EDITORS’ MESSAGE

SWITCHIN’ TO GLIDE

Here at Mountain Life Rockies HQ, we relish the opportunity to gear down from the hectic pace of summer that had us waking at dawn to find campsites (Refresh! Refresh! Refresh!) and cramming every last bit of adventure into the too-few, long, sunny days.

Shoulder season hit different this year—as we write this, we’re still on our bikes and climbing in the Rockies deep into October. Weird, right? As much fun as it’s been, the lack of snow and warm temps also feel like a guilty pleasure. “We’ll take it!” we say sheepishly, knowing we are in part responsible for the shifting of seasonal timelines.

Now comes the season when the pressure’s off. The trees are bare. The rock is cold, and the snow is not yet piling up in amounts significant enough to ski. The howling wind that blows fall and then winter into our valleys heralds the impermanence of the seasons, of the natural world—heck, of our lives! Don’t get too comfortable they say: change is the only constant, after all.

This issue is all about catching that drift: from surfing a moonlit river to making a spiritual offering to Îyâmnathka, old limits and ways of thinking are disappearing like smoke and are being replaced with possibility and open heartedness. We may mourn the changing state of ice in these mountains, while also being grateful for the chance to explore and enjoy it in its full, awe-demanding glory. Let your work slide for a while and join us here where we’re cutting pow turns under the full moon with the gang in Lunaski and following Christina Lustenberger’s torn-up ponytail for a hell of a ride across the country.

As mountain people, we do our best to roll with it, the transient flow of people and seasons passing through our lives. We meet people for a reason, a season or (in the rare case) a lifetime, they say. Embrace the drift. Welcome it into your world this winter. Wake up, inhale and see where the day takes you. Witness the pace of life slow as moments float at you unaccounted for.

We’ll be out there grinning and bouncing around the unknown with you.