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Reflections on My Camino

March 1, 2017 •

pedestrian bridge to Bouziès

After 2+ weeks of walk­ing, leav­ing the Célé Val­ley

It’s Camino sea­son again, and it’s also long past time for me to write about my own expe­ri­ence along the Chemin de St. Jacques last year.

In 2016 (much like other pil­grims) I dis­cov­ered how liv­ing a slower and pared-down life, savored at walk­ing pace, can be a tran­for­ma­tive expe­ri­ence. It was such a pow­er­ful expe­ri­ence that it’s taken months to blog about it.

Last Sep­tem­ber I accom­pa­nied a friend on a 3-week trek along old pil­grim­age routes in south­west­ern France. We hiked a 150-mile seg­ment of the Via Podi­en­sis, a lit­tle-known set of trails in rural France (GR 65 and 651.)

We walked 10–15 miles a day, car­ry­ing just hik­ing poles, day­packs and the day’s sup­ply of water. We opted not to carry camp­ing gear or back­packs; instead we lux­u­ri­ated in a bag­gage ser­vice that shut­tled our duf­fels from one guest house to the next.

Was this pil­grim­age a truly life-chang­ing expe­ri­ence?
In many ways, yes…

Six months later I’m still think­ing through what I learned from this pil­grim­age, what the journey’s teach­ings sug­gest for the next phase of my life… Despite my joy in telling sto­ries or talk­ing about it, I’ve been unusu­ally chal­lenged in writ­ing down my reac­tions to this pro­found expe­ri­ence.

GR 651 sign­post in Bouz­iès

So what have I learned so far? Here are a few of my take-aways, listed in no par­tic­u­lar order:

  • Spend­ing lots of time and energy on a pro­fes­sional career has lost its attrac­tion.
  • Talk­ing with peo­ple, shar­ing expe­ri­ences — in per­son and face to face — is pow­er­fully com­pelling. Why have I allowed social media alter­na­tives to dis­tract me from those basic truths?
  • Long walks, in rain or shine, need to remain a reg­u­lar fea­ture of my life — if not daily, at least many miles walked through­out the week.
  • Suf­fer­ing and dis­com­fort are unavoid­able, but can be accepted and tran­scended. They do not need to be all-con­sum­ing.
  • I do not need so many things to be happy.

Walk­ing offers a life­long path to hap­pi­ness and well­be­ing — and as my sis­ter says, may help me stay “younger each year.”

Walk­ing 35 miles or more each week has become a won­der­ful com­ple­ment to my on-going yoga prac­tice. Walk­ing offers many med­i­ta­tive qual­i­ties, but it’s also eas­ier to share with my hus­band and friends than a yoga prac­tice.

Going Off the Beaten Track in France

July 23, 2016 •

cahors_pont_valentreIf your heart is set on a pil­grim­age or walk­ing tour in France, and you don’t want to pay a com­mer­cial tour­ing com­pany, where can you look for help with travel plan­ning? It’s not always as easy as you might think.

Hun­dreds of thou­sands of peo­ple will hike the month-long trail across Spain’s Camino de San­ti­ago this year. Mean­while, only one-tenth as many pil­grims will tra­verse the French trails that lead to the SJPDP trail­head for the Camino Francés (from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port at the base of Pyre­nees and then across north­ern Spain.)

FB group for le Chemin du Puy

FB group for le Chemin du Puy

Because the audi­ence for French pil­grim­ages is 90% smaller, it takes skills and com­mit­ment to find rel­e­vant and timely resources to pre­pare for those walk­ing tours. The best guides have been writ­ten en français, and require at least inter­me­di­ate read­ing and com­pre­hen­sion skills in French, sup­ple­mented by Google Trans­late and other inter­ac­tive trans­la­tion dic­tio­nar­ies.

Scarce resources for niche travelers

The French trail sys­tem for camino pil­grims is off the beaten track, far from the larger or well-known cities.

In these out-of-the-way loca­tions, ser­vices are pro­vided by fam­ily-scale or very small busi­ness enter­prises, located in ham­lets with few other options. The travel sea­son is short, May to Sep­tem­ber. Change is a con­stant, given how hard it is to earn a liv­ing at such a highly sea­sonal busi­ness, with fund­ing com­ing from such a small pop­u­la­tion of tourists and vis­i­tors (many of whom are on very tight bud­gets.) As a result inns, cham­bres d’hôtes, gîtes and bistros that appeared to be thriv­ing last year may no longer be in busi­ness this year…

For peo­ple who want the com­fort of room reser­va­tions before arriv­ing in France, advance plan­ning is essen­tial. Luck­ily, my hik­ing buddy has done this before, knows the con­straints of the Chemin du Puy, and thus made sure to book room reser­va­tions months in advance. She also knew where to look for help.

Spe­cial­ized Face­book groups offer help­ful, some­times per­son­al­ized and up-to-the-minute resources for aspir­ing pèlerins — a god­send for Eng­lish speak­ers. For exam­ple, I’ve joined the FB group devoted to the Via Podi­en­sis (the Way of St. James that begins in Le Puy). Group mem­bers (past, present and future pil­grims) share pho­tos, pack­ing lists, rec­om­men­da­tions (or places to avoid), prayers and so on. On any given day there’s a lively Q-and-A con­ver­sa­tion tak­ing place.

Some mem­bers pub­lish links to their blogs and travel mem­oirs. A few ded­i­cated vol­un­teers share detailed work­sheets with tips and links to lodg­ings, cafes, bistros, phar­ma­cies and other essen­tial resources for pil­grims.

These online travel resources are invalu­able for French pil­grim­ages, due to the fast-chang­ing nature of les héberge­ments.

When Facebook is not enough

I spend almost an hour most days keep­ing up with my FB groups’ lat­est updates, but now I want less “ran­dom” point­ers…  With just six weeks before fly­ing to France, I make time to work through a hand­ful of books/guides, and prac­tice my rusty French.

