after that, and the day after, at least for a few months. And of course, the best benefit of all was the great work environments I had.

My main job, which I do for 35 hours 5 days a week, is a preschool teacher. I started working at Holy Name preschool when I first moved out to Steamboat in September of 2005, and simply could not have asked for a better experience. For that reason, I was thrilled when after being gone for more than 6 months during my travels, I e-mailed my boss, Betsy, to discuss the opportunity of coming back and was enthusiastically welcomed back “with open arms”. This was certainly the case--when I walked up the sidewalk my first day back at school, a wide smile came to my face as I saw the enormous “WELCOME BACK TRAVIS!” banner they had made for me.

Working with young children has always come natural for me, and working at a preschool gave me an opportunity to more formally develop my early childhood development skills. The greatest thing about working with the same kids on a daily basis is that they open up to you, and you get to know each child individually. While young kids are usually very shy around strangers, they are completely different with adults they know. Walking in to work (after a morning of skiing J ), I’m often greeted with the excited shout of a child, “Travis is here”, followed by one or more kids running up and squeezing their arms around my legs as hard as they can (OK, this doesn‘t happen every day-- sometimes they’re busy painting or playing and just ignore me-- but it happens enough that it is the default image I’ll keep my mind).

My co-workers at the school were another reason I decided to go back. Betsy, my boss, creates the right mix of relaxed fun, humor, and hard work to create a quality school. She’s taught me a lot and become a great friend, following my travels and even describing herself as my biggest travel groupie.

As the only male working with a staff of 6 women, it’s interesting and never dull. I’ve learned a lot about females since I’ve been there and had a lot of fun in the process. All the teachers went out on the town for a staff dinner/night of drinking last Friday, which was tons of fun (I didn‘t even get mad when Vinny, Rome’s boyfriend, while dropping her off at the restaurant, shouted to his friend that he wasn‘t joining us for dinner “because it‘s a girls night out“).

Last but not least, the families make working there a privilege. It’s so rewarding to feel the genuine appreciation of a parent for having made a difference in the life of their child. Last Christmas when I first starting working there, I was simply overwhelmed by the number of presents I received from families, more than I had ever received since I was a kid myself. The car I now drive, a 1990 VW Fox with only 120,000 miles, was given to me for free by the parents of one of the children I taught last year, for no other reason than because I was a “good influence” on their son.

My other job, which I did during the ski season about 12 hours weekly during the weekends, was a children’s ski instructor, which had its own set of rewards and challenges. One downside was working with different kids every week, which didn’t allow the same level of connection or progress as working with the same kids for months at a time (an exception was a 5 week lesson package for local kids I got to teach, which was an incredible experience). Nonetheless, a positive was the experience of getting to work with and teach a much wider diversity of kids of all ages and personalities. Last year, my first season teaching was quite challenging. This year, with a year of experience under my belt, I was more comfortable and able to avoid mistakes, which made the job a lot more enjoyable. Another benefit was the fun work environment and the opportunity to make friends my own age (as opposed to the preschool where most people are either considerably younger or older than me). One of the most memorable experiences I had was doing the “torchlight parade”, a privilege given only to ski instructors a few dates a year, where we all go up to the top of the gondola after dark and ski down with lighted torches in both hands. And the best thing about being a ski instructor is getting paid to go skiing!

Of course, even with experience there are good days and bad days, and most days are not that glamorous. I would show up on busy mornings to a sea of kids and families, often with jet-lag, altitude sickness, or just general grouchiness. It’s my job to be enthusiastic and get people happy, even when I’m exhausted or not in a good mood myself. Greeting kid after kid and directing them to the right level before classes started, I would nervously wait for my assignment for the day, praying to get a good class. In general, a more advanced level is more preferable than a beginner class, but the real factor determining whether you’ll have a fun day or a miserable one is the kids, their attitude, and to a lesser extent, their athletic ability. Some of the more annoying parts of being a ski instructor include having to walk back up the hill to pick a kid up after he falls and can’t get up on his own, or fumbling to help a frustrated kid fit her boot into her ski binding. But all of this is manageable as long as the kids keep a positive attitude and enjoy themselves. Every ski instructor will agree that the most difficult day is one where the kids don’t want to be there. As an instructor, your ability to keep your group happy and motivated is far more important than your technical knowledge of skiing. Of course, smaller groups are usually preferable to larger ones, since all it takes is one kid having a problem to make everyone’s lives miserable. Most normal days I would get 6-8 kids in my class for a day, but during busy weeks I could get 10 or more students in one group, which was always challenging to manage. These and many other lessons were all learned through experience, including numerous mistakes.

