Hand Drawn (and Hiked) by McCall

Welcome back! And happy almost Leap Day. I simply cannot believe March is around the corner. January made sure I felt all 31 of her days and February seemed to just say “hi” then “bye” and run off into the (ungodly early) sunset.

Here’s your fun fact of the day: did you know Breckenridge, Colorado used to be spelled “Breckinridge”? The town was named after former Vice President John C. Breckinridge, but when the Civil War rolled around and he became a Confederate officer, the town locally voted to change the name to Breckenridge with an “e” so it wasn’t named after him anymore.

Nevertheless, I’m back in action with an AIARE1 to boot. Let’s talk shop.

Backcountry Chronicles

If I had to choose one word for my AIARE course it would be humbling.

About three weeks ago, I drove down to Crested Butte for my 3-day AIARE1. The weekend was split up between time in the classroom and time out in the field with our instructors, doing everything from digging snow pits, practicing kick turns, and working on our downhill turns. I felt pretty confident going into the weekend with how much I’d read, coupled with how much time I’d spent in the backcountry so far this season — not only did the snow humble me (first time skiing hot powder: check), but yeesh, there’s a lot to know about snow science.

After I wrapped up my course, I hopped in the car to drive from Crested Butte to Snowmass (the two towns are 22 miles apart, yet the drive takes ~4.5 hours) and couldn’t stop thinking about the risk frameworks we talked about all weekend. So much of what you’re learning is the same framework that’s used in aviation and medicine where error can mean life or death. You can do everything right and still get it wrong.

As I drove towards Montrose and watched the sunset over the San Juan mountains, I thought about how there’s two major variables: nature and yourself. The latter being arguably harder to conquer than the former.

With nature, there’s infinitely many things to account for and Mother Nature has a tendency to give unforgiving feedback when you want it least. On the other hand, the time’s I’ve felt the most scared while skiing haven’t been directly correlated with how steep of terrain I was skiing, but when I couldn’t get a grip on my own mind.

A year ago, I went to visit my boyfriend in Crested Butte and we went up to The Headwall together. CB got 7+ inches of snow the day prior and it was sunny and beautiful out — in other words, conditions were perfect. And yet (you knew there was an “and yet” coming, didn’t you?) when we got off the T-bar and looked down the run, I felt utterly paralyzed.

I knew I could ski the run ahead of me and I’d been on arguably harder runs before, yet I had a friend who was in a serious accident on that same run a year before and all I could think about was her uncontrollably tumbling down and hitting a tree.

Spoiler alert: we made it down (after some of the largest, ugliest Z-turns I’ve ever done) and I felt great after, though I bought a big lesson on keeping your mind in check.

Funny enough, I was skiing at Copper a few weeks ago and when I was debriefing with my boyfriend at the end of the day, he told me he felt like I lost my confidence somewhere along one of the harder runs we did. And I did! I pushed through, but it made me think a lot about the line between bravery and stupidity.

I pushed through skiing the Headwall and made it out fine, but that doesn’t mean I’m a better skier than my friend who wound up in the hospital after skiing it. Sometimes when the margins for error are so slim, it’s just luck that gets us through.

And yet, that’s why we all love it; that’s the handshake you make to recreate under extreme circumstances — just about everything is out of your control. At the end of the day, it goes back to the ethos that I believe in life: there’s no such thing as control.

The TL;DR? Have some fun out there. Enjoy the present moment. Get humbled and get back up.

Artiste Break

I’m writing this fresh off my first show of 2024 (and first show in 14 months!) and I couldn’t be happier with how it came together. First of all, Hangin N Slangin knows how to throw together an event. Infinite Monkey Theorem is a wine bar in Denver with a massive warehouse in the back and they rented out the back of the warehouse for ~15 vendors to set up their spots.

It made all the difference in the world to have the show at a space where you can just hang out and enjoy yourself, aside from perusing art. In the past, whenever friends came to my shows it was always a brief visit because there really wasn’t anything to do besides come say hi, take a lap and look at other tables, then come back and chit-chat for a bit.

For this show, my friends all bought a few bottles of wine and hung out for 2-3 hours. Having friends there for the entire show made all the difference in the world in terms of energy. On top of that, I met so many amazing vendors (not to play favorites, but…. here’s my favorite) who are pursuing art full time, or just trying to make it work as a side gig like me.

All that to say, I felt more energized Sunday night than I have in a while, and there will definitely be more where that came from.

To Go Snacks

⛰️ Another one bites the dust — Arapahoe Basin is officially owned by Alterra Resorts. Although the deal won’t close until later this year, Alterra already announced that their priorities are “enhanced snow making operations” and “parking updates”. I don’t know about you, but that latter priority makes me nervous I’ll be paying $50+ to park at a beach spot next year.

🎧 I’ve been ripping episodes of Totally Deep ever since I realized it’s the official podcast of Cripple Creek Backcountry (aka the store that saved me when I kept getting blisters from my secondhand backcountry boots I got for $150 — shocking that they didn’t fit perfectly, I know). I especially loved this episode about early season stoke.

💡 Shoutout to my friend Emma for sharing this one! We talked a bit two weeks ago about how daunting some of the clean energy goals for the country feel and how it feels increasingly unlikely that we’ll hit them. I loved this article from Protect Our Winters that breaks it down in an easy, digestible format.

🧵 Bonus snack: this thread from Mike Posner was one of my favorite things I’ve seen all year. Personal growth and self awareness for the win.

Wrapping this up with a reply I got to the last newsletter from my friend Lisa that I’ll save forever and is probably the kindest thing anyone has ever said to me. Friends are the best.

Same time next month?

- McCall 🌻

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