While his son Liam’s ski team grabs some fresh powder on the slopes of Ajax, Mitch Mulhall takes an opportunity to pay homage to one of Aspen’s icons. “In the center of gondola square stands a bronze statue of a youthful-looking Friedl Pfeifer. My son leaned his skis on a rack not three feet from this statue this morning without so much as realizing it was there,” writes Mitch. “Arguably, every kid who has learned to ski in this valley should know about Friedl Pfeifer.” Presumably Liam got more than a ski lesson this day.
Many of us live our lives in a truely cyclical nature. Meaning that we do things based on what time of year it is. In some respects this is great because it gives us some variety and we don’t get sick of doing the same old things everyday. But, we also need to be careful as the weather starts to change here in the Valley. Soon it will be too cold to go up smuggler or ride to the bells in short sleeves. Yet, you won’t be able to hit the slopes or bust out the snowshoes, either.
Life in the blogosphere is not without its milestones. Here at Aspen Post, after little more than a year alive and online we passed a miraculous milestone in August 2007 when we crossed the threshold of 1,000 posts up and available, along with over 2,300 comments therein.
You could look it up, but in the annals of local blogging attention must be paid to this kind of output--with frequent passion, precision, and playfulness as the by-products. Keep in mind that when we threw the switch at Post Time Media Inc. we had no idea whether anyone would blog, or whether anyone would care. With 50 bloggers in the books, now we know they will and they do, and thereby hangs a tail.
Finding Flexibility - Is Likely the most neglected aspect of fitness, for most of us. We come into the gym and work out hard but generally leave very little time to stretch and increase our flexibility levels.
Only in Aspen would a lawyer and her client have a business meeting high atop Highland Bowl, and only in DROP DEAD BEAUTIFUL, the mystery starring Arnold Bagdikian as the former prosecutor turned client, would the Bag Man go down the mountain only to find those who would prefer to have him dead.
When Bagdikian awakes he becomes aware that his survival of the assassination attempt was anything but a given, and that as of now the billionaire O’Kells would just as soon kill him as look at him. Mike McGuff reminds him of his own stupidity even as he descends into a drug-induced oblivion. Bagdikian, alive by a thread, is as good as dead for the time being.
I’ve spent a lot of time over the past few days thinking of about Chris Bove. I did not know Chris. I first heard of Chris when I read of his death in the newspaper. Despite our lack of acquaintance, my thoughts have been with him.
I’ve thought about Chris’s last morning. What did he eat? Who did he speak with? What did he say? I’ve imagined his last chairlift ride. I’ve visualized him standing atop Big Burn, taking in the spectacular view before setting off on his final run. I’ve wondered what was he thinking about up there on top of the mountain. I imagined the exhilaration he felt as he made great, wide turns. I’ve seen his smile.
One of the many things that makes Aspen such a special place is that everyone who calls it home makes a choice to live here. You don't get transferred here with your job, move here to climb the corporate ladder or to get an advanced degree; you move here because it's Aspen and you don't want to be anywhere else. Chris didn't want to be anywhere else. He had the spirit and lived it every day.
Aspen, in the context of ESPN, is little more than a set for something that the latest chunk of visitors to define us for the world. Like it or not, what people see over the next set of days is what they will get when it comes to Aspen. Like retirees angling for an ogle of Jack Nicholson, the young and the nestless will have a chance to make Aspen their own.
Perhaps malleability is our most pungent trait. People who come to Aspen are slackers of the most obvious sort--a fashionista snapshot in time--and I'm not just talng about evergreen boys who keep their voices and their pants low. A man of means can do his own slacking in a Lacoste shirt: the whole lot of them are at a point in their lives where they don't have to worry so much what the world thinks--until they leave town.
But here's the rub. We provide the set but we let others provide the action.
In the year 2000, snowboarding was the fastest-growing sport in the US, with boarders numbering just over 7.2 million. This article was published by the National Strength and Conditioning Association in 2005.
