Travel is Not a Cure for Depression

In the mountains, being in a clear state of mind can mean the difference between life and death. When it comes to travel -- the lines are a little more blurry, more complex -- but bottom line is that the level of enjoyment from travel often comes down to whatever state of mind the traveler is in. 

Another sunset from 37,000 ft.

Being in a good place in your head is the first step towards having a fulfilling experience in any place on earth.

I wasn't in a good place when I went to Peru last summer. I was working what was supposed to be a good job as a mudlogger -- a field geologist on an oil rig -- in the Powder River Basin of eastern Wyoming. On the surface, it seemed like a great way to start a career -- it was well-paying, offered a flexible schedule with blocks of time off rather than the standard 8-to-5 routine, and kept me reasonably close to the mountains. In reality, it was a never-ending saga of being trapped for weeks on end in a cramped trailer with at least five OSHA violations in the immediate vicinity, working 12-hour shifts with no predictable time off, and slowly accepting the reality that the optimistic promise of a 2 weeks on/2 weeks off schedule was never going to happen. I was going to be stuck out there as long as I held that job.

Pretty sure storing flammable liquids and flammable compressed 

gasses right next to each other is a really bad idea.

This was the first time in my adult life that I truly felt like I had no freedom. Every other job that I've had that I didn't like had an end in sight -- I would graduate from my MS program, and fire season would end with the first big rainstorm. I could have walked away at any time, but I kept telling myself that if I stuck it out just a little bit longer, I'd leave with that much more money. The country was in an oil boom and making $300/day without having to pay rent was a hard situation to walk away from. 

I booked a plane ticket for a two-week trip to Peru in mid-July with the hopes of climbing some of the easier summits -- Pisco, Yanapaccha, Tocllaraju -- of the Cordillera Blanca. But my attempts were failed before they started. The complete and utter lack of freedom that had plagued me for the past six months left me in a state of anxiety, of feeling internal pressure to do everything right on this trip because I knew it would be a while before I had that kind of freedom again. And I ended up doing most things wrong.

A glacial river flowing out from the Ishinca Valley

Feeling trapped for so long heightened my sense of awareness to situations where other people were taking the lead on trip decisions. When the climber who I'd met up with via summitpost kept trying to make choices about what we'd climb and when we'd climb it, I took it far too personally, and from there it was a downward spiral. We were still a poorly matched team, but this made everything worse.

I wanted -- needed -- to do things my way. After my partner and I split up in the Quebrada Ishinca, I might not get the mountain I wanted, but at least I could do the trip how I wanted. I befriended some Canadian climbers and my two summit attempts on lower, safer peaks went well.

Tocllaraju from the slopes of Ishinca

When I went back to Huaraz, I wasn't sure what I should be doing. For one, I had a minor cold, and my lips were terribly sunburned, so I needed a couple days to recover. I stayed in the hostel for a couple days, rested, and explored Huaraz. I befriended a few other travelers, explored some ruins, and did a day hike to Laguna 69 below the rocky, glaciated slopes of Pisco. In the end, I spent so much time trying to figure out what I should do with the rest of my time in Peru that I never did anything overly interesting.

The brilliant turquoise waters of Laguna 69

And the whole time, I was dreading going back to the confines of that cold, dingy trailer on a grimy well pad in eastern Wyoming and long, lonely nights spent reading articles on Matador Network and dreaming about the day when I could finally be done forever but with no end in sight.

I took an overnight bus to Lima, intending to spend a few days exploring the tourist attractions there. I visited the catacombs at the Church of San Francisco, went to the ChocoMuseo, bought some gifts for people back home at the Indian markets, and did a really amazing (and delicious) food tour of the city. In a way, I suppose a part of me felt so removed and disconnected from whatever it means to be a normal human that I wanted to do things that normal humans do when they travel. Go to museums and restaurants. Walk out to the beach.