Here’s what’s on my active book­shelf right now:

  • From Here, You Can’t See Paris: Sea­sons of a French Vil­lage and Its Restau­rant, by Michael S. Sanders, © 2002
  • Miam Miam Dodo: Saint Jacques de Com­postelle, Le Puy-en-Velay / Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (GR 65), 2016 edi­tion
  • TopoGu­ides: Sen­tier vers Saint-Jacques-de-Com­postelle via Le Puy (GR 65, 651, 652)
  • Chemins de Com­postelle: Le Puy-en-Velay —> Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (Miche­lin Guide), largely focused on maps
  • Advanced French, Hugo edi­tion, DK pub­lish­ing, © 2009
  • South­west France: Dor­dogne, Lot, Bor­deaux (Cado­gan Guide), © 1998

These are not books you’re likely to find on the shelf of the typ­i­cal book­seller. Even Ama​zon​.com may take a few weeks to deliver some of the French guides. Half the books on my list were sourced from over­seas book­sellers so I had to wait 2–4 weeks for their deliv­ery. If you want sim­i­lar books on your shelf, it pays to plan ahead…

Life in a tiny French vil­lage
Spe­cial­ized resource lists

Great topo maps
Good for ele­va­tion plan­ning

French lan­guage prac­tice
Big pic­ture overviews

Bon chemin à vous!

100-Day Milestones Toward the Camino

May 27, 2016 •

In 100 days I’ll begin a 3-week pil­grim­age, hik­ing cen­turies-old trails in south­west­ern France. I started train­ing for this jour­ney in Feb­ru­ary, test­ing boots and equip­ment, and embark­ing on some nec­es­sary con­di­tion­ing.

At the halfway point for prepa­ra­tions, I note con­sid­er­able progress made, as well as unex­pected con­se­quences:

  • 10+ pounds lost since Feb­ru­ary
  • Feet stronger, but a half size larger

Los­ing weight was not an explicit goal, but it’s a pleas­ing out­come… Except for the fact that my pants no longer fit, and much of my wardrobe is now too baggy.

The First 100 Days

Woodland trails near Seattle help with conditioning for the trek

Wood­land trails near Seat­tle help with con­di­tion­ing for the trek

I’ve been train­ing with a hik­ing buddy in the Cas­cade foothills. We walk together 4–5 times a week, solo oth­er­wise.

We’ve pro­gressed to hik­ing 8 miles with ease, with 10 or so pounds in our day­packs. We pre­fer hilly wood­land trails, and will tackle some moun­tains later this sum­mer.

Fit­Bit reports that we’ve already hiked hun­dreds of miles in the Cas­cade foothills.

The North­west foothills offer a good train­ing ground. The ter­rain is var­ied, often muddy, with fre­quent ascents or descents — sim­i­lar to what I’ll encounter in France. I’ll have to look fur­ther afield to find analogs to France’s lime­stone cliffs and loose scree.

45 Days on Cape Cod

Now I’m vis­it­ing Cape Cod until we return to Seat­tle in early July. Con­di­tion­ing here requires cross-train­ing to com­pen­sate for flat­ter and less chal­leng­ing ter­rain. So bik­ing, kayak­ing and yoga get added to the mix.

Feasting on ocean views while training for the Camino

Enjoy­ing ocean views while train­ing for the Camino

Get­ting back on my yoga mat will help rebuild core and upper body strength — which have declined dur­ing the intense 100-day focus on hik­ing the North­west trails. Bik­ing will help with car­dio. Kayak­ing with upper body strength and bal­ance.

Sur­pris­ingly, I find myself miss­ing the North­west: the cooler misty weather, the softer wood­land trails, the ver­dant hill­sides and for­est glades. Here on Cape Cod I face uneven paved roads, heat and humid­ity, and tick-infested wood­lands that dis­cour­age off-road walk­ing. For­tu­nately it’s easy to find unpaved roads in the vil­lage where we’re stay­ing, so not all my train­ing will be pound­ing on pave­ment.…

My walks are often blessed with ocean or bay views and con­stant bird­song, but there’s a chal­lenge to walk­ing solo. Mostly men­tal…

Staying disciplined, despite distractions

Stay­ing dis­ci­plined, despite dis­trac­tions

Sus­tain­ing the dis­ci­pline of daily train­ing walks is harder than expected when stay­ing in a vaca­tion spot with­out a hik­ing buddy. There are mul­ti­ple dis­trac­tions, like overnight guests, and con­ve­nient excuses to avoid walk­ing, like heavy down­pours or time con­flicts. I have to drag myself away from inter­est­ing con­ver­sa­tions to find time to walk for two hours.

Walk­ing solo, the miles pass more slowly beneath my feet. Rain is more of a has­sle. I’m eas­ily annoyed by bit­ing flies or the heat that rises from the asphalt roads. I miss the wood­land trails, the for­giv­ing feel of packed dirt or organic mate­r­ial beneath my boots.

It rains harder here. Yes­ter­day I expe­ri­enced the down­side of breath­able sneak­ers: it takes them no time at all to get water­logged dur­ing heavy rains. So today I learned how to dehy­drate sneak­ers in a low oven when they didn’t dry enough overnight…

On a pos­i­tive note we’ve launched our kayaks and have already pad­dled for a cou­ple of hours in windy con­di­tions, so arm/shoulder con­di­tion­ing is well under­way. I’ve also returned to my yoga prac­tice, through classes and at-home asanas, so the cross-train­ing has become real­ity rather than an abstract con­cept…

And it’s a good thing, too.

Every time I read the blog posts from pil­grims now trekking the Célé Vari­ant of the Via Podi­en­sis, my com­mit­ment to con­di­tion­ing gets rein­forced. This will not be “a walk in the park” next Sep­tem­ber…

On the Path to Our Camino

April 12, 2016 •

Chemin du Puy - Cele Variant

A path along the Chemin du Puy

Sev­eral of my most recent posts have dis­cussed my intent to walk a seg­ment of the Via Podi­en­sis. The Via Podi­en­sis (or le Chemin du Puy) refers to a net­work of trails that lead from cen­tral France toward the start­ing point for the Camino de San­ti­ago.

