Skiing uphill might be the mother of all aerobic sports; you’re chuffing along (typically at altitude) and because you’re relying on both your legs and arms – and not suffering the pounding of running – your legs fatigue slowly, making it entirely possible you’ll throw up long before your legs force you to stop.
Snow Falling on Wally
And yes, XC-skiing is like fly fishing (remember, everything’s like fly fishing); you’re deeply immersed in something requiring focus. The world recedes a little, and with luck all your daily hassles disappear into the rhythm of whatever it is you’re doing (skiing or casting or maybe throwing up).
Still – and despite all the stories we tell – fly fishing doesn’t involve much real suffering, but anyone from the upper midwest/upstate New York will tell you suffering’s an essential component of living and being (though they’d never use those words).
It’s common knowledge that residents of the frozen states who move to Florida eventually lose their ability to appreciate beauty, the sad and inevitable result of denying themselves the suffering of winter (which pretty much explains why xc-skiers know how to appreciate the heck out of beauty).
And yes, if a fly fisherman doesn’t suffer at least a little in the winter, you’ll suffer a lot once the backcountry lakes and streams open up and you’re dragging your larded, non-beauty-appreciating butt up some mountainside.
Because I want to fish a few backcountry spots this year – and the Upper Sac’s seriously blown out – I skied up an unplowed road this afternoon, putting in a good three miles uphill, Wally the Wonderdog trotting alongside (at least during those rare moments when he wasn’t trying to crash me by getting in front and stopping).
At this point, Wally the Wonderdog has been snoring away on the couch pretty much all evening (don’t tell the L&T), no doubt dreaming of crashing me again tomorrow, though a couple late client meetings render that unlikely. Still, he lives in hope.
See you sprawled on the snow, Tom Chandler.
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