A church in the Barranco district of Lima

Peru wasn't the best travel experience I've ever had. It's a beautiful country, and I'll go back someday. And when I do, I'll be in the right place, for the right reasons.

"Safe" Doesn't Have To Suck

Like most mountaineers, I have a bit of an ego. Like most people with GoPro's, I want to take video of things worth taking video of. But at age 25, I'm old enough to realize the absolute  stupidity of making a potentially dangerous decision solely for the sake of my ego and some sweet footage -- especially when there's an alternative that's much safer. 

I've been lucky in the mountains before. I know that there will be more "oh shit" moments to come. And I know that the more I play the odds, the more likely it becomes that the odds will win at some point.

It was May 29, 2014, and I wanted to climb a 14er and snowboard down it. I recently bought a GoPro and had been itching to try it out, and I wanted a good training climb for my upcoming trip to the Cordillera Blanca. The intent was to climb and descend the Cristo Couloir on Quandary Peak. With a maximum steepness of about 38 degrees, this would be steep enough to be a little scary to snowboard, and about perfect for a preparatory climb.

Temperatures hadn't dipped below freezing for several days prior, and there was plenty of evidence of recent wet-slab activity on the surrounding peaks staring me in the face. It was close to 08:00 when I arrived at the trailhead, which might be just enough time to be off the mountain by 11:30 (the couloir is south-facing).

But I was solo, and sunhit times don't matter when it comes to wet slabs. Not to mention I'd be in a terrain trap the entire way up and down.

So I drove back to the McCullough Gulch trailhead, hiked up the muddy trail and postholed through a really awful section of soft snow around treeline, and hiked the East Ridge to the summit. Not even remotely a special climb or ski/board descent -- it's about as steep as a blue trail at a ski resort.

But it was still fun, and I accomplished both my goals.

About 1000' below the summit, I met another climber on AT gear who shared the opinion that Cristo wasn't a very smart place to be that day. We chatted for the rest of the hike up, and he gave me some tips on using the GoPro.

After maybe 2000' of riding soft, slushy snow, we had posthole-hell to wade through, and then had to find our way through the forest back to the trailhead. There's some old, overgrown mining roads, and lots of private land surrounding the base of the mountain, but it wasn't too difficult.

We stumbled upon an old tin shack with piles of broken windows and retro furniture inside. This has nothing to do with snowboarding, but it was an interesting find.

Everything about that day was great (except for the part where I lost my sunglasses and got snowblindness, but that didn't kick in until the drive home). The hike, the descent, post-climb happy hour at Mi Casa in Breckenridge. 

It was a safe choice, and it was still an adventure.

Jackson Hole, Wyoming: The Dichotomy of a Ski Town

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect when I arrived in Jackson after a six hour drive that took me over Togwotee Pass in a snowstorm and checked into a room at the Anvil Motel. I'd read stories, seen movies, and heard my friends talk about how amazing the terrain was, so I was excited for that. It was a place that was on my "Snowboard Bucket List," and it seemed as good a time as any -- it was mid-February, and I knew that winter would be over before I knew it.

I ventured a couple blocks into town to get some food and beer from the Silver Dollar Bar & Grill. They had plenty of beer from the Snake River Brewery on tap, and the plate of nachos I ordered seemed directly proportional to Rendezvous Mountain itself. Casually observing the atmosphere, I noted that I had never seen so many expertly-crafted cowboy hats and boots with hardly a speck of dirt on them in any other town in Wyoming. 

Nachos loaded with beef, cheese, jalapenos, and beans at the Silver Dollar Bar

A guy I met in firefighter training who had spent the previous winter ski-bumming in Jackson told me that it was one of the more ostentatious ski towns -- probably on par with Aspen, Breckenridge, and Telluride. But I had to experience it for myself. 