I’ve been very busy since that post, with work and what’s required to pre­pare for a 3-week walk in France. A trek like this requires a lot of phys­i­cal and men­tal prepa­ra­tion, as well as logis­tics…

Sep­a­rately and together, Jane and I have got­ten a lot done in the past 6 weeks.

Progress Made

We’ve booked our flights, which in my case, required decid­ing where my jump­ing-off point would be, Seat­tle or Boston. Deci­sion: Boston. It short­ens the travel time, and cuts 33% of the time zone dif­fer­ence between our homes on the West Coast and cen­tral France. Mak­ing that deci­sion required nego­ti­at­ing fam­ily vaca­tion plans…

We’ve booked rooms in Toulouse, to recover from jet lag before tak­ing the train to Figeac, and pre­pare for our home­ward flights 21 days later.

Our itinerary in France

Our itin­er­ary in France

We’ve planned the route, selected the cham­bres d’hôtes (tiny inns), cho­sen rooms (when pos­si­ble), and wired deposits to hold our reser­va­tions. If you want to stay in some­what more upscale lodg­ings than the dor­mi­to­ries pre­ferred by many pil­grims, there are often very few choices within easy walk­ing dis­tance of the chemin.

Now we’re cross­ing our fin­gers that hand­shake agree­ments with the hote­liers will be remem­bered when we arrive on their doorstep each night, hot, sweaty and exhausted…

Plan­ning the route was a labor of love on Jane’s part. Explor­ing options required a lot of con­ver­sa­tion, online and library research, and out­reach to for­mer pil­grims who’ve trav­eled this Way before. For­tu­nately, we now belong to sev­eral Face­book groups devoted to pil­grims focused on spe­cific treks along the Way. That makes it eas­ier to get our ques­tions answered, with mul­ti­ple view­points in some cases…

Because we both rel­ish la belle cui­sine française, opti­miz­ing where we’d be and when was an impor­tant fac­tor for us.

To devise the opti­mal route Jane jug­gled with mul­ti­ple fac­tors: aver­age daily dis­tance, dif­fi­culty of the ter­rain, access to mod­er­ately priced lodg­ings, avail­abil­ity of din­ners (at local restau­rants or pro­vided by the innkeep­ers), etc. Opti­miz­ing venues and week­days is an impor­tant con­sid­er­a­tion for rural France.

Arriv­ing (or not) on spe­cific week­days is a prac­ti­cal con­sid­er­a­tion when vis­it­ing rural areas or vil­lages with lim­ited options or sites to visit. Plus, to avoid going hun­gry, pil­grims should avoid arriv­ing in a vil­lage on a day when all the bistros or restau­rants are closed! Unless they’re stay­ing in a place that offers a table d’hôte.

Nuanced travel plan­ning like this is one of Jane’s joys in life, sec­ond only to the joy she expe­ri­ences when mak­ing one of those jour­neys. I’m lucky she’s plan­ning this for both our sakes.

Next Post: updates on hik­ing boots and travel gear…

Training for the Trek Begins

February 17, 2016 •

Woodland trail in Pioneer Park

Wood­land trail in Pio­neer Park — train­ing begins

Last month I wrote about plans to walk a 150-mile stretch of Le Chemin du Puy, a French pil­grim­age trail, later this year. It won’t be an ardu­ous jour­ney, but each day’s trek will entail 10–15 miles of walk­ing across some­what hilly ter­rain in south cen­tral France. It takes train­ing.

I’ve now begun train­ing for the trek, cau­tiously, after sev­eral weeks’ delay for med­ical con­sul­ta­tion about a lin­ger­ing knee injury. Thanks to pro­fes­sional treat­ment, heal­ing is now under­way, and a knee brace will be deliv­ered soon.

I’ve bought some Mer­rell hik­ing shoes that are well suited to our hik­ing con­di­tions, as long as it’s not rain­ing hard. My early impres­sions sug­gest they’ll be adept at han­dling a mix of walk­ing con­di­tions, includ­ing rough ter­rain along the ancient pil­grim­age trails in France. So far they’ve been very com­fort­able, with just the right amount of sup­port on steep trails. They grip well and keep me from falling on my face in the muddy sec­tions.

The woods are very muddy

The woods are very muddy

Sun breaks have enticed me out­side for the past 2 morn­ings, with just enough time to enjoy 3-mile walks on nearby for­est trails. We’ve had twice as much rain as usual for the past 4 months, so the trails are very muddy.

One of the nearby parks includes a ravine; the trail sys­tem fea­tures a steep climb down the ravine to a fast-run­ning stream and then back up again. Hik­ing in this sec­tion of Pio­neer Park can be aer­o­bic, espe­cially if you go fast (which I’m not ready to do), or repeat some of the trails to increase the total num­ber of miles walked.

Oddly enough, I’ve tended to ignore this park, but am now find­ing it offers a lovely place to start the train­ing régime to get strong and fit for the trek in France. Best of all, it’s only a quar­ter mile from my front door.

Train­ing has begun, but fre­quent knee twinges are remind­ing me not to overdo these early walks; not to get attached too soon to achiev­ing spe­cific, quan­tifi­able dis­tance goals. Start­ing is the essen­tial thing.

Everything is green and lush

Every­thing is green and lush

Right now this is a prac­tice of mind­ful­ness, pay­ing atten­tion to how my knee is per­form­ing; remind­ing myself to slow down, lis­ten to the birds, smell the ver­dant wood­land, and enjoy the priv­i­lege of walk­ing dur­ing the late morn­ings in mid-Feb­ru­ary.

It’s time to heal, feast on the beauty, rel­ish out­door exer­cise, and begin a multi-month jour­ney of prepa­ra­tion.

Every Journey Begins with the First Step

January 22, 2016 •

cahors_pont_valentre

Le Pont de Valen­tré, a vista along the Chemin du Puy, or Via Podi­en­sis, an ancient pil­grim­age route

My friend Jane is plan­ning another self-guided walk­ing tour in south­west­ern France, and wants me to join her on a two-week trek along the Chemin du Puy-en-Velay, a branch of the Camino San­ti­ago (or the Way of St. James). This has been a beloved pil­grim­age route for more than a thou­sand years.

