Tag Archives: ski patrol

Staying the Course

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To my fellow Angel Fire Patrollers:

As your Health and Wellness Officer, I would like to share with you some thoughts and ideas on how to help navigate these challenging times of COVID-19.

1. Online Yoga: As you know, our community center yoga with MB has been canceled. Keep in mind that there are tremendous amounts of yoga classes that can be found online, such as on YouTube. Here is a 45 minute intermediate flow session that is my go-to. I like the ocean in the background, and the occasional bird that flies by. I find this class very calming and relaxing, while still providing adequate intensity and challenge: https://youtu.be/TWSo_Z4j3N4

2. Area Beautification: This is a simple thing that can be done just outside your door, and is a good excuse to get out and walk a bit. Consider going outside with a garbage bag and picking up cans and debris and litter that may have sheltered beneath the snow all winter but has since been exposed. It may not seem like much, but the positive feelings associated with beautifying your neighborhood, yard, stretch of road, etc, can go a long way to maintaining a positive mood and attitude. Remember JCs heroic efforts on Upper Domingo? While he was cleaning up the lift line, endorphins were flowing.

3. Gardening/Yard maintenance: This doesn’t have to be involved. It can be as simple as pulling a few weeds, getting rid of brush piles that have accumulated, or planting some flowers. Anything to get you outside and take a break from any “cabin fever” that may be developing.

3. Heart Monitor/GPS: For years I have relied on orienteering skills to navigate the my woods and wilderness areas. Recently I have become interested in being better able to better monitor my activity on the trail via a heart monitor. Having used it now for several outings, I find it indispensable. Combining the heart monitor with a GPS makes wilderness travel safer. It is now possible to plan a route on the computer, transfer the data to the watch, and then have all that information and guidance at your fingertips. It is also fun to record the location of terrain features you come across, such as possible bivouac sites, rock formations, water crossings, etc. That way you can return to them anytime. In these times of COVID, anything we can do to make our outdoor recreation safer is a good call, and a GPS watch/heart monitor is a clear advantage. Once marketed for $400 or more, models can now be had for half that or less. I recently picked up a heavily discounted Suunto Ambit3 Peak with heart monitor, and after using it for a week, I am blown away by all the functionality it possesses, and consider it worth every penny. It even provides a recommended amount of “recovery time” in hours after you get back from your hike or walk or activity, etc.

4. Wilderness Outings: We are all practicing good snow-cial distancing, as far as I can tell. What this means to me is no carpooling, no lingering at trailheads, and keeping group activity to three or fewer individuals (four at the most). I have also been avoiding crowded trailheads, or going very early in the morning to avoid any bottlenecking in the parking lots or on the trails. Yes, we must practice responsible distancing. Yes, we must exercise due caution in wilderness areas. But outings to the wilderness are an essential part of my routine to ensure mental and physical well-being. I am able to access the woodline out my back door with a short walk through my neighbor’s yard, so with reasonable adaptations, I continue with wilderness excursions on a regular basis. The only thing I would add is that I think we should avoid any significant travel to distant trailheads. For instance, areas in Colorado I would not think twice about visiting in past years are now off the radar. I think somewhere around 50 miles should be our upper limit. Stay local and low-key as much as possible

5. Hummingbird feeder: This is a small thing you can do that can be a source of additional good feelings. I noticed my first hummingbird of the season on April 7. It returned again yesterday. I suspect it won’t be long before I have a crowd gathering. The little guys are continuing to make their way up north as we speak.

6. Surf and ski videos: Watching some videos can be a nice way to relax and cultivate some good vibes in the face of all the anxiety associated with this pandemic. Jamie O’Brien is a surfing legend who has been surfing Pipeline for roughly 30 years since the age of 7. His refined sense and feel for the waves and the ocean are truly extraordinary. “I definitely consider myself a spiritual person because I talk to the ocean and I talk to my surroundings. I start telling it, ‘Hey, I’m committed to you, I live here, I love you. I just want to…just serve me that wave and I’ll do my best to please you’.” He is responsible for putting out weekly video blogs on YouTube that are always high-action, exuberant, and feature amazing waves and beautiful ocean scenes. For my part, I find videos and images of the ocean very calming and soothing at this time. Here is a good video introduction to @whoisjob and the impact he has had in the surfing world: https://youtu.be/fxz-6seHm3w

5. Stay Connected: Continue reaching out to your friends and family, other patrol members, etc. This is not just for us, but for them as well. I am now able to video chat with my sons a couple times a week. It isn’t the best arrangement, but it is for sure better than nothing. My sons are both out of school and facing challenges of their own with the significant disruption of their routine. The increased amount of social distancing and challenges that we are all facing can weaken our resiliency, attitude, motivation, etc. My cell signal can be intermittent based on the weather, with texting unreliable at times, but you can always reach me via email at telemonsurfs@gmail.com. Additionally, with the extended periods of time that many of us are spending indoors, we are spending a lot of “screen time.” Probably too much. I would suggest trying to limit your “screen time” where possible. The news of the day can be disheartening, so limiting your exposure to negative news can be helpful to cultivating and maintaining a positive attitude. (And let’s face it, any activity outdoors beats sitting on your phone!)

