Skiing at Donner Pass: Mushrooms on the Mountain

     One day, skiing ahead of our excursion, two of our group, Jennifer and Kate, met a couple of young skiers on the trail. Jennifer told them about our Sierra Club group, all over 50 years old and the oldest 80. When they met again at the top of the pass, the two young people were taking some mushrooms for a little psychedelic boost to their ski adventure. They said, "Oh, here are some mushrooms for Diana!" to honor my elder position among the skiers.

    That evening, sitting around the stove with me and others, Jennifer told about meeting the skiers and, with a flourish, presented me with the mushrooms. She had overheard me talking about psychedelics with Maricel and Beverly the evening before, so she was pleased to be giving me such a suitable gift.

                                    photo by Debra Gibson

    But Jennifer had missed the main drift of that conversation, which was the part psychedelics had played in my two-year bout with what was diagnosed as schizophrenia. Explaining that reference to Jennifer led to a rendition of the whole story, from so long ago, to everyone sitting around the stove. 

   Afterward, when people expressed gratitude that I would talk so openly about that experience, I told them that when the two-year episode had come to an end, I had thought, "If we are ever going to overcome the stigma of mental illness, we have to talk about it," and so I have never hidden that part of my life. And it's true that today we talk more openly about mental illness than we did in the '70s. 

    And the reason I was talking about psychedelics with Maricel and Beverly, a psychotherapist, in the first place was as part of a discussion about the therapeutic use of psychedelics. As always in discussions of that topic, I raised a cautionary voice: If, as it seems by my experience, some individuals are particularly sensitive to such substances, we should be particularly careful in advocating their use. 

    "So what will you do with the mushrooms?" someone asked, puzzled why I would want them.

    Well, I did offer them to anyone who wanted to actually eat them, but when no one reached for them, I said I would put them in a little jar on a shelf in my house. Then, I said, when someone picked up the jar and said, "What's this?" I could tell a story about skiing on Donner Pass, Jennifer's chance meeting with the young skiers, and all the fascinating, intelligent, broad-minded, and community-oriented fellow lovers of snow I had met.

Sierra Club Trip on Donner Pass: The Lodge and the Lodgers

    One of the best things about Sierra Club trips is the many interesting people you meet. They are passionate about the environment, and, in my experience (on three Sierra Club trips), they are cheerful contributors to a communal experience. 

    On the Donner Pass trip, we stayed at the delightful, rustic, 100-year-old Hutchinson Lodge.

                                                        photo by Debra Gibson

It is unstaffed, but everything ran smoothly because there was always someone to do what was needed—help our cooks, who were also snowshoe and ski co-leaders, with meals (the food was terrific!),

Nora and Jane, two of our cooks 
photo by Jeannette Sivertsen, the third cook

keep the fires going in the two wood-burning stoves, 

Mike, keeping the stove going.
                        photo by Jeannette Sivertsen

pull a sled loaded with supplies (or firewood!) up the snowy hill to the lodge,

and anything else that was needed. With only one water heater, our leaders suggested three-minute showers. I didn't hear that anyone ran out of hot water during a shower. 

    Besides being considerate and helpful, Sierra Club outings people are so interesting! Five of the twenty-one of us were originally from different countries—Argentina, Iran, Israel, the Czech Republic, and Hong Kong. Careers ranged widely—a psychiatrist, a personal development consultant, a doctor, tech people, and other interesting occupations. Discussions ranged from books to personal backgrounds to tales of outdoor adventures. 

Mark Chang leading a discussion about protecting winer wildlands

    Leaders of Sierra Club outings always tell participants about environmental issues pertinent to the area. Mark told us about grassroots organizations and alliances dedicated to protection of winter wildlands "for quality human-powered winter recreation"—i.e., no over-snow vehicles (OSVs). In fact, our snowshoers ran into some snowmobilers on a frozen lake they had snowshoed to. Although there are places in the Donner Pass area open to OSV use, this lake, Mark thought, was not one and the snowmobilers probably recreating illegally.

