Bois from the North

1.19.24- Double post day. Just felt the need to continue to share, as I believe I’m having an exceptional day. Got to the Shaw Center prior to my appointment for the first time this week, and after some quick juggling by the receptionist, I’m taken back to my chair immediately. Don’t need a height and weight, just a quick set of vitals, marrow boosting injection and on the road to Vail. My nurse is quick. She is one of my favorites, a real seasoned professional. Boom. Sit at 9:47, back on the dry sidewalk in front of Shaw getting my boots on by 9:57. Efficiency at its finest. Really love the Shaw Center, especially the back of the house where I get treatment. They are consistently timely and are incredible at inter-communication. Actually I experienced this same high quality inter-communication with Nurses in 9-3 at Mayo. What I am discussing is the ability for these nurses to all seamlessly communicate with each other about patient’s needs. I hope that nobody reading this ever needs to go to a Cancer Treatment Facility, but believe me, it could be absolutely hectic. It seems hectic to an on-looker, but I’ve been in the game for some time now. I see the ways that these nurses put in orders with the pharmacy for drugs for specific patients and have other nurses help administer, or even take over when the dose arrives. These drugs are deadly. It is the basis of treatment to receive the correct drugs, so the base understanding from the nurses that they are playing God is essential.

My dawgy Diebs used to say he was playing God at Dana Farber when he worked with the Clown Fish. It made me laugh at the moment, but it has rang more true through my experience. He used to, to my understanding, be responsible for the well-being of the tanks as well as clown fish in an oncological research facility. Not sure how the fish are given cancer or beyond how Diebs cared for them, but it has recently made me shake my head more about his reference. In reality, the nurses are my God in this situation. They hold the power to cure me, or if done haphazardly, could cause mortality. The nurses that I have been blessed to have care for me have been beyond incredible. They are almost machine like. I think it is almost a pre-requisite to be almost machine like. They all show so much care and support, but at the mitochondria of themselves it’s machine. They see so much heartache; Continual heartache. As one patient exits the chairs overlooking the New York Range, another patient enters. These seats are almost perpetually changing. The heartbreaking, aching, bone-chilling truth is that not one of those patients is in that chair for the common cold. Each has a story. Many filled with hope and incredible milestones, but some filled with hard truths and long days, nights, mornings, days, weeks, months. Hopefully years. These nurses are dealing with the heaviest diagnosis’, heaviest drugs, and unfortunately, heaviest heartbreak. I would think it imperative to possess machine-like qualities being an Oncological Nurse. The Worlds of many rest heavily on your shoulders, and as many would crumble, EVERY nurse that I have been treated by has held this weight with courage and grace. My greatest praise goes to these nurses. I hope the needles end soon.

It's funny, I’m excited to get back to Vail. I’m back on i70 by 10:07a cruising East to get The Experience of a Lifetime. I fucking love Vail. There are few things that I get really consistently passionate about, but my absolute adoration of Vail is one of them. I saw a picture of a bumper sticker that said something like, “Vail is sick if you don’t turn”. It’s absolutely true and it’s the baddest motherfucking thing about this Cathedral. Vail is so mellow. There are almost no pitches on the scene that can not be handled by turn shape. Spoiler! Turn shape is the best, most fun way to control your speed when your shredding. No ripper wants to be hitting the brakes constantly and just crushing their lower half. It’s bullshit. I love a steep, deep pitch where your just absolutely outrunning sluff and making these turns that are actually making you. These situations are few and far between. Best ones I’ve gotten were hiked or helid. In resort I think it’s nice to have the wide but mellow pitches. It allows you to rip and enjoy it every day. It is always soft, the bumps and side hits are so sick, and there are endless trees with wide open patches just waiting to get slashed. I love when people talk trash on Vail. Real Ikon in the industry those people must be.

I get dressed, take a shit at the base and I’m riding the heated seats by 10:30a. I’m excited. I want to show my Vail to homie Heider and his buds. Funny how life works sometimes, and this is an absolute example of why you always need to be open to new opportunities and CATCH the signs that life is throwing you. Never say no without considering it. I’m riding up 1 and I text Heider to see if we can find a common place to link in this massive resort. I know he’s shredding already so obviously I want to give him some time to answer and I get distracted as I ascend up the line. Check quick at mid-vail but hasn’t been too long so I’ll give it a few more. I head to chair four as a single and do some snaky shit to get moving to the front. What seems like ten 6-person groups pass so no movement yet. Then a duo comes forward and the lift guide puts myself and two others with them. I make this absolutely weird sketchy move to get behind the shred duo and kind of run ionto the far skier. Normally it would absolutely blow up to be a problem at Vail, but this time it wasn’t. I apologized profusely to the skier cause I actually really did run right into him and his pole with my nose.

The shred duo, Beau and Colton, started chatting a little. Beau was the more direct inquiring about where I would go. I could tell these dudes were just absolute trench diggers and wanted to rip. After I gave this like long incoherent explanation of where I would rip on 10, Beau just flat out was like wanna just take us there and rip. I had to think about it for a half-second. I love Brian Heider, always been an absolute homie to me, but he’s got like 5 friends with him and getting toured around Vail by a friend. He’s good. It would’ve been nice to meet up but he’s got his friends and I know he’s having a fucking blast. His friends are awesome people and he’s awesome and I had to just make amends in my mind to say he’s good and I’m gonna turn up the volume with the Vancouver boys.

Take them immediately over to Northstar because I can tell these dudes wanna make fast arcing turns and hit soft side hits. My theory was right and it helped warm them up and get the excitement high. These dudes are fucking rippers and it just set the tone for a great fucking day. Not everyone jives. I’m very fortunate that these dudes let me to hang with them and include me in every chairlift conversation and I just felt naturally like I had known these dudes for years. We did a mellow tree lap on lower snag and book it right to hit side hits and chair 10. Kept moving and did a fast, pure, but soft groomer with big side hits back to 10. It was so sick to rip sidehits and converse with these dudes. Beau was kind of the tester on all the hits while myself and Colton took a little more of a scope approach.

I’m about ¾ tank when we get to 14 and the psyche is way high. I can’t leave yet. We go up to Dragon’s Teeth, and although it looks like we are meandering Beau steps to a no-look top roper on my right and Colton pops this just day dream half cab over a dusted rock. He jumps but his board seemingly just hovers over this snow covered rock and his true nose just tracks perfectly when he lands. These two are wild, but dialed. Canadians are a little more wild. We cruise out to Blue Sky and the bois wanna rip one under the chairs. IT’s a great call TBH. Not one I supported originally but all the pillow pop rocks have filled in and haven’t been riden. WE just popped and bopped and ripped our way down this park twice and I had to dip. The boys were fired up and thanked me for a few laps. That meant a lot to me, as it was parallel to my psyche and gratefulness. I just feel like the three of us were on the same page and that’s good for my mental and physical. It’s good to still be able to gauge social situations despite virtually being out of reality for almost a year. I’m proud to say that I brought the day I wanted to see and the duo met me at the peak. Thanks boys.