1/21/17 Devils Thumb CO and Preparations

Photo: The view in Montana last weekend

            This weekend marks my last race state side with the UW team. We are heading to Devils thumb Colorado for a point-to-point 15k race through the woods on a course I’ve never raced before. How fitting that these last few bittersweet moments meander though the woods on trails where I don’t quite know where the destination will lead me. We are making our final preparations for our travels to Kazakhstan this week and after that I will continue on without the team to my internship this spring in Germany with the UNEP working with the Convention of Conservation of Migratory Species. For the first time in 9 years, a ski team and training will no longer be the central structure of my life and the feelings of excitement, gratitude, overwhelming possibilities and a taste of fear wash over me with every conversation. 

             During our team dinner last evening, always a time full of inside jokes, giggles and new and old friends, Rachel reminded us that we have our family spanning many generations here. Not a family that could replace our incredible families of origins at home but a family that we can always return to in times of celebration, uncertainty, grief or joy. My mind wandered to all of the moments of growth and evolution that this team has helped me through over the years. The team and each of the individual that make up the parts of this body have enriched my life and taught me more than my undergraduate education ever could.

            Rachel and Christi have yet again defied expectations and norms and created an integrated class on skiing and climate change that spans the season’s travels with brilliant reflections on art, history, scientific and self-discovery. Student projects ranging from Ella’s on man made snow versus natural snow microbial diversity to Ben’s Queer poetic writings are well under way. I have chosen to follow my interests sparked by the SHIFT conference on conservation and recreation this fall. So I have created a project that will explore the discrepancies between our idealized and our actual environment in the context of ski tourist communities through a lens of environmental justice. I have started conducting interviews with people who work in ski resort areas about how their experiences working as maids, ski shop workers, and in various service jobs to learn about how living in a mountain town has impacted their relationship with the environment. In many cases, it seems like individuals who are integral to making ski industry work are most dependent on snow and their livelihoods are incredibly impacted by the increasing numbers of low snowpack years and variable weather associated with climate change in delicate mountain ecosystems. Yet again I am stunned with the realization that the populations who are most vulnerable already, even in a seemingly privileged context of a ski community, will be the most impacted by climate variability.  In Kazakhstan I will continue to interview locals to gain perspective about the issues they face.