    Before we went out on the first day, Mark talked to us about backcountry ski equipment and safety. The best way to avoid avalanche danger, he said, was to stay out of avalanche territory at dangerous times. The best way not to get lost, he said, was to use a GPS. "Don't depend on following your tracks to get home," he told us. "There are tracks everywhere." In the Cascades of southern Oregon, where I usually ski, I am always confident I can follow my tracks back to the trailhead, but Donner Pass is a very popular area for skiing and snowshoeing ("It's a zoo on the weekends," Mark said), and, yes, there were tracks everywhere. I was glad enough to follow Mark and his GPS every day back to the Hutchinson Lodge, where I was glad, too, for good cooks, a warm fire, good companionship, and a comfortable bunk bed to tumble into for a well-earned, long night's sleep.

Next week: Mushrooms on the Mountain

Backcountry Skiing on Donner Pass: The Skiing

    Four days of backcountry skiing with Mark Chang, I thought last week as I was skiing with him on Donner Pass, was about comparable to hiking 800 miles for my 80th birthday. It was that challenging.

    And so much fun! 

    I had signed up for this Sierra Club trip—Tahoe Ski and Snowshoe Backcountry Adventure, led by Mark Chang—after extensive conversation with him in December about my experience and equipment. It sounded like I could do it. 

    It was not namby-pamby. It was not on groomed trails with set tracks. It was up steep icy hills, with herring-bone steps that tested the strength of my thighs. It was a lot of downhill challenges.

I'm in front. It's steeper than it looks. Photo by Mark Chang

Four to six miles a day. Tight turns on narrow trails through the woods. Creek crossings on snow-bridges. Swift glides over snow-frozen lakes. I fell plenty of times, but Jane, Mark's skiing co-leader, told me I hadn't fallen any more than anyone else. Everyone fell.

Jane and me                     Photo by Mark Chang

    And those gorgeous views of Sierra peaks, snow as far as you could see.

                                                                                Photo by Mark Chang

           The second day we skied up to and over a pass on our way to Peter Grubb hut. Besides the steep climbs, we had one long, steep, dangerous, icy traverse. At the end of it, we stopped for lunch and discussed plans. Mark suggested that instead of going to the hut, we turn uphill to a flat below Castle Peak, then return to the lodge on the Pacific Crest Trail. One of the skiers protested. "It's only ten minutes to the hut," she said, pleadingly. 

    "Ten minutes for you," Mark said. "An hour for Diana."

The second day's skiers, below Castle Peak.     Photo by Mark Chang

    What made it all so glorious? The whoop-de-whoop ups and downs on the Pacific Crest Trail and its serene glides through the forest? Doing better and better herring-bone steps? The views of high Sierra peaks beyond us or of dark blue, white-trimmed Donner Lake below us? Swooping down wide hills, making graceful (or not so graceful) turns?

                                Photo by Mark Chang

Just simply being outdoors in the snow and the incomparable beauties of deep winter on the mountain? Meeting every challenge, one way or another, and coming home exhilarated every afternoon? Just being able to ski in the backcountry? 

    All of it.

    One by one, skiers dropped out to join the snowshoers. On the fourth and last day, Mark said the skiing group would be himself, Jane, and three others—Jennifer and Kate, the two best skiers in the group—and me. I was aghast. What was I thinking to be skiing with those four? But Mark and Jane had skied with me for three days. If they thought I could do it, I wasn't going to take myself out. 

Jennifer, Kate, Mark, me, Jane             photo by Jennifer Halter Baceda

    What a glorious day! I kept up (well enough), and the skiing was magnificent, challenging and beautiful. We stopped, amazed, in front of wind sculptures.

Jennifer, me, Kate, Jane                             Photo by Mark Chang

We stopped next to a group of trees to listen to the tapping rhythms of a woodpecker. We followed bear paw prints, Mama Bear's and Baby Bear's.

                                    photo by Jennifer Halter Baceda

We skied over the smooth surfaces of lakes, down wide hills, up hills and down, on snow bridges across creeks, and, finally, we took off our skis to walk through dank echoing tunnels under the freeway.

          Photo by Jennifer Halter Baceda

    Every afternoon I came back to the lodge more exhilarated than tired. Every morning I clipped my boots into my skis, ready to go again. I came home with blisters on my heels, a bruise on my hip, chapped lips, and a heart full of gratitude—to Mark Chang for leading this trip and to all the companions with whom I shared his backcountry adventure on Donner Pass. 

