Skiing Silverton

It was 33 degrees in the camper this morning even with the catalytic heater on low. Our water pump is frozen and there is heavy frost on the inside windows as I write this. It was 5 below at the grocery store when Michael and Sasha walked up to return the video, Away From Her, an elegant if somewhat fanciful portrayal of Alzheimer’s dementia. My mentation probably isn’t improving with high elevation and propane overexposure. We have been seven months on the road now and it’s still an adventure. Right now I can see through a sliver of window that it is a bright blue day with a piercing sharp quality…another perfect day.


Yesterday we followed a snowshoe track eastward from the Silverton community owned ski and skate area. It took us through snow laden pine and alder along the flank of a mountain that we could never really see. Throughout the day we heard reverberating explosions as the Avalanche control folks detonated charges on the most dangerous slopes. We hoped to “get somewhere,” but then, you never really do. We ended up getting “cliffed out” and having to slide down a steep embankment through pillowy deep snow onto a flat littered with mining debris next to the head waters of the Animas (not Animus) River. (The Animas, “the river of lost souls,” is the only free flowing river that remains in Colorado.) We had to cross the shallow but fast waters over a snow bridge and Michael roped Sasha to him in case she fell through. (At times she would go into a hole and I’d just see the back of her head and her long nose sticking up through the snow.) Once we crossed the river we were home free to ski up an old road to a boarded up mining operation and a plowed road. There we got a ride on the tail gate of some ice climbers all the way back to the voyager, probably the most dangerous part of the long day.