Hello and welcome to the land of burning thighs, early dark, and widespread, mounting excitement. It is truly beginning to feel like winter. My snowboard has taken up residence in the entryway, my skis just inside the living room door. Last night, during our weekly get together with our diverse group of friends, words like "ollie" and "couloir", "first descent" and "base camp" floated about the conversation like wayward snowflakes. We had a good time, and after several helpings of barley vegetable soup, my own dinner rolls, and mouthfuls of sheer ecstasy in the form of vegan German chocolate cake, Mel announced we would be having a ski conditioning circuit training session for those of us interested in sticking around for it.

I had no idea the level of intensity such an innocent sounding workout would require. Thirty minutes of jumping, squatting, push ups, crunches, all modified to wring the most agony out of quivering muscles, stopping, catching one's breath not allowed. I thought my legs could take it, after all, I have spent the summer powering up hills on my bike and sprinting up them in my new Chaco trail runners. Oh, I was so painfully wrong. My quads are screaming at me today, as are hams, glutes and muscles in the inner thigh I did not know existed. I am reminded that there is a reason skiers have legs like they do. To loosely quote a fitness mag I recently read, "(Athlete in question) would have had a hard time taking gold at the Winter Olympics had she not possessed trunks roughly the size of a Buick LeSabre's". Here in the high country, where it is suspected that Maslow's hierarchy of needs left out a major one- winter sports- the malnourished, anorexic standard of beauty our generation of softies expects women to look like does not apply. The legs of these women will never adorn fashion runways and glossy pages advertising lingerie or razors, but they will take them where they want to go- 14,000 feet and higher, 45 degrees and steeper, ultra marathons and beyond. Here, being told one has skinny legs is almost an insult.

As of last Thursday, we are missing a member of our Wednesday bunch. Roxy, the great pyrenees/german shepherd/who knows what else, with one perpetually cocked ear and frenzied wagging tail, became ill last week. Within two days she went from a puppyish six year old dog, beggar of belly rubs and ear scratches, to an unresponsive patient at a Denver animal hospital, to lying under a fresh mound of dirt in our friend's backyard. Tears have been just under the surface for the last week as her family and friends try to adjust to life without her. The downside to the dog culture here is the true grief felt when one must say goodbye to one's non-human family members.

As the evenings get longer and the workdays stretch past dark, I have begun a new art project. I begged an epic ski shot from a friend who has spent much more time in the back country than I, a photo of a snowboarder exploding out of the powder, over a rock outcropping, against the backdrop of a bluebird sky and a panorama of rocks and snow. I have access to more king sized sheets than I know what to do with, sheets no longer usable by our lodging company, and a quilting frame, and I keep going bigger when I paint, just because I can. I want to create a mural-sized painting based on the photo, without the disadvantage of a mural- the fact that it is stuck wherever I paint it. Bedsheets work well enough to paint on, not as well as canvas, but much cheaper. I sat up late last night, drawing the snowboarder two feet tall on a sheet of paper, to be perfected before being transferred to the "canvas". Now I need to get to Frisco to buy paint and big brushes. I am getting a little giddy about it, as I always do on the brink of a new project. This is the fun stage, when it is visualized and there is none of the logistical problems to work around, no screw ups to have to cover or modify, when I can see it as a masterpiece instead of it's mediocre reality.