(from left) Mark, me, and the other skiers.    Photo by Jane Uptegrove

    

Next week: Backcountry Skiing on Donner Pass: The Lodge and the Lodgers

Cross-country Skiing Christmas Present

     It was 11 below zero the first night of my Christmas present from my son, Ela: three days of cross-country skiing with him in Methow Valley, in the north Cascades. 

    Or course, it wasn't quite that cold the afternoon we got there—just above zero, maybe. We went straight to the rental shop, rented skis for Ela, booked a private lesson for the next day, grabbed a map of ski trails, and took off on our skis.

    At first I was disappointed. It was so flat! I wanted hills, and although the flat, snowy field was beautiful, the skiing was boring. But when we got to the hills and the woods, my spirits rose. Now it was really beautiful, and the skiing was challenging and fun. I was in my element.

I am the figure in white, in my element.

    After an hour's warm-up ski on the flat the next morning, we met Eric, our ski instructor, at a different trailhead.

    Skiing at Methow is either skate skiing (not my cup of tea) or classic cross-country—on groomed trails, in tracks, suited for the skis Ela had rented. I have backcountry skis, suited to the kind of skiing I usually do but too wide for the set tracks at Methow.  I told Eric that what I really wanted was tips for backcountry skiing, and he had plenty for me. Push from the straps of your poles, not from the grip. Swing from the shoulder. Don't flick your wrist. Never equalize your weight on the skis going uphill. He showed me how to swivel my hips to make turns on the downhill. He showed Ela, who, though a good snowboarder and a pretty good novice telemarker, is new to cross-country skiing, how to lift one ski out of the track to slow himself on the downhill. He took us off-trail to demonstrate techniques in deep snow.

    The special thing about skiing at Methow, Eric told us, was not the amount of snow but that it is so cold that the snow never melts and the skiing is always good on the groomed trails.

    When the lesson was over, Ela and I kept skiing, heading up Doe Canyon, by far my favorite of the five or six trails we skied those three days. Up and up and up, climbing hills, until we were far above the river valley, then a glorious fast downhill, on the wide groomed trail, swishing side to side, all the way to the river again

    After a late lunch at our cabin, we went out again, this time skiing out the back door of the cabin to the trailhead and onto the hills up Jack'sTrail, not as steep as Doe Canyon, but still pretty good.

    Our last day at Methow we were out skiing early. It was zero degrees. Not another soul was out. My nose hairs froze. Ela's hair was frosted from his breath. We skied fast, warming up, relishing the sunny spots, by the river, through the woods, over the glorious snow.    

    We skied six times in our three days at Methow. We started every morning with Ela's good coffee and ended it with good pub food. We thrilled to the bright cold weather, the beautiful snow, the fun skiing. Now it was time to pack up and leave. Ela drove us carefully over the icy, snow-swirling passes through the Cascades back to his home on Vashon Island. The next morning I took the ferry to Tacoma and then the train to Eugene and drove home from there.

    It was the best Christmas present ever—the wonderful skiing, the sparkling cold weather, the learning and the practice, all that beautiful snow, and the ever delightful companionship of my son. 

Stopping to view Goat Wall in the sun.

    Thanks, Ela. It was fabulous.

(All photos by Ela Lamblin)

    

And the Snow It Snowed

     I woke up Sunday morning to two inches of snow, and snow still falling.
    Immediately, I drove my car the half-mile down the hill to the paved road. Then I walked home, secure in the knowledge that I could get out if I needed to, whatever the snowfall.

    The snow fell all day, accumulating about 16 inches. That night, as I was eating dinner, dark suddenly crashed into the house. Power outage. I finished dinner by candlelight, then read by headlamp. When I turned off the headlamp before getting into bed, the outside world leapt into existence glowing as though electrified as the moon, hidden behind trees, set the world alight. The Big Dipper danced on its long handle over the mountain.

    Clear skies were brief. The snow fell all the next day. Without electricity the silence was silver. The outside world was pristine and white, the snow deep both on the ground and on the trees and falling in a slow, steady, soft drift from the sky. 

    Electricity returned just after midnight. The next morning I thought I should walk down the road and dig the car out, so I put on my ski boots and gaiters and plowed through the deep snow,

trampling a trench I could use for anticipated walks up and down the hill with my groceries in a backpack. Before I had gone very far, a large downed tree, tangled with several smaller trees, blocked my path.