Jane hiked the Chemin du Puy for two weeks last fall, and plans to walk a com­pa­ra­ble 150-mile seg­ment this Sep­tem­ber, con­tin­u­ing in the foot­steps of long ago pil­grims.

Undertaking this Journey

Should I join her on the trek this year? Can I? And if not, why not?

It’s a big under­tak­ing, both phys­i­cally and finan­cially.

For­tu­nately, we’ve both trav­eled in France before, includ­ing self-guided tours off the beaten track, so we’re not intim­i­dated by the travel logis­tics of get­ting to our start­ing point.

And then there are the cul­tural aspects of prepar­ing for the jour­ney. To truly appre­ci­ate these out-of-the-way places means brush­ing up on French lan­guage skills, reac­quaint­ing myself with high­lights of France’s medieval art and his­tory, and the sto­ried his­tory of the region we’d be vis­it­ing.

The over­all jour­ney, as it unfolds, is more reward­ing than any spe­cific des­ti­na­tion, so under­tak­ing this tour with some appre­ci­a­tion of its his­tory and cul­tural con­text is by far the best way to savor its delights.

The jour­ney is costly. Even with a 2-week self-guided walk­ing tour (one that doesn’t require us to com­pen­sate pro­fes­sional guides or a tour­ing com­pany), the price tag is higher than a month’s mort­gage for many peo­ple.

These hiking boots will need to become my new best friends

Hik­ing boots will need to become my new best friends

Train­ing for the long walk will require a sig­nif­i­cant time com­mit­ment, hun­dreds of hours of aer­o­bic exer­cise between now and then.

Despite being a reg­u­lar walker, one who can do 10,000 steps on a rou­tine basis, prepar­ing for this trek will require me to dou­ble or triple my usual walk­ing reg­i­men.

Regain­ing my French speak­ing and com­pre­hen­sion skills will require another big time com­mit­ment. Hun­dreds of hours again.

But these are things I love to do, and exer­cis­ing these skills will lead to indi­rect ben­e­fits and last­ing value in their own right, such as improved health and well being.

The Journey Is the Reward

My yoga prac­tice sug­gests set­ting an inten­tion for this under­tak­ing. So what should the theme be?

At Apple, I first learned that the jour­ney is the reward. For lots of rea­sons, that will be my theme for this walk­ing tour — the jour­ney of the trek itself, and the multi-month jour­ney to get ready for it.

I look for­ward to the indi­rect con­se­quences of prepar­ing for the jour­ney: a stronger and health­ier body, a nim­bler mind, thanks to the men­tal stim­u­la­tion of relearn­ing French, and a qui­eter mind, thanks to the med­i­ta­tive aspects of the jour­ney­ing.

The Training Régime

We’ll be hik­ing 10–18 miles each day, across some rugged or hilly ter­rain, so the trek requires a level of phys­i­cal fit­ness and sta­mina that is well beyond my cur­rent capa­bil­i­ties.

Before start­ing a seri­ous train­ing régime, I’ll need to recover from a knee injury. That said, with a dis­ci­plined effort, there’s plenty of time to build up the nec­es­sary strength and sta­mina for those chal­leng­ing day hikes between now and Sep­tem­ber.

Jane rec­om­mends at least 2–3 months of dis­ci­plined train­ing before we leave for France. That means a long walk every day, plus one or two hikes up hilly ter­rain every week­end. Those long hikes should tar­get ≥5–8 miles total dis­tance, includ­ing ele­va­tion gains.

Rain or shine. Given Seattle’s typ­i­cal rainy weather between now and early July, that’s no small com­mit­ment…

Parlez-vous français?

We’ll be pass­ing through small ham­lets, stay­ing in tiny inns or guest rooms out in the coun­try — places that lack sophis­ti­cated tourist ser­vices or large num­bers of Eng­lish speak­ers. We’ll need to be self-suf­fi­cient en français.

Because we will make the book­ings and man­age the walk­ing tour on our own, with­out any pro­fes­sional guides, French lan­guage pro­fi­ciency will be every bit as help­ful as our walk­ing sticks.

After pok­ing around at online resources about le Chemin du Puy, it’s clear that I will need to brush up on my French just to make sense of what those web­sites and blogs have to offer.

Today’s First Steps

So here’s what I’ve done today, in tak­ing the first steps on this jour­ney:

  • Ordered some French-lan­guage learn­ing resources
  • Ordered a Miche­lin guide for GR65, le Chemin de Com­postelle
  • Browsed a few pages of a 15-year-old travel guide for south­west­ern France, and read about a few of the places we might visit
  • Ordered some sum­mer-weight hik­ing shoes, with enough sup­port for long day hikes, but with­out the extra weight of my trusty hik­ing boots
  • Had a long con­ver­sa­tion with Jane, to agree on start­ing prin­ci­ples, expec­ta­tions and val­ues — and some early con­cepts for a plan
  • Began a tour of online resources to learn what’s in store
  • Went out for an hour’s walk, up some hills, about 7000 steps total — and am happy to report it did not harm my knee
  • Joined a closed Face­book group of past and future walk­ers whose feet have trod­den the Chemin du Puy

May the jour­ney begin.

The Quest for New XC Skis

January 6, 2016 •

Conditions worsened after we crossed 2 mountain passes

We drove through a snow­storm for 6 hours and crossed 2 moun­tain passes before arriv­ing in Methow Val­ley.

We went cross-coun­try ski­ing in north cen­tral Wash­ing­ton over the Christ­mas hol­i­days. It was a wel­come respite from the Seat­tle rain, and the depress­ing news of the final months of 2015.

We bat­tled dri­ving snow, white-out con­di­tions, ice, and unplowed roads for most of the long drive to Methow Val­ley.

Get­ting there took over 6 hours of white-knuck­led dri­ving, often at 35 MPH or less. Dri­ving through the snow­storm was worth it, because we had the prospect of per­fect con­di­tions for our ski get­away in Methow Val­ley.