Nonetheless, as I mentioned earlier, as I gained more experience after 2 years of teaching, difficult days continued to become more the exception than the rule. A good day would be as follows: we’d start the day at about 9:45 in the morning and ski for a few hours on the lower mountain before lunch. Kids usually love hitting jumps and going through the trees, and you quickly learn where all the best places to take kids are, that are both safe and exciting for them. In Steamboat’s 3,000 acres of terrain, I now know dozens of hidden passageways through the trees, jumps, bumps, and other secrets you pick up after skiing in the same places again and again. We work on the hard skills of skiing as well, but the great thing about teaching kids is that most of the learning they’ll do will be on their own, with you guiding the process along and giving them goals to work towards. I begin every ski lesson by telling my class that the two most important parts of skiing are being safe and having fun. By making fun the priority, learning to ski comes naturally. If things are going well and they’re at a high enough level, I’ll take them up to the top of the mountain after lunch to the Tomahawk area, a gentle intermediate run with lots of jumps and tree passages to ski through. If I’ve done my job correctly, the kids go back to their parents happy and excited for more skiing the next day. That’s always a rewarding feeling, and I’m always proud when I see strong progress in their skiing. My “Trailbusters” group, consisting of local kids that I taught every Saturday for 5 weeks, was great in that sense. On day one we started off skiing easy green runs, but by the last class we were skiing black diamonds with confidence and good form. My last weekend teaching ski school was virtually empty and I only had 3 kids between both days, which allowed me to give each student a lot more individual attention. In one of my proudest accomplishments, I was able to coach a girl who had never skied before to progress so quickly that we were at the top of the mountain, skiing easy intermediate terrain, by her second day on skis. Progress like that is rare, and only possible during low times, but it was a wonderful vindication of all the effort I had put in throughout the season.

Besides skiing and working, I enjoy just LIVING in Steamboat. Both of my jobs have connected me with lots of people, and I love that when I’m somewhere in town, more often than not I’ll run into someone I know. Given my demanding schedule I’ve been pretty early to bed and haven’t partied too much, but have certainly got out a reasonable amount. There’s an incredible natural hot spring a few miles out of town in the middle of the woods which I’ve been to a few nights. I miss Sofia, my Argentine girlfriend from last year, who I had a lot of fun times with (she‘s now back in South America). Anyway, I’ve had lots of fun nights, but nothing that would make for too interesting of a story to write about.

I intended to spend more time musing philosophically about my thoughts, not just recounting how my life here has been. I’ve continued to have anxiety about my longer-term future, but overall this anxiety has receded immensely from when I was fresh out of college. Every so often I have a moment of epiphany, sparked by an experience or conversation. I had one such experience a few months ago on the London underground (see prior blog entry for explanation). I had another one last weekend while skiing with a friend of mine, a fellow instructor from ski-school. Like me, he had just graduated from college and moved out to Steamboat, but is a year younger and had just graduated last May. When I asked him his plans for after the ski season, he said that he was going to leave Steamboat in search of “a real job”. After having such a positive experience here myself, I asked him what his hurry was. “Don’t you like Steamboat?”, I asked. “Yes”, he replied, “I’ve had a lot of fun this season, but I’m tired of living like a bum. I’d rather go somewhere and use my degree to get a good job, establish myself , then come back when I have money saved up and can buy a house.” Considering his words, I couldn’t help but notice how much nicer his ski equipment was than mine--his North face jacket, new sunglasses, fancy boots. I realized that his priorities are far more akin to the American mainstream than mine. His words, “living like a bum” really stuck with me. I thought to my old junker of a car, my pit of an apartment, and my income, only a fraction of the average Americans, and far less than what I could be making with my Johns Hopkins education. I realized, however, that what is to him “living like a bum” is to me living my dream. When I was younger, I never dreamed of having a Porsche or living in a mansion-- I dreamed of traveling, seeing the world, having experiences, and meeting lots of new people from all different backgrounds. In the past few years I’ve done that and loved it. Certainly there are tradeoffs, but they’re nowhere nearly as severe as I thought they would be. When I first moved out to Steamboat I expected to work my ass of just to make ends meet, but have been delighted to find I can live a nicer lifestyle than I ever did in college while still saving way more than I would have hoped. Why, then, should I compromise my priorities to fit the “American Dream”? Another unanticipated benefit of working in a preschool is that by working so closely with families, I can see first hand the structured, stable family life that I could be pursuing, and very well may pursue in the future. But these days, all the parents are jealous when I tell them about my travel experiences. My current philosophy is pretty well summed up by this video clip which my friend David recently sent me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNF_P281Uu4 (Although I like to think my travel ambitions are slightly higher than just dancing in every country. For a more intellectual explanation of this guy, check his website or watch his lectures, also available on YOUTUBE, which I highly recommend)

