Saddle Sore: The last dash down Summit
Tony Vagneur/Courtesy photo
Met a Woody Creek neighbor at the post office the other day, who very kindly said that she and her husband were enjoying the stories in my recently received book. That always gives my step a boost, and then she mentioned something that was on her mind.
Uh-oh.
“For years, my family lived in Basalt’s River Cove, and for years, we walked across Swinging Bridge to get across the Fryingpan, over to our business on Midland. Now, in our absence, our son is living in the house and walking across the bridge every day to get to his work in Basalt. How many times do you suppose someone from our family has walked across that bridge?”
Interesting concept, for which I have no idea as to the answer, but work on that, Peggy, you have piqued my curiosity.
However, our conversation reminded me of thoughts or discussions I’ve had about similar things in my life. Several years ago, a skier cornered me at Bonnie’s and asked if I was the guy who occasionally talked about the ski run Summit on Aspen Mountain.
“How may times do you think you’ve skied it?” he asked.
“Hell, I don’t know, maybe a thousand,” was my quick answer.
“Well,” he plainly said, “I have logged over 3,500 runs down that trail, so far. I document every run on a list when I get home at the end of the day.”
Can’t argue with precise, and he’s still not done.
One slow day working my ambassador gig at the top of the mountain, I started a contest to see who could get the most runs down Summit that day. My buddy Bob clocked in with 13. That was before he left early to get back to work. To the best of my knowledge, that is the unofficial record.
We do things every day, or with frequency, without really thinking about how many trips on a trail or road we do in the accumulative. But if we sit down and do a little figuring, the results can be much more amazing than we realize.
There were summers a few years ago, when I had the time, where I walked the Arbaney-Kittle Trail from Holland Hills up to the usual, popular stopping point, sometimes higher. Of that, I kept a record on Excel one year, noting that on many days, I hiked it twice. (That was after a car took my bicycle and me out on the road, and I decided that hiking was safer than biking.) Also, it was before I got back in the cattle business. Between March 18, 2005, and Nov. 17, 2005, the year I kept records, my gambols up that wonderful trail totaled 86.
My dog, Tux, a high-energy border collie who, when not getting work around cattle in the winter, requires daily walks to keep him from going crazy. We go around the neighborhood, twice-a-day usually, about 2.0 miles per lap. (Everyday, unless we hike behind my daughter’s house, which works out to about 4 miles total and is very steep.) Generally, from Dec. 1 through May 1, give or take a day here and there. Five months, approximately 150 days, times two. So, 300 hundred trips through the neighborhood at 2 miles each. It can’t be that many, it doesn’t seem, but there it is. That’s about 600 miles of hoofing it with my dog. Makes a stroll to Denver and back seem totally possible, with change left over for winter time curiosity to Sunlight and Powderhorn. Don’t forget the snowshoes. Tux doesn’t appear to be impressed.
If you’re like me, you count your steps hiking up the ridge along Highland Bowl. Until you get distracted and forget the count and start over. It doesn’t matter, just keep counting.
Now if you’re a little stressed by all this counting and adding, stressing your digits, we could put a change on it right here. Think about something you’ve done a lot, with consistency and consider when the last time was, or will be, the last time you will do/did that.
When I’m thinking like that, I always reminisce about my dad, after our homestead ranch had been sold, bringing the feed sled and large draft horses off our southwest mesa for the last time. Did he realize it was his last winter trip off that mesa, something he’d done so often he didn’t even need to think about it? He’d spent a majority of his winters, bringing that sled home after feeding, up until that point. Did he ever wish he could have it over? Did it ever occur to him? And no matter what, no matter how he felt or what he remembered or wished, there was nothing in the world he could do to recreate that moment in time.
Makes one wonder, when will this writer’s last dash down Summit occur?
Tony Vagneur writes here on Saturdays and welcomes your comments at ajv@sopris.net.
