YODEL )L(>Q%LKAFQFLKFKD2OLDOa�e;&B>p5MFO>I'AFQFLK Part One–Enter the Heat Dome X Words John Erben I WAS BORN in Portland, OR, but my SEA-TAC AIRPORT, JULY 7, 2021— 12:35 A.M. I am 64 years old, broke, uninsured and alive in the Superunknown. I am Gen Jones, and have identified as a snowboarder since 1989. I saw Mojo Nixon play at the Central Tavern in Seat-tle on my 30th birthday and started snow-boarding six months later. These facts are related, but not easily related. I have lived in Pacific Ocean states my entire life and I am a pacifist 98.6 percent of the time. I tell people I own a gun be-cause it has rights that I don’t, but mostly it’s because I always end up living around bears. I sequester carbon in my snow-boards because I care. Progression to me means switching leads with my dogs when breaking trail uphill splitboarding. I am not sponsored, a robot, almost famous or an influencer. I am too old to be relevant and too young to be Presi-dent. I’m two years away from Medicare in a scorched, Kardashified country where healthcare is just an expensive compound word. I just quit my job and left my home in Alaska. I’m moving to the Lower 48 to keep my mom out of a home and in her home. The income tax deduction for moving expenses got axed in 2018, so this one is on me. I’m tired and I’m sweating, I’m pissed and I want my dogs, I’m stuck at large bag-gage and I don’t want to take your survey. But what it all comes down to is that I’m a relic from another America, throwing dirt-clods at drones, phones and automo-biles. And I’m here to bear witness. This is not the future I wanted–that one had pow. That future ended a few hours back when I left Juneau after 29 years. I won’t be around for the next future, but maybe you will. The future is yours now and you can change it. I’m leaving some beta behind in case you decide to try. In 1972 I started high school and regis-tered for the Vietnam draft. I worshipped Deep Purple and my stereo weighed twice what I did. A lot has changed since, but one thing remains constant: Every year the global snowpack gets smaller. Since 1972 the global mean tempera-ture has risen by 4 degrees Fahrenheit. Land and ocean temperatures are at re-cord highs, making storms more intense, frequent and damaging. Antarctica, Greenland and most glaciers worldwide are melting, while coral-wasting dissolves the Great Barrier Reef. Winter itself seems to be dying. What in the name of Scotty Wittlake is going on? Didn’t anyone in Congress see Opti-mistic? In scientific terms, the world is go-ing down the tubes. But I intend to surf them tubes on my way out. For eight days now it’s been too hot for dogs to fly. The planes are fine, because dogs get the same chilled and filtered air as other passengers, even when they fly in cargo. It’s Sea-Tac Airport itself that’s been too hot. I finally got a dog-legal flight out tonight at 8:30. Twenty minutes out of Juneau in the endless summer twilight we watched northern Canada burn. From 35,000 feet the whole left-side of the plane could see wind-driven red snakes of fire advancing in fronts miles-long beyond the Stikine River, chased by a tall black wall of smoke. We leaned back in our seats and watched the show. I drank an Icy Bay beer, pulling my N95 mask up between gulps. New fires unfurled ahead for over an hour. We walked off the plane into a dark-ened airport, another day, another world. first memory of snow is from California. 1 My first snow-sliding experience was in-ner-tubing in the San Gabriel Mountains somewhere above LA with my dad in 1964. It was a 10-degree slope in a camp-ground with under 2 feet of snow, but it was almost free, and it was magic. Snow is transformative and its magic works across cultures, decades, even spe-cies. Snow worship is not a crime and playing in snow is worship in action. 2 Put more directly: Playing in Snow is Right, Not Playing in Snow is Wrong. Playing in snow is harder in this centu-ry. Our gear is better, but winter is shorter, snow shallower and access worse. The lift resorts have better snowmaking, but they can’t turn down the heat. The limit-ing factor in the backcountry used to be avalanche danger. Now it’s more likely to be bad parking or trails blocked by private property signs. Tom Petty once sang: “You don’t have to live like a refugee.” He later sang: “It’s time to move on.” But if you live to chase snow there’s a good chance you live like a refugee already. And we all got to move on. Snowboarders need to evolve, even if it means being android-wannabes on a Snowless Planet. Strength, swiftness, coor-dination and endurance still matter, but so do logistics, protective clothing, strategy, urethane wheels and maybe even AI. 1 We moved there so my dad could study at UCLA with Jim Morrison, Kareem Abdul-Jabar and 40,000 other students he didn’t hang with. Similarly, we lived 3 miles from Spahn Ranch and never met Charles Manson, although mom remembers the girls panhandling outside Ralph’s supermarket. 2 Unbelievers should check out “Snow Falls in Baghdad” by Agent X in Issue 6.3 of this title for a more definitive explanation. 100 THE SNOWBOARDER’S JOURNAL
The Snowboarder's Journal The Snowboarder's Journal 22.1: Page 100