Another thing I wanted to write about, but wasn’t able to work in anywhere earlier, was what I’ve learned from living in such a beautiful place as Steamboat. I began to realize that even living in the rugged beauty of the Rocky Mountains becomes routine, even mundane. I remember early days when I first started working at the preschool, looking out the window up at the mountain and daydreaming. I’ll never forget the excitement my first time riding up the gondola. But after a while it loses its novelty. Realizing this, I decided to be more proactive in appreciating the beauty here-- making an effort to appreciate the grandeur of the Yampa Valley each time I looked down into it, as well as noticing the small details in life we so often miss. Of course, the corollary to this lesson that I wanted to point out is that, while even the most extraordinary surroundings can become mundane if you let them, even the most mundane surroundings can become extraordinary if you appreciate them.

Also, if you’re interested in my current plans for the next few months, here they are: I’ll once again be working for Broadreach this summer, leading trips for high school students. It looks like I’ll be working in Peru leading this program: http://www.academictreks.com/programs/ap.asp I was originally going to be sent to Costa Rica, Nicaragua, and Mexico, then Mexico got changed to Canada, and in a complete reversal of everything I got an email earlier this week saying that I’ll actually be going to Peru for the whole summer. I’m a bit annoyed about all the changes of plans, but I’m very excited to be going back to the Andes and especially back to Machu Pichu to hike the Inca trail, which I didn’t get to hike the last time I was there because it was sold out. I’m also excited for the large community service component of the trip, which will involve us working with the Peace Corps in Peru!

Then in early August I’ll be headed on a 10 day Scandanavian cruise with my family, leaving from Denmark and passing through Finland, Estonia, I think Sweden, and to St. Petersburg, Russia before heading back to Copenhagen. Like last summer’s cruise to the Caribbean, it should be a nice trip to ‘relax’ between my own travels. From Denmark I hope to make my way across Europe for a while, although I’m still not sure exactly where I’ll head. Eastern Europe has the advantage of being cheaper and closer, although I really would love to see parts of Western Europe as well--France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and of course the Netherlands! Any suggestions would be appreciated!

From there, probably sometime in September, I plan to continue on to somewhere tropical to do some SCUBA diving. I don’t know if I’ll go all the way back to the U.S. or continue on directly from Europe. The idea is to work towards my Divemaster certification and work as a dive master for a few months until around Thanksgiving. At that point I’ll decide between 3 options: 1. head back to the U.S. (and presumably back to Steamboat) 2. Stay wherever I am 3. Go somewhere else and keep traveling. I would also have the option to work as a tour leader or something along those lines. Given my experience traveling and leading trips at this point I could probably find a job on any continent I pick. I’m not sure where I’ll go initially to scuba dive-- I’m looking into possibly the South Pacific, Southern Africa, The Red Sea (Egypt), or maybe even Australia. Again, any input or suggestions are ALWAYS appreciated!

Last but not least, I want to send a shoutout to Cindy Geiger’s classes at Gilbert High School in Winsted, Connecticut. Cindy works with my mom and heard about my trip last September when I was in Argentina just starting my around the world trip. She e-mailed me and asked if I would send updates and pictures to her students. Thrilled by the attention, I was more than happy to oblige, and Cindy and I have been exchanging emails throughout the entire school year. From what I hear from my mom, I’m somewhat of a celebrity at Gilbert (ironically, because they were our archrivals when I was in High School). I’m greatly looking forward to coming in to visit Cindy’s class in a few weeks when I drive home in May