America's Uphill

A big weekend here in the mountains. On Saturday, I returned to the scene of my medical de-pantsing, the America's Uphill Race on Aspen Mountain. Last year, this race was followed by a panicked trip to the emergency room, kicking off the month long comedy of errors that finally led to the discovery of a brain aneurysm in late April.

I don't really care to get into all the reasons why I felt it was important to get back out there this year and do the race again, so let's just leave it at this: if 10 months after surgery I could climb the 3,260 vertical feet from the bottom of Aspen Mountain to its summit, it would go a long way towards feeling like this experience was (at least physically) behind me.

The race started at 7 AM, and thanks to the early March changing of the clocks (selfish farmers), it would begin in darkness. My wife was kind enough to resume the role of team manager and snap this pre-start photo.

A close up just minutes prior to the gun going off. To my right is eventual race winner Ricky Gates, who nearly set a record by running the full height of Aspen Mountain in a shade over 41 minutes. For the third year in a row, I opted for the "Heavy Metal" category, meaning I would be skiing up the mountain with my touring setup.

Lauren snapped this photo just after the start, as the competitors start making their way up the steep face of the Little Nell trail.

Once the race began, Lauren embarked on the most expensive gondola ride in Aspen history. Back in September, when Baby Nitti was just a twinkle in her eye, Lauren laid out $400 for a season's ski pass that has remained unused courtesy of the sudden change to Lauren's center of gravity. Today, she finally got some return on her investment by enjoying the 14 minute ride to the summit so she could wait for me to finish. Once on board, she snapped this photo of the race unfolding a couple hundred feet below.

Lauren's quite proud of this shot back towards town. Red Mountain, home to many of the uber-wealthy, in the background.

My girl waiting patiently at the summit.

Skiing to the finish line, 1 hour and 17 painful minutes from the start.

Here I am posing alongside a big mountain. And those peaks behind us aren't too shabby either! HEY-O!!! I kid, I kid. My wife is more beautiful than ever; I just couldn't pass up an opportunity to make a semi-forced, poorly-crafted play on words at her expense.

At the risk of getting a bit mushy, I'm damned proud to have pulled this off so soon after a life-threatening event. Saturday's race now sits atop my list of greatest accomplishments, easily supplanting the previous #1, having lived 33 years without once wearing jean shorts, typing LOL, or utterering the words "party foul."

The Fog is Getting Thicker. And Leon's Getting Larger!!!!!!!

I know what you're thinking. How do I do it? How do I drag myself away from that face and that growing belly filled with promise and go ski every Sunday morning? It ain't easy, I'll tell you that much.

But life as a CPA has sort of forced my hand. From January until April 15th I'm required to spend six days a week in the office. That leaves only Sunday morning for a foray into the surrounding mountains, and for the sake of my sanity amidst all those hours of labor, it's probably best that I do it.

In some of my weaker moments, I grow concerned that people may be getting weary of seeing photo after photo of skiing and skiing-themed landscapes on this here website. But then I remind myself, this IS a blog about Aspen, after all. Skiing is just sort of what goes on out here from November through May. You wouldn't go to TMZ.com and expect to see anything but an endless string of images featuring a tubby Jessica Simpson, would you? I think not.

The goal for today was a bit more ambitious than the previous Sunday. With temperatures expected to rise into the high 40's, we needed to get high in order to find the goods. Enter Green Mountain, with a summit elevation of 12,054 and a north face capable of holding mid-winter quality snow while the east through west aspects get cooked.

Today we had the privilege of skiing with Aspen avalanche forecaster Brian McCall. Brian is a veritable wealth of knowledge about all things off-piste, and having him join on a tour means that even by accident, you're bound to end the day more knowledgeable about your surroundings than you were when it started. Here's Brian working his way up Express Creek road, which would serve as our access to the foot of Green Mountain.

The skies were a brilliant blue all day, and even with a hut located nearby, we didn't see another human throughout our trip. The meadows of lower Green Mountain looked undisturbed, save for a solitary skin track put in by skiers on some day previous.
Sarah during a brief break under a sweltering sun.

This might well be my favorite photo of the year. It's a shot of Brian leading up to the saddle that would grant us access to the east ridge of Green Mountain. I'm no photog, but there's something rather cool about the fact that he appears to be shadowed while everything else is so well illuminated.
A view from the saddle back towards the valley. These shots always give perspective of just how far we've come.

The summit of Green Mountain afforded us the most inspiring panoramic views imaginable. Here's a shot of the rarely-seen north face of Star Peak.

Mace Peak in the foreground, West Pearl back center, and East Pearl in upper left-hand corner.

The east face of Castle Peak.

Cathedral Peak, including the begging-to-be-skied Pearl Couloir in the right-hand side of the photo. This was on my to-do list last spring until, uh...plans were changed.

A shot of yours truly on the summit. Not much to look at behind me.

Sarah getting it done. My tracks to the left.

Brian enjoying the fruits of his labor.

Halfway finished with our descent, a view of the Markley hut. If you click on the photo to enlarge, you can see a group packed up and ready to depart after a night at the hut.

From there, it was only 800 vertical feet to Express Creek Road followed by a 10 minute gradual descent back to the car. Thirty minutes later I was back at home, reunited with my girls.