February 23, 2008 |

Earn ’em and burn ’em

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Snow-covered mountain with a peak and tree-lined slopes under a pale sky

The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure. ~ Sven Goran Eriksson


Well, the past two days I have had the distinct pleasure of skiing Crested Butte. I grew up skiing the Butte and man… it is skiing off the hook right now. CB has been absolutely HAMMERED this year with snow. The whole mountain was open before Christmas this year courtesy of several multi-foot storms and it has just kept on dumping. Not sure what they are claiming their base is right now but it is as filled in as I have seen it in a very long time. Great stuff.



Yesterday, I hiked the peak and stood atop CB’s unique visage. Unfortunately, I left my camera at home but it was fairly cloudy so the shots wouldn’t have been too great anyway. It was a sweet view, still… looking down on the town of Crested Butte from 12000+ feet. The skiing from the summit is pretty uninspired but getting to the top was really cool.


Skier in yellow descends a snowy, tree-lined mountain slope

The Alpine Extremes are going on this week at CB so I skied down to the bottom of Headwall to check them out for a bit then headed out to spin laps on the North Face. Everything was skiing really well and I hit Third Bowl, Spellbound, Phoenix and many laps in the Glades. I wasn’t skiing super well but had a blast.


Today, I headed back up to the Butte and headed immediately out to Teocalli Bowl for some fresh tracks. They called in an inch overnight but at the top it was closer to five. I was the first person all the way out Teo and was able to drop a couple of fairly large rock bands into fresh snow. On the way up, I had a bit of an epiphany and put it to practice to strong results. I realized that standing atop something one is considering dropping and looking for long periods of time isn’t really worth it. Either you are going to drop the thing or not, so stop gawking and get on with it. Seemed to work for me today as I found numerous fun rocks to huck myself off. I stuck every landing today too which is like a quintuple bonus.



I spun down to watch the comps again today which was being run on the Third Bowl/Spellbound cliffs. Competitors were allowed to use the entire span of the two bowls and these guys were getting into the serious bidness. I watched for a bit in the morning and then went out to grab some freshies in Phoenix Steps and whatever run is to the skier’s right of Phoenix Bowl. Anyway, it was awesome. I think that today may have been the best I have ever skied. So that is a plus.


Snow-covered wooden hut in a forest, surrounded by tall bare trees

I just skied a bunch – pretty much the whole mountain then went back to the comps for a bit. Then I did an hour of power and called it a day. I am tempted to go back tomorrow but think I may hit Monarch on my way home instead. We’ll see. I still have three days on my pass so will probably just save those for mid-March and come back with Pete and Luke.



White rabbit sitting on a black rabbit on a blue carpet indoors

On a significantly less excellent note – our bunny, Yoda, died on Wednesday night. He was an awesome little bowling ball of a bunny who got along with everyone. He was very hard of hearing and sight so that made him a little twitchy when he could smell food. He would just lunge randomly in the direction he perceived the victuals to be! Really cute. He was quite old and had out-lived several buddies (Lea. He was always happy to take on a new friend and most recently had buddied-up with Skipper. Skips isn’t taking the loss very well (bunnies get very attached to one another) so we are going to try to find him a new friend ASAP. Also, Rach tripped and broke her toe while on the phone with me earlier today. Total bummer. Stupid pinky toes.



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Four hikers with backpacks walking along a rocky mountain ridge under a blue sky
May 8, 2026
We are each our own greatest inhibitor. People don’t want to do new things if they think they’re going to be bad at them or people are going to laugh at them. You have to be willing to subject yourself to failure, to be bad, to fall on your head and do it again, and try stuff that you’ve never done in order to be the best you can be. ~ Laird Hamilton Yesterday: Hit Range Balls/Hike – Casa del Critters, 1:15 Today: Run – GGCSP, ~2 hours Tomorrow: Ride – Somewhere singlespeedy, ~2 hours Yesterday, Rach and I took a nice stroll in the woods around our house. The songbirds were going crazy-nuts and surprisingly, we only saw one other person walking his dog. I love where we live – close proximity to fun trails and the ability to get away from it all in just a short walk from our house. During lunch yesterday, I went to the driving range to get a few cuts in before playing a round of golf with my dad next week. I don’t get to play very often so need to brush up on my skills (or lack thereof) whenever I can. I am looking forward to playing with my pops and hope to break 100. I shot a 102 the last time I played so I am within striking distance of the sub-triple-digit score. We’ll see how things go. I usually do okay for most of the round and then fall apart on a couple of holes pushing my score way up. Dad shoots in the low 80s usually (I think). I am not sure I will ever play enough to be that good but it is fun to get out on the course now and again. I also went to see Dr. Paul yesterday for my ankle problem (which seems to have been resolved) and my knee (which is still a bit swollen but has decreased in size markedly over the past several days). The knee stems from my unscheduled nose-dive back in May (see this post for details). The shot some pictures and believe that everything is a-ok so that was good news. I just need to select better places for splashdowns in the future. And today is Luke’s birthday. Age is one place where I will always beat him but visit his blog to congratulate him on trying to catch up. Until next time…
Runner silhouetted at sunset on a rocky trail, mid-stride between hills.
May 8, 2026
Progress comes from the intelligent use of experience. ~ Elbert Hubbard Yesterday: Run – Casa del Critters/Flume, 1 hour 15 minutes Today: Ride/Hike/Relax Tomorrow: Run/Hike – Pawnee/Buchanan Passes, 6 hours? Yesterday I ran around the house. Not literally, mind you, but in the neighborhood. It was a gorgeous evening – calm, cool. Perfect. The wildflowers are really starting to take off up here and I was treated with a bold display of color throughout my run. Tons of Columbine lined the trailside as I ran on old mining roads and singletrack trails. It is really fun to see how much differently I am able to handle familiar terrain. I used to have difficulties running this loop and would have to walk major sections. Last night, I ran the entire loop without trouble and was able to moderate my speed to maintain a steady cadence through the run. Good times. Contracting is staying steady. A bit of a drop-off this week given the holiday but I am still managing to put in a decent number of hours. I picked up another new project today and will need to get started immediately to ensure that it gets completed on time.  Tomorrow, we are going to head up Pawnee Pass and loop back around to Buchanan Pass in the northern Indian Peaks Wilderness. This should be a fun challenge as we’ll get up pretty high, have to navigate some snow (most likely) and will be out for quite awhile. I am looking forward to it for sure . Movie time: I forgot to mention Shopgirl, a Steve Martin vehicle, we watched the other night. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but found this to be a charming film about loneliness. It was well acted and would recommend it for sure. The pacing is steady throughout and some might find it a little on the slow side but it was an engaging film that had a lot to say without being overly sappy.
Hands holding a tablet displaying a video player interface. The video is paused.
February 20, 2026
In case you hadn’t seen these (and also for my friends at Adventure Film ), here are a couple of must-see running movies from Joel Wolpert:  Geoff Roes: Slogging to the Top