Arrival: Methow Valley

Powdery snow in Big Valley

We were lucky enough to ski on pow­dery snow in Big Val­ley.

We arrived in time for a glass of wine, and the sun­set alpen­glow over the snow­capped Cas­cades — the snow was tinged with a mil­lion shades of pink, salmon and gold.

We were look­ing for­ward to the prospect of ski­ing on freshly fallen pow­der snow and lots of sun­shine for the next 4–5 days.

The Methow Val­ley is justly famous for cross-coun­try ski­ing, thanks to 120 miles of groomed trails. It offers a wide choice of ter­rains and con­di­tions to prac­tice cross-coun­try ski­ing.

While there, we hoped to brush up on our rusty clas­sic XC tour­ing skills, learned years ago in the snowy mead­ows and wood­lands of Ver­mont and New Hamp­shire.

Shop for New Skis

But first: we had to equip our­selves for cross-coun­try ski­ing, and ensure our gear could with­stand Methow’s below zero tem­per­a­tures. We had thrown out my 20-year-old skis dur­ing last summer’s declut­ter­ing, so my XC boots would work only if we could buy skis with match­ing 3-pin bind­ings… And until we started shop­ping, we were unaware of how obso­lete that bind­ing sys­tem had become.

My hus­band gave me a poem for Christ­mas, in the form of a promise to take me shop­ping so we could replace my XC skis and boots, if need be.

We knew that Winthrop was home to sev­eral ski out­fit­ters, an ideal place to shop and try out dif­fer­ent options for Nordic ski­ing. Local friends advised us to shop at Winthrop Moun­tain Sports and the ski shop at Sun Moun­tain Lodge.

Although we tried sev­eral places, we ulti­mately focused on Winthrop Moun­tain Sports — a wise deci­sion. They offer a wider selec­tion of XC brands and choices, and co-owner Rita promised we’d be delighted with our even­tual choices. (She was right.)

That said, we were shop­ping between Christ­mas and New Year’s Eve, at the height of Methow’s win­ter sea­son, and inven­to­ries were deplet­ing fast…

Dis­cov­ery #1: our 3-pin bind­ings were obso­lete, so we could no longer match skis and boots unless we shopped online for used gear, and took our chances on fit and qual­ity… So we faced the need to buy a com­plete set of skis and boots.

Dis­cov­ery #2: we’d have to adjust our tech­nique to the new advances in ski engi­neer­ing.

Fischer XC Control My Style boots

Fis­cher XC Con­trol My Style boots

Day 1: Choose the Right Boots

Deci­sion #1: which style do you pre­fer, skate ski­ing or clas­sic? Answer: clas­sic, AKA Nordic or cross coun­try. (We had to update our vocab­u­lary from “cross coun­try” to “clas­sic.”)

Deci­sion #2: which boots?

Deci­sion #3: which skis?

As expe­ri­enced (albeit out-of-prac­tice) skiers, we know that every­thing starts with the boots. Which boots you choose will deter­mine your over­all com­fort level — and con­strain your options when it comes to select­ing skis and bind­ings.

The right boots offer sup­port where you need it, fit com­fort­ably, and pro­vide enough room in the toe box so your feet stay warm despite bit­ter cold con­di­tions.

After try­ing a half dozen boots, I found a great pair of XC boots from Fis­cher. Sadly, they’re a half size too big, but Fischer’s boots only come in whole met­ric sizes. My new boots strike a good bal­ance between com­fort and sta­bil­ity, a big improve­ment over my prior boots.

For­tu­nately, the siz­ing prob­lem is solved by wear­ing thick hik­ing socks and tight­en­ing the laces every 30 min­utes or so. The side ben­e­fit of wear­ing overly big boots is that your toes aren’t cramped, so it’s eas­ier for your feet to stay warm. That was a a huge ben­e­fit last week, when ski­ing in below zero con­di­tions! My ski com­pan­ions were less com­fort­able.

Reset Expectations

New skis for the Methow Valley

New skis for the Methow Val­ley

We grew up ski­ing on clas­sic XC skis (Bonna 2000’s), flex­i­ble wooden skis that need a fresh coat­ing of pine tar at least once a sea­son, plus scrap­ing and fresh wax­ing for every out­ing. When you know how, and which wax com­bi­na­tions to apply given the con­di­tions, noth­ing beats freshly waxed skis.

My hus­band broke his Bon­nas years ago; mine are in a closet in New Eng­land.

Remem­ber­ing what it was like to ski on Bon­nas in Ver­mont defined our expec­ta­tions for the best that XC ski­ing could offer. An impos­si­ble stan­dard of excel­lence; it was clear we’d need to com­pro­mise when shop­ping in Methow Val­ley.

The sales rep pro­moted Salomon’s “skis with skins” as the best alter­na­tive for peo­ple who want fast skis with lots of kick. She then steered us away once I’d cho­sen a dif­fer­ent brand for my boots, due to incom­pat­i­ble bind­ing sys­tems.

We dis­cov­ered that there is less stan­dard­iza­tion in ski bind­ing tech­nolo­gies than there used to be. Today’s ski brands pur­sue lock-in strate­gies — design­ing pro­pri­etary sys­tems of boots and styles matched to spe­cific ski bind­ings, so con­sumers end up with fewer choices across brands. There are some nor­ma­tive bind­ing stan­dards, but the real­ity for con­sumers is one of incom­pat­i­bil­ity across the major brands.

Net net: If you buy Fis­cher boots, you buy Fis­cher skis; the same goes for Salomon.

Days 1–4: Find Skis to Match the Boots

Hav­ing cho­sen Fis­cher boots, I spent the next 3 days exper­i­ment­ing with dif­fer­ent mod­els of Fis­cher skis, try­ing to find the right bal­ance between kick and glide. It took a lot more work than I’d expected.

My first choice, a mid-level Fis­cher Crown at 197cm, proved to be all glide, no kick — I flew like a bat out of hell, but only thanks to con­tin­u­ous momen­tum, great bal­ance and skill­ful weight trans­fers. The skis were so fast that I kept run­ning over the backs of my husband’s skis — a novel expe­ri­ence for both of us.

