It’s June and You Have to Let Go…

Miles Clark |



These guys know the end is near. Old Palmer Chairlift, Mt. Hood, OR. image: tom vance
These guys know the end is near. Old Palmer Chairlift, Mt. Hood, OR. Credit: Tom Vance

It’s June. It’s June, and you’re reevaluating what engages your smile. The cold, the velocity, and the hard falls are gone now. For the first time since November, you aren’t sure where your skis/snowboards are.  In a few weeks from now, you’ll find them in your closet/garage/backyard. They’ll look at you with despise through rusty edges and frayed sidewalls.

You can’t imagine walking through the doors of a ski shop. The pain would be too great. So it’ll have to wait.

They look foreign and antique now like objects from a past era, useful only to underfunded explorers and dentists.

Squaw Valley. photo: Hank de Vre
What you’re missing.  Squaw Valley. Credit: Hank de Vre

You rummage through your soul to find the passions you once felt. You hope to replace that passion with another sport, another woman, another man, another place. Your hope slowly festers and rots as you realize you cannot replace it. Any substitute will be a temporary satisfaction as fleeting as ice cream on a hot day or aloe on a sunburn.

What you need is snow. Snow and cold. Snow and cold and mountains. Snow and cold and mountains and friends.

Where are those friends now? Hidden away. Suffering through summer as you are.

Squaw Valley. photo: Hank de Vre
Squaw Valley. Credit: Hank de Vre

You dream of South American or New Zealand or Australian winter. “Maybe I’ll save enough money to make it next year…”  As soon as the words leave your lips, you recognize them. You said them last year.

So you wait. You wait for the solstice and celebrate not that the longest day of the year has arrived, but that every day from that day on will get shorter. You long for the equinox when day becomes greater than night.

Squaw Valley. photo: Hank de Vre
Squaw Valley. Credit: Hank de Vre

Whilst everyone else brazenly breaststrokes in the scantily clad orgy of summer, you turn your head. It appeals to you on a primal level, but nothing more. You yearn for deeper satisfaction.

You yearn for the months that end in -ber (or brrr.) You long for friends with snowflakes on their shoulders.

It’s June. It’s June, and you have to let go…  for a while.

letting go...
Letting go… for a while.





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12 thoughts on “It’s June and You Have to Let Go…

  1. On the plus side, this is a great time to see that boot fitter you’ve been meaning to all season.

  2. Now we ride our bikes before and after we ski. Ride bike to snow line, go skiing, ride home. It seems to work…

      1. haha… thankfully you can just ride micki all summer down the truckee river. she’s a babe!

  3. I live in Seattle and make that road trip down to Mt. Hood in Oregon 3-4 times per summer. Combining the fun of summer time camping with skiing & scrambling. Awesome!

  4. Rocking it out in Abasin Colorado! Still open till end of June! Maybe in July I will let go 🙂

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