Just before the snow started flying StokeLab contributor Austin Gibney penned a piece about making the best of a 'challenging' winter:
While climbing up Ruby Chute outside of Crested Butte, Colo. I thought about a lot of things. Some of the things that crossed my mind were: "It looks like November not January out here, this looks like shit to ride down, last time I rode this chute there was 25 more feet of snow in it..."
I also thought about a lesson I taught on the last Outward Bound course I lead two weeks ago. It was part of an Avalanche lesson, “The human Factor” of the avy triangle. I was explaining how out of all the factors that make up the triangle (weather, terrain, snowpack) The Human Factor is the only thing we have control over. I used this as a metaphor for things in life, how they don’t have control over where they grow-up, what race they are, the schools they go to, etc. However they do have control over their actions in situations.
This is a lesson all of us snow lovers need to think about this winter. We can’t control the weather, we can’t make it snow, and we can’t keep the temps below freezing. It would be easy to turn lazy and bitter while complaining about the snow conditions, but we don’t have to go that way. We can control our actions. I love to ride pow lines in the backcountry but this winter (so far) it's not really happening. So I have been finding other ways to keep the stoke high. I went skiing for the first time in a few years, it was so much fun. I found myself nervous at the top of runs I would typically straight line and so stoked when I made it down with a few poorly linked turns. I started riding the park again; learning new tricks and relearning ones I have not done lately. I took someone to the backcountry for there first time.
Climbing up Ruby Chute is something I have never done but with the snowpack as bad as it is, climbing up seemed like a more exciting thing to do then going to ride anything around. I would not have done any of these things if we were having a average winter; I would be off filming pow in the backcountry.
It made me think of a quote from the founder of Outward Bound and with the way our winter is going it might just help you out.
“Our disability is our opportunity” - Kurt Hahn