When­ever I tried to put a kick into my stride, the skis would slip out from under me. Strid­ing was an exer­cise in con­stant slip­ping. It took a com­i­cally exag­ger­ated move­ment for me to get any trac­tion under the foot. Climb­ing hills was out-of-the-ques­tion. Over­all I found those skis exhil­a­rat­ing, but exhaust­ing.

But I wasn’t quite ready to give up on them…

Match Skis to Your Ski Style and Ability

Before rul­ing out those fast skis, we decided to take a refresher ski les­son the fol­low­ing day. We the­o­rized that my lack of kick might be caused by an XC tech­nique that wasn’t matched to today’s no-wax tech­nolo­gies, so we signed up for a semi-pri­vate ski les­son at Sun Moun­tain Lodge. We told the instruc­tor what we hoped to learn, and the deci­sion we were try­ing to make about the skis.

Bruce waits for me to tighten my laces

Bruce waits for me to tighten my laces

That ski les­son was very instruc­tive, a valu­able refresher on the­ory and tech­nique. We learned how to adjust our style and stance, given the tech­ni­cal advances in ski engi­neer­ing since the days of our early model no-wax skis.

Our instruc­tor prompted us to lean for­ward more aggres­sively — as if we were falling for­ward or ski­ing into gale-force winds; to hunch our shoul­ders, and assume “the ath­letic posi­tion.” He coached us on weight and bal­ance trans­fers while keep­ing the for­ward knee bent. We both improved very quickly.

As a yoga prac­ti­tioner, I was amused by the dif­fer­ences between XC’s ver­sion of the “ath­letic posi­tion” and the basic pos­ture for yoga — quite dif­fer­ent when it comes to posi­tion­ing the upper torso, col­lar­bones and shoul­der rota­tion.

The ski les­son revealed that I was indeed equipped with the wrong skis. The instruc­tor hinted that Fis­cher skis are tricky to fit, but delight­ful once you find the right pair… We talked about “skins” ver­sus “fish scales” — the buzz among seri­ous XC skiers seems to be in favor of skins.

After our les­son we rushed down the moun­tain to reach Winthrop Moun­tain Sports before clos­ing time. As hoped, we swapped out the fast all-glide skis for a model that promised to offer bet­ter trac­tion under the foot. Given my choice of the Fis­cher boots (and inven­tory short­ages at the shop), I was advised to switch to a shorter and more flex­i­ble ski (5 CM shorter, a less advanced model). Skins were not on offer.

Day 3: Out we went into the bit­ter cold, equipped with shorter skis for a long after­noon of ski­ing. I got plenty of kick, but sadly, no glide… My skis kept stick­ing to the snow, in sun­shine and shade.

Despite my exces­sive trac­tion on Day 3, we skied for sev­eral hours, rel­ish­ing the per­fect snow con­di­tions. It was loads of fun, but not a wise deci­sion because those skis proved to be even less well matched to my skill level than my orig­i­nal choice. (Per­haps I was too expe­ri­enced for them.)

At one point I fell face for­ward while ski­ing down a very small hill because my body was mov­ing faster than the skis — a humil­i­at­ing reminder of the need to find the right bal­ance between kick and glide.

After ski­ing for sev­eral hours, mak­ing exag­ger­ated moves in a des­per­ate quest for some glide, I ended up over-tax­ing my knees and injur­ing the soft tis­sue.

At day’s end we limped into the shop to swap out those dis­ap­point­ing skis. Rita, the shop owner, promised to pre­pare two more mod­els for me to try the fol­low­ing morn­ing. She was pretty con­fi­dent that one of them would be just right. She pro­posed I try the top-of-the-line recre­ational XC model from Fis­cher, and Fischer’s entry-level rac­ing model (con­firm­ing my sus­pi­cion that I’d been fight­ing with begin­ner level skis).

Ice-covered needles on a bitter cold morning

Ice-cov­ered nee­dles on a bit­ter cold morn­ing

Day 4: We hit the trails early that morn­ing with both sets of skis. It was twelve below zero over break­fast, and about six below when we arrived at Big Val­ley. Pru­dent skiers might have waited until after­noon for warmer con­di­tions, but we couldn’t wait to try the new skis…

At Last, the Right Skis

I stepped into the high-per­for­mance Fis­cher tour­ing skis, got off to a fast start on freshly groomed trails, and it was love at first sight.

I also tried the rac­ing skis, but it took only 50 yards to reveal that the high-per­for­mance tour­ing skis were a bet­ter fit for my style and abil­ity than the rac­ers. The rac­ing skis went back into the Prius, ready to return to the shop.

After 4 days of shop­ping, I even­tu­ally chose to buy Fischer’s Super­lite Crown model. (The sad irony is that my hus­band has been ski­ing this model for the past 5 years or more — if only we had started here for me!)

Know­ing that we’d finally found the right skis, I stepped back into the Super­lites and we went out for a 90-minute cruise. Given the cold, there was hardly any­one else ski­ing Big Val­ley. Hur­ray! New skis and fab­u­lous con­di­tions for ski tour­ing, even bet­ter once the sun warmed the val­ley to a balmy nine degrees.

The sad irony: my knees were shot from three prior days of try­ing out skis that didn’t fit. Despite a lovely cruise in per­fect con­di­tions, my injured knees pre­vented me from fully enjoy­ing my new skis on our last day in Winthrop.

Once my knees recover, I look for­ward to future out­ings on these brand new skis — in the Methow Val­ley or closer venues in the Cas­cades like Hyack.

In the mean­time I’m grate­ful to my hus­band for such a gen­er­ous Christ­mas gift. We’re both grate­ful to the owner of Winthrop Moun­tain Sports, for work­ing so care­fully to ensure we found just the right skis and boots for me.

Skis and Boots for Bruce?

And as a final irony: my hus­band went ski­ing with friends on our last after­noon in Winthrop, and may now be fac­ing a shop­ping trip to replace his fail­ing equip­ment.

