New Year Resolution

Although routinely mocked and ridiculed by popular culture these days I actually find New Year resolutions to be a quite useful, not to mention successful way in which to weave a few new and improved guiding principles and habits into the fabric of my everyday life.

Its precisely around this transitional time of the year that at least a handful of resolutions always seem to present themselves as perfectly rational options to the status quo.

Along with a slew of lightweight pledges to eat more of this and less of that… to take bigger, deeper breaths more often, and to exercise with renewed vigor, the two stand out resolutions of 2015 involve the long overdue introduction of Nordic Skiing into my life, and the permanent elimination of smartphones from my life! I can’t really tell you which of the two; embracing cross-country skis or parting ways forever with my brash, pushy smartphone; actually brings me the more pleasure.

As soon as it proves physically possible (obnoxious phone contracts and all that) my aim is to go back to the good ol’ flip phone, preferably one without a camera, without music… just a phone. But for now, and for a while, I am practically phone free – all phones for that matter, mobile or static. And what bliss – what quiet. How lovely the world seems.

For the moment ‘life after smartphone’ is coming as a very nice interlude indeed. The truth is that I am not, never have been, and never will be a phone person. I actually liked it better when we all left them at home and borrowed a phone on the very odd occasion we found it necessary to make a call. I really miss that world. When the first cell phones came along however I didn’t think they were really so bad – but back then I was clueless as to the full extent of their ambition.

And so earlier today I clipped on a pair of long, skinny cross-country skis for the half-dozenth or so day on the trot and set about exploring the Aspen Golf Club’s thoroughly impressive maze of immaculately groomed trails. As mentioned in previous blogs it is my intention to ski every inch of the 150 kilometers that make up Pitkin County’s Nordic Trail system, and if the early signs are anything to go by I think this is shaping up to be a thoroughly enjoyable and memorable experience. I’ll be back later in the year with a full report of this and every trail within the system once the season is over and I have covered every one of those ‘Klicks’… this way, and that.