Wholistic Fitness

at one of my precious Sacred Vortices of the Southwest:   Lobo Turnout on top of Wolf Creek Pass this afternoon.  after scoring the best Alpine hits over at the Wolf Creek Ski Area, about 75 minutes from my front door in Durango…i headed across Highway 160 to elevation: 10,857′ to polish off my legs and lungs up a nordic ski route which lies up, up, and above my right shoulder in this pic. who else opens up their first day of skiing doing both Alpine and Nordic?  well,  probably the creator of Wholistic Fitness™ since 1982…

i don’t care if it is October 8th! or August 18th or December 28th (God forbid)…if you REALLY think you’re gonna beat ilg to the first alpine and nordic tracks of the season?   then you dang well better have been doing my WF and HP Yoga training to get today’s hole shot on the hill and light up that first snow like dynamite baby…c’mon…check out my first tracks of the season in BOTH alpine and nordic skiing!  i had an absolutely Sacred time and after enjoying this photo essay?  you’re gonna be JONESIN’ to hit up our Precious Mother Earth/Father Sky in all Their benevolent snowy abundance!   today was INCREDIBLE to be ALIVE in the southwest San Juans…c’mon;  let’s SNOWPLAY!

He (or She) who hesitates?

well…no c(om)ment…ilg just prefers getting the Hole Shot in like, every fun thing on this AMAZING Plane(t)!

Wolf Creek Ski Area, which typically has the most snow in Colorado, lies just over an hour away from Durango and lies just east of one of my former h(om)etowns; Pagosa Springs, Colorado.   Father Sky saw to it recently to Bless my precious Wolf Creek Pass with nearly 40″ of fresh POW… making Wolf Creek Ski Area the FIRST SKI AREA in Colorado to open and marks Wolf Creek’s earliest opening date, uh…like, since…forever!!!

YEAH, BABY!   like ilg is gonna miss THIS miracle?  i TAF not..c’mon…

my first objective was this:  Alberta Face…the gem of the area…the great thing about being a WF yogi?  is that your first Ski Run of the year can be a Black Diamond and you don’t notice any difference whatsoever from (in my case) 5 1/2 months ago…can you say,  THANK YOU HP YOGA!!?!  here are three more shots from Alberta Face of the same spot:

which inevitably results in…

…a VERY happy ilg!

May ALL of you walk, ski, and breathe in Beauty…

oh wait,  there’s more, Warrior..MUCH more…check it:

after the Alberta Face got too tracked out and the Red Bull snowboarder obnoxiousness got too much for old man ilg (my threshold for such gorilla-esque antics, cussing, and rudeness upon my chi-ldhood hill is pretty low, admittedly…) then ilg defaulted to Escape Plan B:  ski the Trees!   snowboarders don’t dig trees too much…so, find ilg there, feeling his heartbeat brush against the spruce moss and combing my helmet with fir branches…ahhh….

now…when the snow grew from being soft, light, and fluffy…

and when Cloud Sisters rolled over Alberta Peak covering the mountain in dangerous, flat light?

it was time for ilg to hit the Warp Speed button, pull the fast one on the alpine area and get over to where the Real Reality,  distanced from from the Red Bull(sh*t)crowd, and where only Sister Bobcat and Coyote Brother and Elk Cousin hang…

you KNOW what ilg is talking about…

NORDIC BACK COUNTRY!!!!

Thus the workings still machinating in my Germanic Barbarianism cranium was as simple as ever:  how about after alpine skiing,  i go take my skate ski’s, slap some climbing skins on them, and ski my guts out uphill for like an hour to over 12,000′?

NICE!!!  GREAT IDEA, ILG!!!  C’mon!!!!

so, with a sip of some  Asea Sacred Water (if only the Red Bull(sh*t) crowd would Awaken to this far more effective, wholesome alternative to mind/body/spirit amperage!)…

a flick of my nose,

and a pair of the skinniest ever skis to ever bear witness to this uphill Pilgrimage trek which inspired at least two of my poems in Pagosa Speaks...i took off like a phantom into the high,cloud-hidden backcountry…

…as the Sacred Sweat began tickling my latissmus dorsi beneath my thermal jacket,   eons of backcountry epic memories came roaring back into my recall chambers like a blizzard of pure Awareness…as i looked up from my Mantra-engaged diagonal striding up the striking mountainside…i saw this growing monster in front of me…

and this…

..to my right…

looking east from the Continental Divide  (over which i am skiing upward) past Platoro, toward Del Norte and the San Luis Valley… choosing to focus on this view rather than the monster in front,  inner chuckles at just how BLESSED i am to be Here Now, this fit now, at this age,  to bring such Dewachenesque images to you from sweat-based Love for your Highest Efforts toward Wholeness…

…perhaps the most awesome stash of awesome light as Fairy Dust snow in all the world on October 8th, 2011…and ilg brings it straight to you…can you EVEN imagine the perma grin on my face skiing this!?!??!

Summit Shot…pretty much a sure bet that on this day of days;  no skate ski reached a higher altitude…growing older, yes, yet with age arrives discretion and a Higher sense of Balance…not just kinesthetic balance as i rocket down paltry ribbons of nordic tracks sizzled into the precious snows..i’m speaking here of personal/spiritual Balance and in writing those last few words,  a twinge of pain at the utter ridiculousness of having to place a slash mark between the words, ‘personal’ and ‘balance’…

as ilg skies up here in those old familiar heights newly and dearly adorned with velvet snows of a new winter becoming i think of all the pain my students, my friends, my family, my fans are moving through…and ilg as well and the only thought/feeling (oh, those slash marks!) which rings through across the ski scraped snow below is;

Get On With It…

Take the Full Selection of thy Karmic Workshop and Duties thereof in this incarnation because the out-patterned, archaic model of resistance really just doesn’t slide as poetically, as gracefully and this single-struck glide beneath my knee, tethered to my glute…

people talk this and that,

and all skiing (and the Outer World as well)  is going way, super high tech, and so arrogantly phat…

for ilg however?

the proper aspiration of the Pureland is to go nominal…cuz in the Bardo?

there ain’t no phatness and no Red Bull(sh*t) allowed…

charging down the mountain from the summit….down through the cloudy mists of that stubborn summit, ilg finds the nordic track again, tinkling like a Tibetan Tinksha in the now Hanuman winds…here, soaring like Raven Sister above a high bivouac tent,  my ski’s sneer at the difficulty and pass like Kleenex over the flour descent…

one of ilg’s treasured cached lines (can you see it?),

a line into which the crust of my samskaric monuments shall one day,

one lifetime,

(if God Bless It so)…

shall shatter each and every discursive thought within my rough-cut scalp and free me…

like this line in my Beloved San Juan snow country…

Thus,

ilg shall leave thee with this Snowperson smiling,

this conscious breath,

these super skinny skate skis from these Pureland Skies…

and place before you a life-jacket of what still remains serene and sane…connecting my UniVerse with Yours…

Om…Mani..

…Padme…

…Hung!

Get on with life…

as my Tibetan Teachers would say,

“The next breath, or the next life…we never know which will come next!”

The effort and intent of this Teaching is devoted lovingly to my Parents:

Mother Earth and Father Sky…

thank you, Precious Parents for the Gift of Early Season Snows!!!!

head bowed,

know nothing ilg