The tem­per­a­tures were so cold that the glue on his ski boots failed. As a result the soles, with their inte­gral 3-pin bind­ings, sep­a­rated from the boots. He’s going to try to glue boots and soles back together, but if that fails, we’re fac­ing another shop­ping trip.

He has 3-pin bind­ings on his Super­lite Crown skis, and may not be able to keep his beloved skis unless he can find some­one will­ing to install more mod­ern bind­ings on them. We’ll see what hap­pens…

Grieving for Paris

November 16, 2015 •

Like so many oth­ers in the West­ern world, I spent this past week­end griev­ing for the tragic events in Paris. I was struck by the out­pour­ing of sym­pa­thy from peo­ple around the world.

It Feels Personal

Like oth­ers who have vis­ited or lived in Paris, my heart was sad­dened by the bomb­ings and shoot­ings that rav­aged the City of Light. I grieve for the hun­dreds of wounded or trau­ma­tized peo­ple who were present at a venue tar­geted by the ISIS bombers. I regret the deaths.

On a per­sonal note I grieve for the for­eign exchange stu­dents who spent Fri­day night in one of the cafes and bars that were on the ter­ror­ists’ hit list. Like them, I too was once an exchange stu­dent in Paris.


Was the mas­sive out­pour­ing of grief this week­end trig­gered by mem­o­ries of 9/11?

Do we grieve because so many peo­ple we know have vis­ited Paris at least once in their lives — thanks to its being one of the most heav­ily vis­ited cities any­where?

Paris occu­pies a spe­cial place in our hearts. Unlike places in the Mid­dle East whose cities we can’t even name…

Do we fear, self-ref­er­ently, that this could so eas­ily have hap­pened to me?

Should we drop Paris vis­its from our bucket list?

And Yet, And Yet

A thought­ful friend posted a reminder on Face­book, point­ing out that things are so much worse, every­day, in war-torn places like Syria, Iraq or Afghanistan. 129 peo­ple died in Paris on Fri­day. Mean­while, more than 210,000 peo­ple have died in Syria over the past 4 years; more than half civil­ians — inno­cent bystanders like the peo­ple in Paris on Fri­day.

Where is the mas­sive out­pour­ing of sym­pa­thy or help for peo­ple who suf­fer in Syria or other war-torn Islamic coun­tries?

Are we less empa­thetic because so few of us have trav­eled to the Mid­dle East or North Africa? Because we are unlikely to have read books or watched movies that would give us insights into what it’s like to live there? We don’t read or write Ara­bic. Their music sounds odd to us.

We may all, in some fash­ion, have a com­mon his­tory as Peo­ple of the Book — but we haven’t read each other’s Book (Bible vs. Koran).

Do we demo­nize each other because we feel, some­how, that they are too rad­i­cally dif­fer­ent from us? Why are fear and hatred our only prac­ticed responses? Why is it always US ver­sus THEM, instead of WE?

We need to break the end­less cycle of vio­lence that’s grounded in mutual igno­rance and antipa­thy. That means we need edu­ca­tion, empa­thy and insights to help us under­stand the peo­ples, cul­tures and griev­ances that fuel the sav­age energy that ISIS exploits. We need jointly to uncover alter­na­tives to the Islamic State’s reliance on war­fare and ter­ror­ism as its only (appar­ent) means of bring­ing about change.

There­fore our edu­ca­tional, reli­gious and civic insti­tu­tions need to devise a dif­fer­ent and more nuanced strat­egy, one that has a pos­si­bil­ity of dif­fer­ent and bet­ter out­comes. At the national level we need to rethink bud­get­ing pri­or­i­ties.

The Costs of the Status Quo Are Too High

I’m no diplo­mat or politi­cian, so I fear we are on the verge of another cen­tury of war­fare between Judeo-Chris­tians and mil­i­tant Islamic peo­ple. I worry that the cycle of vio­lence will con­tinue until Amer­i­cans and Euro­peans develop more empa­thy and a deeper under­stand­ing of the prob­lems that plague every­day peo­ple who live in the Islamic world. Sadly, we need to under­stand each other before we can learn to tol­er­ate each other.

We’re all blinded by igno­rance today, so it’s all too easy to be manip­u­lated or ter­ror­ized by war­mon­ger­ing politi­cians or hate-fueled big­ots. Col­lec­tively, we do not put enough time, energy or money into the painful work of devel­op­ing more last­ing solu­tions. We invest in short-term human­i­tar­ian band-aids (as in, tex­ting $10 to the Red Cross), but not in long-term sys­temic solu­tions.

For most Amer­i­cans it’s hard to under­stand what it’s like to grow up in a place where the major­ity of peo­ple live in poverty, illit­er­ate or poorly edu­cated, taught only lies about so-called infi­dels: Jews, Chris­tians and West­ern civ­i­liza­tion (“tools of Satan.”) It’s hard for us to visu­al­ize places where young peo­ple grow up hun­gry, angry, over­whelmed with bur­dens, lack­ing dreams or real­is­tic hopes for life-sus­tain­ing jobs.

Given those strait­ened cir­cum­stances it’s easy for ISIS zealots to recruit young men for sui­ci­dal mis­sions against peo­ple they view as god­less or worse. If you have no pos­i­tive rea­son to go on liv­ing, why not get your­self on the fast track to Par­adise, as promised by the ISIS jihadists?

West­ern gov­ern­ments’ easy-to-exe­cute responses, of lash­ing back at ter­ror­ists with mis­sile strikes and armed war­fare, is unlikely to break the cycle of vio­lence in any last­ing way. Just look at the impacts of Bush’s war on Iraq or Afghanistan as poster chil­dren for the endur­ing con­se­quences of mil­i­tary-only inter­ven­tions. What makes us think that this time there will be a dif­fer­ent out­come?

This hor­rific feed­back loop will con­tinue as long as peo­ple drawn to ISIS can envi­sion no bet­ter path than ter­ror­ist actions that result in a fast ticket (or so they believe) to mar­tyr­dom in Par­adise.

I urge our edu­ca­tors, civic lead­ers, and gov­ern­ments to seek out a dif­fer­ent path, devis­ing long-term plans and strate­gies that enable our dif­fer­ing worlds to resolve our dif­fer­ences in more last­ing ways.