I couldn't climb over it or walk around it. Without access in or out, I was truly snowbound.

    I don't mind being snowbound. Actually, I kind of like the coziness of it, But I had important travel dates coming up, and I didn't want to miss them.

    Maybe I should have the road plowed.

    And spoil all that pristine beauty? No! What a sacrilege to the cold white cathedral.

    Maybe I should change priorities. 

    I called my neighbor with a snowplow.

    He came up and plowed my road into an ugly muddy mess.

    Later I walked down the plowed road to dig the car out. Uneasy about driving the car up a now slushy road, I left it in a more protected spot and walked home, where I sat at my desk, my back to the plowed driveway, watching the snow-laden forest in its pristine, white, glorious beauty.

    This morning the driveway is covered with another three inches of beautiful white snow.

Ghost Words

    Ghost words are actually and in fact words that entered the dictionary by mistake and were either discovered and deleted—ghosted, as it were—or gathered lovingly into the language in spite of their ghostly ancestry. 

    "Dord" is an example of a word taken into, then out of, the dictionary. It was written down as a synonym for "density" because in the original entry, the lexicographer added, helpfully, after "density," "D or d," meaning that "density," a term of physics, could be spelled with or without a capital D: "Density, D or d"—"Density, Dord." It was an easy mistake to make, but it became a ghost word when it was removed from the dictionary in a huff.

    "Syllabus" is an example of a word with a ghostly, i.e., nonexistent, ancestry that was left in the dictionary in spite of the error that birthed it. In some 17th-century scriptorium, a scribe copying words into a dictionary came to the Latin word sittybas, defined as a parchment label. In the dim light in which he was working, he apparently didn't notice the crosses on the "t"s and created the word "syllabus." In time, the meaning also got twisted, from a "parchment label" to "a list," and on to the most common modern meaning, "a list of lessons for a class."

    But I like to think of ghost words as wraiths, hovering into the language and then evaporating. "Crapulous," for instance, a word for the way you feel after you've eaten too much—isn't it a shame that that word became a ghost? Elflock— hair that elves have tangled—is another ghost word (by my definition) we could use today—much better, don't you think, than "bad hair day"?

    I wish curglaff, the shock felt at a cold-water plunge, hadn't turned into a ghost. I would love to be able to say, as I plunged into a lake at 10,000 feet, "Wow! That was a great curglaff!" And I still could, I guess, even if no on knew what I meant, except that I probably won't remember it. It has only a spectral existence, flitting through the linguistic atmosphere as insubstantial and unsnatchable as a ghost.

Incivility Comes to My Little Corner of the World

     A few days ago I posted on the local "nextdoor" website: "I need, as my son said, 'a man with a shovel' to divert the water on my driveway to the side ditches. Any ideas?"

    I probably should have added that this was a paying job, though I thought it was obvious.

    Someone named Amy Templeton, whom I don't know, responded: "Can't your son do it? I see so many women out here expecting the neighbors to bail them out. If you can't handle rural property, or do it yourself please go back to the city."

    How astonishing.

    (1) My son lives in another state.

    (2) I am 80 years old. Am I expected to dig ditches?

    (3) I have lived on this property for 50 years. (I built my own house, too, if that is a relevant fact.)

    (4) I didn't come from the city. The only time I have "lived" in a city was when I was at college in Nashville, Tennessee, where I lived on campus and seldom went into town, and again in graduate school in Eugene, Oregon, again more on campus than in town.

    (5) Why would this writer assume that I wouldn't pay my helper?

    However, it is beside the point that Amy Templeton had no idea of those facts, as she couldn't be expected to know them. The point is how rude it was to attack me—any person—in such a way.

    I was taught as a child to treat all people with respect—and, for my parents, that included Black people, which was not always the case in the South, where I grew up (in the boondocks, by the way, Amy, not in the city). I am grateful for that upbringing. I wonder why Amy wasn't taught the same thing. Is she of a generation that weren't taught to be polite? Did she have a harsh upbringing that left her bitter and resentful? Or has a general air of incivility, disrespect, and permission to attack people you don't know permeated so deeply into our society that it touches even those of us who don't live that way?