![]() ![]() I see journeys that creatively link polar opposites and, in doing so, enrich our appreciation, drawing us from entitlement to a can’t-take-it-for-granted attitude. I see snowboarders trading baggy pants for spandex shorts, knit beanies for sunbonnets. I see bicyclists pedaling across sizzling blacktop, panniers loaded with crampons and balaclavas, corniced ridges flashing in the distance. In this dynamic, this movement, I see the potential for a novel style of recreation: winter as destination, winter as goal. ![]() For the moment, the cold and snow and white remain with us, though they are indeed acting shifty, retreating to alpine redoubts, the protected heights. Experts claim the season is disappearing from the overcooked, climate-deranged West, and while that’s true, it’s not instantaneous. This image intrigues me, the image of a winter that doesn’t come knocking on your door but rather beckons from yonder horizon, demanding a pilgrimage of sorts. Above Palm Springs, for Christmas Babies willing to suffer and slog and sweat, a floating island of winter awaits. Alexander von Humboldt articulated his theory of altitudinal zonation in 1802: The higher you go, the colder it gets, i.e. And where there is relief, ah, there is relief. A vertiginous wall of cliffs and dust that soars from the bars and boutiques of downtown Palm Springs, the loftiest crags of the range appeared to have received.Ĭonsulting my computer, I learned that the Cactus to Clouds Trail (C2C) ascends 10,600 vertical feet over roughly 16 miles - from the floor of the Coachella Valley to the tip of San Jacinto Peak, just about the largest topographical relief in the Lower 48. Palm Springs threw an existential challenge on the table, a challenge that promptly leapt from the table and whupped my butt: Who are you without your beloved season, without snowshoes strapped to your boots and rime coating your mustache? Turns out I was a sad dude, a pathetic, sniveling, self-pitying Christmas Baby, not yet sure a different version of me even existed.ĭefeated, depressed, I stepped outside one bright February morning, cup of coffee in hand, dread of another day’s topaz swimming pools in mind, and gazed up at the San Jacinto Mountains. Instead of crystallized joy there was, ugh, air-conditioning.Īuthor Rebecca Solnit has written of “geographically contingent identities,” which is a fancy way of saying that we are required to become different versions of ourselves in different environments. Instead of blizzards, there was a parched arroyo abutting a waterpark clogged with shrieking (presumably urinating) kids. By late January, there was no denying that I missed my snowy winters. The Sonoran Desert is fascinating, intricate and alluring, and Palm Springs has certain charms too, among them tacos, birdwatching and tacos. ( You’re not winter!) Exploring BLM lands behind the Vons supermarket, I stumbled on pink and purple flowers in full bloom. Traversing a litter-strewn lot flanking I-10, I crouched to observe a creeping tarantula. I knew my passion for vast frosty silences and frigid storms was going to make it a tough go, but pretending otherwise, I set myself a schedule: long morning sessions at the laptop, long afternoon strolls through the weirdness of the place. You are so totally screwed.Īccess to a rent-free writing hideout - a deceased relative’s empty condo - lured me to SoCal. Driving into the Coachella Valley - into a sprawling expanse of thirsty brown dirt unlike anything I’d ever encountered - I heard a voice snickering in my ear: Welcome to your new digs, Christmas Baby. Odd, then, that a handful of years post-Pole, fresh off a two-week ski tour (numb toes, brittle tent, wonderful stuff), I pointed my car toward Palm Springs, California, intending to reside in that baking, sandblasted desert metropolis for a spell. It’s a kind of crystallized joy sparkling inside my heart. Winter, I realized at the bottom of the planet, is my modus operandi, my way of being. I am me, the Christmas Baby, and shoveling Antarctica’s drifts only reinforced my allegiance to all things shivery and severe. Your average sane person deems lumbar-busting labor in 70-below-zero temps undesirable, a major bummer - but I am not your average sane person. Heck, when I graduated from college, my first job was to wield a shovel at the South Pole. My childhood was devoted to sledding, my adolescence to climbing frozen backcountry waterfalls. 25, I traded a cozy womb for a markedly less cozy hospital bed and never looked back. Born just shy of the Canadian border on Dec. Winter - cold, snowy and blindingly white - has always been my season, my native home. ![]()
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