6. Alright! That’s it for now! I am going to have some lentils and rice for lunch, my go-to protein source, and get out there and pick up some trash on the highway!!

Stay healthy, and stay psyched! We’ll be back out on the mountain in no time!

Alex ‘Telemón’ Limkin

Angel Fire Ski Patrol

Health and Wellness Officer

Drop Knees Not Bombs

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Drop Knees Not Bombs

On a day off, I stoke a fire, brew coffee, and sit down on a chair fashioned from split kindling. Ranger, a shaggy-haired buddy who lives down the road, comes by for a scratch and to piss on my snow tires. I gave him a ham bone on Christmas Day, which he has been unable to forget. So now I am a fixture on his neighborhood rounds.

Which is fine by me.

My involvement in a war I consider unjust, illegal and immoral has been costly. As an infantry captain serving under Colonel Ted Westhusing, whose tragic death is surrounded by controversy, I had my moral compass shattered.

Four years after returning home, plagued with guilt, reckless and out of control, I struck a tree, and shattered my body.

I could easily have become a statistic on January 31, 2009, and died from a fractured pelvis, sternum, tib/fib, and lower vertebrae. Yet one more unremarkable veteran casualty. But somehow I lived. I lived in part thanks to the mountains that I began climbing a year later, following an arduous period of recovery confined to a bed, then graduating to a wheelchair, then to a walker, then to crutches, and finally regaining the ability to walk half a year after my hospitalization. The following winter, I started going to the rodeo grounds in Santa Fe and participating in a therapeutic riding program run by Gus Jolley. This program, known as Listening Horse, as well as my friendship with Gus, a veteran of the Vietnam War, has been an additional source of strength and support over the years.

In 2011, a puppy came into my life, Abigail Benally, born into a pack of seven on the windswept steppes near Shiprock. She became my spirit partner, going everywhere with me. In 2014, after I obtained a Wilderness First Responder certification at the Outward Bound basecamp near Leadville, we began ski patrolling together. My gear was rudimentary telemark gear: a two-buckle Scarpa boot, some Hardwire bindings, and a 10th Mountain Karhu ski with fish scales–68mm underfoot. Two years after my accident, I taught myself to telemark ski in the Sandias as a way to help regain range of motion in my right ankle. Together, we wandered countless miles through the snowy woods.

I lost Abigail to cancer in 2018. She died at the cusp of a shutdown of all of our national forests as a fire precaution due to severe drought conditions. It was as though she didn’t want to hang around for all the trailhead closures and red tape drawn across every forest access road. Abigail left me too soon, but her impact and presence could not have been more beneficial. On Wheeler Peak at the age of 4 months, to the top of Blanca Peak a year later, she was my lodestar, my “bringer of joy.” She accompanied me everywhere, including every weekly trip to see my son in Albuquerque.

I have a pair of skis that feature her paw print and silhouette. I briefly wrestled with the notion of keeping the skis pristinely hanging on the wall, but eventually realized that the right place for them is in the mountains, where we roamed free.

Every May for the last decade, I do a memorial hike across the Sandias, known as Skywalk, in honor of my commander, Colonel Ted Westhusing, who died at the age of 44.

I no longer bear arms; the only war I now wage is against the mountains with my legs. On mornings when I am not patrolling, I wake up at 3:30am, make a bowl of oatmeal with chia seeds and golden flax and hemp hearts, and head out to gain a glimpse of heaven on earth in the high mountains at first light.

I will continue to ski patrol as long as I can and spread telemark through the Sangre Academy of Telemark and Nature, founded in 2016 with fellow ski patroller, Jonah ‘Drift’ Thompson.

My dream is for more children to be exposed to telemark, and for our academy to expand. I have helped coach chess to kids in Albuquerque for the last couple years with the local chess academy, and I believe telemark would be a wonderful addition to chess, as both activities cultivate thoughtfulness, mindfulness, concentration, and good decision making.

Drop knees not bombs.

Alex ‘Telemón’ Limkin is a member of the Angel Fire Ski Patrol in New Mexico. He serves as that patrol’s health and wellness officer, and is a co-founder of the Sangre Academy of Telemark & Nature. He is a 2019 -2020 NSP Subaru Ambassador.