Edwards – The shrill whistle outside my bedroom window begins to sound just before 8 a.m., sending the songbirds scattering shortly after their morning recital has begun. In its place, the screams and chants of female athletes cut through the still mountain air like the high- pitched whir of a low-flying plane.
The annual Vail Lacrosse Shootout is back in town this week, migrating like so many of us farther down the valley as it grows, with several of the women’s games played on the athletic fields falling in the foreground of my view of the fleetingly infamous “Kobe-llera” country club on the hillside to the west. As mountain town traditions go, it’s a decent one, a robust 35 years in the making.
I have a core group of friends who return to the largest club-lacrosse tournament in the nation, so I tend to cut the whistle-happy refs and shrieking girls some slack for the extra bump in my morning coffee. Still, with every stop-and-go, sprint-signaling squeak blowing through my window, I can’t escape the feeling I’m late for something.
There is no question that time moves faster with age, the acceleration multiplied exponentially by the number of items remaining on the “to do” list of life. But recent anecdotal evidence offered by some of Colorado’s most dedicated summer-lovers suggests that time quickens with elevation as well. My own data indicates that above 8,000 feet, July is the shortest month of the year.
Summer is more than a week old and the race to sustain the lifestyle that originally brought me and so many others to the high country of Colorado is well underway. The problem is, mountain summer is simply too short.
Checking the split time around Independence Day, it’s evidently impossible to cram a summer’s worth of activities into the allotted hours between sunrise and sunset, even during these longest days of the year. The whistles outside the window merely serve as a reminder, a hypnotist’s trigger capable of sending me into a frenzied rampage like Derek Zoolander after Frankie says “Relax.”
Relaxation is an afterthought in this race that can’t be won, perhaps a fleeting reward achieved after camp is made and dinner cooked somewhere high along the Sangre de Cristo range, all but forgotten, like an ice-cream truck before it rounds the bend. There’s no time for Kool-Aid breaks between snowfalls on the Sawatch Mountains. Watermelon will be in season longer than most mountain-bike rides in Summit County.
As the hands of the clock speed forward, clearly, sacrifices must be made in order to do the things that really matter in the mountains. That not only means waking up an hour or two earlier but also cutting back to one cup of coffee before hitting the trail. In order to maximize the remaining moments of summer, everything else must go, too. Clean laundry is a luxury, haircuts a hassle. Lunch is for losers. Lawn mowing is for the weak.
What has changed? Blame it on responsibility, if you like, but the reality is a simple shift in priorities, questionably for the worse.
That shift hasn’t infiltrated everyone’s psyche just yet, as evidenced at the recent FIBArk festival in Salida. For 59 years, the locals have recognized the race, even chasing down an early start to summer with their own brand of “Hooligan” racing, a fun-loving free-for-all perhaps better described as a parade of floats that actually float, most of the time.
As races go, it’s mostly ceremonial, far from Colorado’s more hardcore contests like the Leadville Trail 100, Ironhorse Challenge or Bolder Boulder. The significance lies in the fact that the participants are out there, often after building their boats, and sailing off into a summer sunset like they have nothing better to do. Because the reality is, they don’t.
Come to think of it, neither do I.
Staff writer Scott Willoughby can be reached at 303-954-1993 or swilloughby@denverpost.com.
