Hand Drawn (and Hiked) by McCall

Happy June! I’m writing this email with bruised collarbones from hiking with my skis attached to my backpack Saturday (featured below!) and could not be happier about it. As bittersweet as it is that ski season is officially coming to a close, this past weekend was a perfect reminder of why summer is pretty great too.

I skied my first 14er on Saturday, so we’re getting into a full breakdown of that in this edition. As to be expected with most 14er treks, there were high highs and looooow lows — all in the span of about 6 hours. And that, my friends, is what we call: being ALIVE.

Backcountry Chronicles

We did it, Joe. After making a promise to myself on January 1st, I officially hit 50 ski days for the ‘23-’24 season. I planned it so day 50 would be a special one, and lemme tell ya, special it was. On Saturday, to celebrate day 50, I skied off the top of Quandary Peak.

The day started at 2AM when my alarm went off after what felt like 5 minutes but also 10 hours of sleep (shoutout to melatonin and passing out at 9PM). We made the hour and a half trek up to the Quandary trailhead just past Breckenridge and all convened in the parking lot, and, of course, slugged cold brew while getting ready.

Given the hot weather in the mountains for the two days prior, there was a special avalanche advisory in place for all of Colorado. We knew the night before that the temperature wouldn’t be as cold as we needed it to be on the mountain and it was going to be cloudy overnight, which keeps the snow warm.

In the simplest terms, the snow warms up during the day as it gets hit by sunlight all day. The clouds move in, trap that heat (sounds funny to talk about heat and snow in the same breath, I know) and keep the snow from freezing overnight. In short, that keeps the snow from locking into a melt/freeze cycle and heightens danger for wet slides.

All that to say, we were pleasantly surprised to see the temperature in the mid-30’s as we approached the trailhead around 4:40AM. We quickly A-framed our skis onto our backpacks, took our last sips of coffee, and ate our PB&J’s (ok, maybe the last one was just me — PB&J’s go hard for big mountain days).

The snow didn’t start until around treeline, so we had about a mile and a half to hike on foot before we started skinning. All in all, the hike was relatively chill at an easy gradient, so the first section of the hike was smooth and easy. We took the light blue line up, for reference.

It was smooth sailing for the first 2.5 miles. Everyone felt great, we all kept pace with each other, and no one was over-exerting themselves.

Something I haven’t mentioned yet (and arguably one of my favorite parts of the day) was that one of my best friends, Emily, was on this expedition with me. I’ve bragged about Emily in this newsletter before for a plethora of reasons, and today I’m bragging about her because it was her first major backcountry expedition.

Emily and I hike all of our 14ers together, so it only felt right to take this one on with her (with a shovel, beacon, and probe to boot).

The first stretch of skinning was relatively easy, but we could see the saddle up to the summit in our view and she looked gnarly.

Quandary sits at 14,271’, making it the 13th tallest 14er in the state. I wrote in this newsletter last year about hiking my personal Everest, Mt. Sopris — Sopris sits right at 12,965’. It may seem silly to say there’s a major difference between 12.9K and 14.2K feet but MAN is there a difference. I almost forgot how humbling it is to suck air at 13,000 feet.

Needless to say, once we hit 13K, I was struggling. More than I probably ever have before on a 14er hike. I wasn’t sure if I needed water, food, 20 minutes of sitting, or to throw up.

And I’ve got mile splits to prove it.

Lemme break it down:

• Mile 1: hiking on foot with A-frames on our backs

• Mile 2: transitioning on skis and skinning up

• Mile 3: humbled by alitutde

• Mile 4: skis back onto the A-frame, hike up to the summit and enjoy the views for 20

• Mile 5: skiing (lol)

• Mile 6: more skiing + transitioning back into hiking shoes + A-frames, worst parking lot fever of my life

All in all, it was an absolute beast of a day and I couldn’t be happier than I was able to do it. I’ve said it before and I’ll certainly say it again, but there’s nothing quite like backcountry skiing to make you thankful as ever for your body.

Artiste Break

A smaller piece to showcase this week. When I lived at home from mid 2017 to the end of 2018, my dad and I would sit down at the kitchen table every Saturday and Sunday morning and drink coffee while we played a new album top-to-bottom. We’d switch whose turn it was every week to pick the album and went through so much artists from George Strait to Harry Styles.

To this day, I love the ritual of drinking coffee in the morning so much because of that year and a half of connecting over a fresh pot. I even sacrificed some of my morning coffee to create the rings on this one (so it smells like those mornings did).

To Go Snacks

⛷️ NatGeo wrote a fantastic article on one of my favorite (and one of the scariest) topics to toss around: what does the future of skiing look like in the face of climate change?

🎨 Simply put, this mountain painting is just insane.

🐈 Denver residents, rejoice. There’s a class action lawsuit against the local Purina factory for making the entire east side of the city smell like cat food. I miss living in City Park, but I really don’t miss explaining to visitors that “the smell will pass, I swear”.

🎧 Can’t stop, won’t stop listening to Billie Eillish’s new album: HIT ME HARD AND SOFT.

See you at the end of June! Hope you soak up every minute in the meantime.

- McCall 🌻

Was this email forwarded to you? Subscribe here so you don’t miss the next one!