A Wednesday at Arapahoe Lakes

Not because it's there, but, instead, to feel something

I’m sitting in my car at the East Portal trailhead, a few miles outside of Nederland. A steady wind is whipping up the snow into swirling clouds around me. My car, like a fortress under assault by Ullr, shakes in the gale. Its 6 degrees, but probably closer to -10 with wind chill. The sun hasn’t quite risen yet.

High and Dry by Radiohead is playing a little too loud so I can hear it over the heater, which is turned up a little too high to warm up my ski boots. I’m waiting for Billy to arrive; I haven’t had cell signal for 15 miles and we didn’t coordinate which channel to turn our radios to beforehand, so I’m just hoping I’m in the right place.

Four dilapidated cabins, almost covered in drifts of snow, keep their vigil over the parking lot. I imagine the ghosts of their former residents watching me. Torn, sun-bleached drapes flutter in the wind like flags through the broken glass of the windows. A gust of wind throws up another snow devil and temporarily obscures the cabins. Behind me, a railroad track descends into a foreboding tunnel: a reminder of modernity amongst the beginnings of wilderness.

A hint of headlights from down the road brings my attention back to preparation. As I’m messing with my ski bindings, putting them in uphill mode, Billy pulls up next to me and rolls down his window. “Wonderful conditions out here!” Billy says cheerfully.

We layer up, put on our boots, and check our avalanche beacons. Billy’s is dead, but after pilfering spare batteries from a headlamp and throwing the skins on our skis we are off. As we pass into the trees I look back to the parking lot; our lonely cars, kept company only by the cabins, are beginning to light up as the sun fights against the grey ceiling of clouds above us.

Entering the shelter of the trees is a blessing and a curse: the trees cut the wind, but, as usual, I began hiking wearing too many layers and begin to sweat without the cold wind as we break trail through the foot of new snow.

We skin up the mountain for a few hours. We talk some, but mostly Billy and I slowly and silently plod upwards. The squeaks of our ski bindings and the dull roar of the wind above the trees are all we hear in the unique silence of the fresh snow. Billy’s skins are new; they keep falling off and are eventually so glopped with snow that the glue won’t stick to the ski. We reach the treeline and transition our skis to go downhill. My binding is frozen and I have to pour tea onto it from my water bottle to melt the ice enough to engage the lock.

As I look out across the ridge, the clouds briefly break and I can see up to the rocky summit of an unnamed peak to the east. A blast of wind buffets me with fresh powder; I dump snow out of my goggles and put them on, ready to begin the descent back to the trailhead. It is 10:30am on a Wednesday.

“Why do we do this again?” I call out to Billy, standing the next knoll over.

“All this! Just to feel something!”