Not wanting to spend the rest of the night hanging out in my motel room, I stopped into the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar, where patrons who fly in from Texas and the East Coast probably run up million-dollar tabs. I struck up a conversation with a couple of snowmobilers who had come up from Denver for the weekend, and what started as "a beer and a shot of bourbon" turned into "several beers and several shots of bourbon."

The Million Dollar Cowboy Bar

A big mug of coffee and about 4 ibuprofen were enough to get me on the road to the ski area the next morning. The lift tickets at Jackson Hole run for $117 a day -- about the cost of 2 days at several lesser-known ski areas that I frequent (that still have plenty of impressive terrain). 

The people at Jackson Hole inevitably fall into two categories -- the locals who are doing whatever it takes to live the Rocky Mountain Dream, and the rich tourists who fly in to spend a week a year at their time-share and spice up their life of business meetings and dinner parties with a taste of the West. But which "West," is that, exactly? The version that includes luxury hotels, 5-star restaurants, overpriced cowboy attire, $15 cocktails, shelves of t-shirts and accessories with the "Jackson Hole" logo plastered all over, little bottles of huckleberry syrup, and photo booths where the whole family can dress up like pioneers and get a sepia-toned memento of their time in a place that is made what it is only because of modern comforts like electricity, air travel, and mass media? Or the mountain wilderness that has seduced adventurers for the past two hundred years and came to be defined by rugged individualism, pragmatism, and the freedom to create one's own path?

And then there's this guy.

After waiting in line for about 45 minutes, I finally got on the tram. The views from the top are amazing, and Rendezvous Bowl is sick, but nothing is worth a 45 minute-wait, especially when you just paid $117 for 7 hours of skiing/riding.

These signs are all over, and there 

aren't actually cliffs below a lot of them

I spent the next two days exploring as much of the mountain as I could, and found it to be pretty unremarkable considering all the hype it gets. I'm sure it's sick on a powder day, but what ski area (in the West) isn't? Some of the traverses are pretty awful, but traverses are always awful on a snowboard, and most ski areas with any normal amount of acreage have at least a couple of painful traverses.

Terrain on the far left side of the ski area.

Totally not worth the traverse to get back.

As with any town, Jackson has a diverse selection of restaurants, from upscale sushi bars and steakhouses to lower-key diners and pizza parlors. In an effort to cultivate the "western" vibe of the town, many of them offer selections like bison, elk, and Snake River trout.

Admittedly, the bison sausage-and-mushroom 

pizza from Pizzeria Caldera was pretty good

Jackson itself is cute, cozy, and certainly not lacking in scenery -- but much like Breckenridge and Aspen, it doesn't feel genuine. Whether it's about money or being a part of America's ski culture, the kind of people who ski at Jackson Hole are the kind of people who expect other people to be impressed by the fact that they ski at Jackson Hole. It's not that they don't genuinely enjoy skiing -- it's that they care about prestige -- be it financial, social, or both.

It's not a real ski town if they don't have Christmas lights

on their trees for the entire duration of the ski season

Towards the end of my second day, I had the privilege of riding the gondola with a family that included a six-year-old girl with a smartphone and a couple of teen boys talking about the ski towns where their parents own property. And who knows, they may grow up to be great skiers and snowboarders. But they'll still care about the prestige of where they do whatever it is they do.

I stopped at the Roadhouse Brewery -- a little pub on WY-22 between Teton Village and Jackson -- for a couple pints and some $6 happy hour tacos. The porter, dubbed "Tower of the Castle," was brewed with sweet potatoes and served on nitro, and it was deliciously thick and smooth. The pale ale was nothing incredibly special, but the place had a refreshingly chilled-out vibe, and the patrons actually struck up conversations with one another.

Pizza ... French Fry ... Pizza ... French Fry

At some point that evening, I realized, I can have this. I make enough money that I could come here several times a year if I want to. I'm glad I went to Jackson Hole and experienced it for myself, but I'd rather go somewhere else -- somewhere that feels more like the West that I know and love. I'm not wired to love money.