{"id":112,"date":"2004-02-12T03:36:00","date_gmt":"2004-02-12T03:36:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=112"},"modified":"2004-02-12T03:36:00","modified_gmt":"2004-02-12T03:36:00","slug":"112","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=112","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Skiing is Wrong, says Jack<\/strong><\/p>\n

It’s been a snowy winter here on Hardscrabble Creek: a good thing too, since we are still in a drought overall. By the end of January, according to a nearby ranch wife who had been keeping count, we had had 32 inches (81 cm) of snow, although it comes a little bit at a time, and most melts away between storms.<\/p>\n

Thus far in February, some 22 inches (56 cm) more has fallen, and twice this month it has been possible to go skiing out the front door, instead of having to drive into the higher mountains. I go for the “Camp Hale” <\/a> look close to home: baggy olive-green pants, ex-Army white skis, and perhaps the last bamboo ski poles in use in the state of Colorado.<\/p>\n

LEFT: A World War II ski trooper from the 10th Mountain Division, during training at Camp Hale, near Leadville, Colorado. (Photo courtesy Denver Public Library)<\/em><\/p>\n

But there is one problem: Jack, our Chesapeake Bay retriever<\/a>. Like all good Chessies, he loves water in all forms: rain, rivers, swamps, ponds, fog, and snow. But, evidently, for his people to travel by skis is wrong, completely wrong. Every winter we go through this: Mary and I ski, and Jack runs alongside barking at us. The hills and ridges echo with his bark. The other dogs run too–they think that it’s all good fun–but somehow Jack takes skiing personally. Double-poling is worse than a diagonal stride in his view.<\/p>\n

The only solution is to keep skiing until he gets tired of barking. Mary and I need to get away and up into the higher mountains.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Skiing is Wrong, says Jack It’s been a snowy winter here on Hardscrabble Creek: a good thing too, since we are still in a drought overall. By the end of January, according to a nearby ranch wife who had been keeping count, we had had 32 inches (81 cm) of snow, although it comes a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-112","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s6xQTg-112","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":148,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=148","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":0},"title":"From ‘Bavarian’ to ‘Buddhist’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"When I was a kid in the 1960s, the decor and nomenclature of Colorado ski towns relied heavily on the ersatz-Austrian, sort-of-Swiss, or bogus-Bavarian model. Everywhere you looked (and still look, in some cases), was \"Alpen-this\" or the \"Something Haus\" or \"Hof.\" For the full flower of the bogus-Bavarian 1960s,\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":801,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=801","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":1},"title":"Dolores LaChapelle","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"January 29, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Dolores LaChapelle of Silverton, Colorado, died January 22 at an advanced age. (She was still skiing deep powder in her seventies.)She begins the preface to her 1992 deep ecology book Sacred Land, Sacred Sex: Rapture of the Deep: Concerning Deep Ecology and Celebrating Life by stating that it does not\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"deep ecology\"","block_context":{"text":"deep ecology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=deep-ecology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":13347,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=13347","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":2},"title":"Beltane and the Birds","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"May 1, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Beltane snuck((OK, \"sneaked,\" if you don't like vernacular irregular conjugations.)) up on me this year. While much of Colorado had more snow than usual, here on the creek we did not. It was cold, dry, and windy week after week. Finally, a combination of rain and wet snow brought two\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Beltane\"","block_context":{"text":"Beltane","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=beltane"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/bird-migration-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/bird-migration-1024x576.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/bird-migration-1024x576.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":147,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=147","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":3},"title":"‘Red Flag Warning’","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 20, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"For the last month, Forest Service crews have been cutting fire line and otherwise preparing to set a prescribed burn quite near my home. The first burn in what was supposed to be a series of them to reduce the wildfire risk and improve elk winter habitat was set four\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":149,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=149","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":4},"title":"The sameness of ski townsBecause\u2026","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 23, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"The sameness of ski townsBecause of the poor spring snow conditions, on the 22nd we put the skis in their rack on the Jeep and drove over Fr\u00e9mont Pass from Leadville into Summit County, the heart (or other metaphorical internal organ) of Colorado's ski industry. After walking around the business\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1299,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1299","url_meta":{"origin":112,"position":5},"title":"Celebrating the Season, However You Do It","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 2, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Anne Hill has her annual Brigid Poetry Festival going\u2014check the comments for linkage.Me, I just had to get Out. Cabin fever was setting in, and walking the dogs close to home or going up on the ridge to cut firewood just was not curing it.So we strapped the touring skis\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Colorado\"","block_context":{"text":"Colorado","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=colorado"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=112"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/112\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=112"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=112"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=112"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}