It was awesome to see Okki again. The last time we had seen each other was out on the playa at Burning Man, just before he and Ash drove away to join the great exodus of tail lights back towards civilization.
We had plenty of time to catch up on the drove through Golden and up into the mountains. He was still at the same job as before, as a customer service rep at the Amazing Innovative Tech Firm in Broomfield. He liked his job there very much and was thinking of training to be a sales rep.
He'd been working there almost two years now, ever since we both quit the sinking dysfunctional ship of Vampire Software in east Boulder in August 2011. The vampires there had blamed yours truly for the uprising, and had appointed the biggest and fattest server admin to escort me from the office to the parking lot. The enterprise had then fulfilled my prediction by collapsing in ignominy only three months later when the investors pulled the plug.
Okki piloted the car up I-70, then took the exit onto US 40. From there the switchbacks lead up to the summit of Berthoud Pass. Here our conversation turned towards Burning Man and our compariots from our camp there. It had been almost four months since the end of thet event, and we both agreed that the "sleep phase" of Burning Man was over, and that it was time to start planning for the next one.
"I feel like I've entered a new phase in life," I said. "So far I've been successful at getting where I am, and taking care of my own needs, but I want to go up a level. I've been lucky at how other people have helped me along the way, and I've certainly taken advantage of that. Now what appeals to me is giving back somehow."
I said it in a way that implied I was talking about not only Burning Man, but about life in general. He knew exactly what I was talking about.
He was delighted to hear about my plan to commission the building of an art car for our camp. I told him how back in Reno, right after Burning Man, I had contacted my friend, a metal sculptor in Maryland, and a former Burner, and that we had formulated a plan for the project with an initial cost estimate.
"I'm going to have to raise money for it," I said. "I some kind of motivation to go up a level."
He also liked my report that several of my friends had expressed interest in possibly camping with us. The more the merrier is Okki's motto.
Okki himself planned to extend his success with his hexayurt by perfecting the swamp cooler that he had attempted the year before, but which hadn't worked as he hoped. He also was extremely enthusiastic about exploring the new simple motherboards which allowed one to create intricate programmable LEDs in shapes (things like this), and even washable ones for making LED clothing. It was much more sophisticated than simple LED wire, he said. There was a store in Boulder that specialized in that equipment.
I had great fun hearing about some of our camp mates, including Kevin and Sean, who had recently participated in the Epic Race, in which the contestants ski 26 different resorts in four different countries around the world, culminating in the French Alps. Our friends hadn't won the race, but they had enjoyed the experience very much.
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But this time he parked at the main Winter Park resort lot, because yours truly had to get a snowshoe trail map at the lodge there.
We took the free gondola down to the village, then Okki took his new parabolic skis and went off to the express lift heading towards the top of the mountain for a couple hours. Neither of us wanted a strenuous day, since it our first day back on the slopes.
Inside the main lodge, when I got to the front of the line, the woman there told me they had no more snowshoe trail maps, but she could show me the trails on the regular ski run map.
"That'll do just fine," I said, spreading the map out on the counter.
After pointing out a few places to go, both inside and outside the ski area boundary, she finally said, almost as after though, "actually the whole mountain is open to you, since this is a National Forest. Just stay out of the way of the skiers, you know."
I stopped her nearly in mid sentence. "That's all I need to hear," I said with a big grin. I knew the rules of the road from that one sentence.
A few minutes later I had strapped on the bindings of the rented MSRs and was marching up through virgin powder at the edge one of the green circle trails. As I went uphill, against the direction of everyone else on the trail, parents with their kids whizzed by me in the other direction. The kids all seemed to notice me and gave me curious looks.
Winter Park is like Skiing 101. It's the most accessible full resort from Denver (it used to be owned and operated by the city of Denver). As such, it feels like it's mainly used by families with young children just learning to ski, out on an easy day trip, as well as foreigners who are making their first visit to Colorado. It gives me a warm feeling.
It was first time on the snow since last March in New Mexico. With each step I could feel the rush of blood in my torso, as if my whole midsection was waking up from a slumber.
At the top of the first trail, where the lift took skiers further up the mountain, I detoured sideways and spent the next couple hours cutting laterally across the open runs then threading through thigh-high powder in the clumps of trees. It was gloriously fun.
At the bottom of one intermediate slope, a woman with a very young child came to a halt right next to me. I could see that the kid was not having a good time.
"I think we bit off a little more than we could chew," she said. "Do you know the flattest way down to the village?"
I motioned down the slope. "Look for the Gemini Express lift," I said. "It's just beyond the trees. You can't miss it."
"Will they let us ride down?"
"Just tell them," I said, with my most comforting voice. "I'm sure they will."
Or at least they used to, I almost added.
"In any case, it's almost flat from there down to the village."
A little past noon, I got a text from Okki saying he was already down at the lodge and had ordered us a couple beers at the bar out on the deck. I texted him back that I was on the way down.
At the moment I was smack at the top of a huge wide black diamond expert run. I could see down to the resort lodge and the west terminus to the Moffat Tunnel.
There were no skiers visible up the slope, so I decided to descend in several long switchbacks across the run. But almost immediately I slipped on powder and started to glissade rapidly down the slope in my snow pants.
II slid for a couple hundred yards that way without stopping, keeping my feet up so that I didn't catch the snowshoes in powder and twist my knee.
With a beer and a good friend waiting at the bottom, I figured there was no reason to slow myself down.
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