Until we do so, our over reliance on “wag­ing war against ter­ror­ism,” will do noth­ing but keep us all mired in a bloody and end­less cycle of war­fare and ter­ror­ism.

In the mean­time I’m cry­ing for the peo­ple who lost lives or limbs in Paris…

Rainy Day Musings

June 15, 2015 •

Cotuit Marsh 6-14-15Before the rain arrived, our pre-dawn morn­ing began abruptly with a noisy debate between wild turkeys and a neighbor’s dog. Not our typ­i­cal morn­ing ser­e­nade on a late spring day in Cape Cod!

We’ve begun to see turkeys graz­ing in our salt marsh. It’s a healthy and well-flushed habi­tat, a favored fish­ing ground for herons and osprey look­ing for small fish or crabs.

As seen through my grandfather’s vin­tage binoc­u­lars, wild turkeys are really quite ugly, espe­cially when com­pared to herons or egrets. They are begin­ning to over­run this sea­side vil­lage. Turkeys are also becom­ing a haz­ard to dri­vers when the toms decide it’s time to escort their large and slow-mov­ing harems across a busy road.

When annoyed by the turkeys, I remind myself of their impor­tance to the early Pil­grims who set­tled Cape Cod and nearby Mass­a­chu­setts towns. And of course, their domes­ti­cated cousins grace our table each Thanks­giv­ing!

Baltimore_OrioleDespite the turkeys, bird watch­ing this spring has been quite col­or­ful and diverse. While walk­ing or kayak­ing, we’ve seen:

  • Ospreys fish­ing or feed­ing their babies
  • Oys­ter catch­ers
  • Wil­lets
  • Great blue herons
  • Great white herons
  • Green herons
  • Snowy egrets
  • Bal­ti­more ori­oles (shown here)
  • Car­di­nals
  • Goldfinches
  • Swans
  • Wild turkeys

And of course, the nearly ubiq­ui­tous robins, chick­adees, gulls, terns, crows, spar­rows, mal­lards, Canada geese, mourn­ing doves.

We’ve heard but not seen the owls that hunt in the nearby nature pre­serve, a 100-acre con­ser­va­tion area that includes wood­lands, salt marsh and a brack­ish river fed by Pop­pones­set Bay.

Sum­mer sea­son has not yet begun, so the birds still dom­i­nate the local waters. They share the bay with kayaks, jet skis and boaters mostly on the week­ends, although that will soon change.

By then we’ll have returned to Wash­ing­ton, but will miss the seabirds and song­birds we so love here on Cape Cod.

The Worms in Paradise

May 4, 2015 •

papaya-mango-fruit-plate

To-die-for papaya and mango fruit plates

Over din­ner with friends last night we shared sto­ries and pho­tos from our recent vaca­tion in Sayulita, Mex­ico. We enthused about the heir­loom qual­ity fruits and veg­eta­bles, the ultra-fresh fish, the intense choco­late desserts, the mel­low cof­fee beans, the sun­set views over the Pacific ocean.

We raved about the amaz­ing place we’d rented on AirBnB, our gra­cious host, his friendly staff.

We talked about the fun we’d had, tool­ing around town in an under-pow­ered golf cart, shop­ping at tiny stores, exer­cis­ing our lim­ited Span­ish, chuck­ling at the surfer dudes parad­ing through town after a day on the water. That said, we were less enthu­si­as­tic about the local wine…

We down­played our three encoun­ters with scor­pi­ons, old news to friends who’ve lived in hot weather cli­mates.

Perfect fruit smoothie in Sayulita

Per­fect fruit smoothie in Sayulita

Ripe avocados every day

Ripe avo­ca­dos every day

We talked about the aston­ish­ing bird watch­ing, the nearby trails through old growth for­est with 300-year-old stran­gler figs — the won­ders we’d seen dur­ing an 8-mile hike through sev­eral river­ine ecosys­tems.

Mean­while, our friends couldn’t stop talk­ing about the drug car­tel vio­lence that had bro­ken out in Jalisco state, a few hun­dred miles south/southeast of our vaca­tion spot. They were so wor­ried about the drug wars they could hardly focus on our sto­ries.

Sim­i­larly, my fam­ily had asked why we were head­ing to such a dan­ger­ous spot — not know­ing how near or far we’d be from Guadala­jara and the hot spots for Jalisco drug vio­lence.

After­wards we assured friends and fam­ily that we had felt per­fectly safe and wel­comed the entire time we were in Mex­ico. We had expe­ri­enced mul­ti­ple inter­ac­tions with warm, friendly peo­ple who went out of their way to ensure we enjoyed our stay. Quite a con­trast to other places where we’ve vaca­tioned in the past…

We took pre­cau­tions, of course. We stayed in vil­lage loca­tions, did not ven­ture into Puerto Val­larta or risk rent­ing a car. We asked long-time expat res­i­dents about drug car­tel pres­ence in Sayulita, and were told the locals were work­ing hard to keep out the big­ger gangs. (Who knows if that’s true.)

And yes, for years we had avoided vis­it­ing Mex­ico out of con­cerns about police cor­rup­tion, increas­ing drug car­tel vio­lence, fear of the unknown. In my case two recent trips to Mex­ico to par­tic­i­pate in yoga retreats had alle­vi­ated my fears.

As a result I was will­ing to step up to the chal­lenge of a self-guided tour, despite lim­ited Span­ish, in order to intro­duce my hus­band to some of the best that Mex­ico has to offer.

Will we return? Prob­a­bly, but the closer the drug vio­lence gets to Sayulita, the less likely we’ll go back. For the sake of the hard-work­ing farm­ers and small busi­ness­peo­ple in Mex­ico, we sin­cerely hope there’s a peace­ful solu­tion to these strug­gles soon.

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Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to care for a beloved can­cer patient.

About Me

Caregiver. Hiker, yoga practitioner, foodie. Avid reader. Former Apple marketing exec and computer industry pioneer. Adapting to life on Cape Cod after 30+ years on the West Coast.

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