Halle’s Smooooth Words o’ Wisdom

I will be away starting tomorrow on a working vacation until April 9th to Battle Abbey near Golden, British Columbia. I say ‘working vacation’ because I won’t be on assignment officially. I do have a couple lukewarm story & photo commitments on the trip at this point fortunately.

Battle Abbey is a backcountry lodge located in the Battle Range, a sub-range of the Selkirks, roughly 30km as the crow or whirlybird flies, from Golden, B.C. Built by Canadian Hans Moser and American Bill Puttnam, the lodge is open for 5 weeklong backcountry ski trips a year.

A once in a lifetime opportunity to ski Battle Abbey presented itself in early March 2006 when my friend Dave Pettry phoned from Anchorage:

“Haaalleee! Howya doin’?” said Dave.
“Not bad. Just finished some dishes and am about to sit down and watch a flick with Michelle. And you?”
“What are you doin’ the first week of April?”
“Whadda ya got up your sleeve?”, I replied.
“A spot just opened up on a Battle Abbey trip.”

I nearly fell out of my chair. Battle Abbey needed no introduction; the name meant some of the best steep thigh power accessed backcountry powder skiing in the world. Battle Abbey was a trip to die for in my book.

A few years back while skiing in the Selkirk Mountains I posed the question to my friend and client Grania Devine, co-founder and owner of The Selkirk Lodge out of Revelstoke, B.C.: “Which other guided backcountry ski Lodge in the Selkirks would you recommend visiting?”
There was no delay in her reply, “Battle Abbey. In fact, if we make it to the top of Devine Peak tomorrow, we’ll be able to see the Battle Range.”
We summited Devine Peak the next day and to the northeast the Battle Range appeared looking like several Teton Ranges compressed in a large vise.

This is a portrait I made today for the Portland Oregonian newspaper:

If you would like to see a larger version click here.

Emilie Cartoun is a hospice care worker who manages bereavement groups and volunteers at a care facility in Sandy, Oregon.

What you never know is how editors will use pictures you deliver. I ftped the two files separately along with another that I didn’t post here to my editor Claudia Howell at The Oregonian. I made the dyptich because I wasn’t satisfied with either picture by itself. Newspaper portraits like this are tricky in that you don’t have a lot of time to get to know your subject.

A wrench in the spokes of global warming or a weather abnormality?
Skiing in Oregon is not supposed to be as good as it was yesterday.
“Hike ‘em up and look alive,” said the photographer to his friend
and ski model before the model’s second of seven yo yo runs.

As another friend, Grania Devine, says, “When the skiing’s good, go skiing.”

He was a skier apparently. This Christmas my parents gave Michelle and me a subscription to the quarterly publication Skiing Heritage. The March 2006 issue has a short backcover piece on Capote the skier which was adapted from a February 1981 Ski Magazine article by Richard Needham.

One of America’s most famous men of letters spent a lot of time in Verbier, Switzerland. Lucky bastard. The article states that it was in his Verbier chalet where Capote turned 6,000 pages of notes into the masterpiece In Cold Blood.

My two favorite quotes from the article follow:

“As for Utah, I find the skiing incredibly crude–it’s like a second-rate boys’ camp in the Adirondacks. All those Mormons running around in black clothes and black ties–it’s like Chanel without jewelry.”

He must not have liked powder. I wonder what he thought of Utah beer? Then again, I doubt Capote drank much beer.

“Skiing gives me a terrific sense of freedom–and I would define that freedom as not having to be around other people.”

Exactly.

Click here and have a listen to March Forth, a new Eric Haller song. It’s a work in progress and best played LOUD so I am told. Trust me. Your ears and brain will say, “thanks!”

Below is a screenshot of a photo of a painting by Rogelio Martinez of the aforementioned composer, lyricist and knob twiddler among other things: