The Ski Journal • Volume 15, Issue 2 • THE PROFESSOR

Bringing it in for the real thing, Sammy Podhurst (aka Sunny Sam) and Amos Whiting celebrate after an ethereal backcountry run near Elks, CO. Photo: Fredrik Marmsater

After a lifetime spent kicking around the peaks of my home state of Colorado, I’ve started to feel like I’ve seen everything. That nothing will surprise me. But when I ski with the Professor, the mind and possibilities expand.

Who’s the Professor? The Professor is a nomad of the best kind. Part-time climber, skier, biker, brewer, malt-vinegar aficionado and local celebrity, Aaron “Professor” Lavanchy is often tagged with phrases like #hobofabulous and #soulvitamins. His day job has afforded him the social elasticity to live his way into 1,000 campfire stories. Ask the Professor about Bit Tai Tai, the bucket-carrying hobo he encountered while riding the Pacific Coast Highway, and a lengthy story will ensue. Many others will follow.

Ghosts, escaped turtles, border skirmishes, one-armed bandits—the Professor is a poet of freedom, the author of countless local micro-adventures and someone who’s never met a moment that couldn’t yield a yarn.

Along with Le Rouge and myself in tow, the Professor has come to the aptly named Never Summer mountains astride Cameron Pass to camp, ski and drink whiskey. To escape the everyday. We are skinning up a peak known as South Diamond when I ask who first skied our lines.

“Oh, have I not told you about Johnny Casbah?” began the Professor’s story. Our ears perked up. “I was hiking up here years ago when we first crossed paths. He told me he pioneered these lines in the ’70s by moonlight, tripping on acid.”

“Yeah, and they have very Casbah names—almost all referencing the female anatomy.”

We ski corn all morning before climbing North Diamond. At the top of the ridge, exposed among melted drifts, is a large summit cairn. Digging around, we find an old tin film canister. Inside is a missive written by a young lady to her father, referencing his favorite book. Further inspection reveals a tattered copy of the WWI novel All Quiet on the Western Front. At the end of her note, she indicates that any letter reader should share a bourbon with the memory of her father.

“Are you kidding me, Izzy? Sometimes a story just writes itself, doesn’t it?” In the beaming midday sun, the Professor has been seemingly out-yarned.

We crack open the text. Sure, it references war. The Great War. Death and destruction. Awesome military power taking the world by storm. But we don’t want to take the world by storm. We are fleeing. We fly from ourselves. From our life. To the mountains we go.

Astride the Continental Divide, the wind singing a song in our hair, I spy a cairn farther down the ridge. I reference the previous stash and boot toward the rock pile, words from the Front bouncing in my noodle.

The book’s author, Erich Maria Remarque, uses the text “fashioned out of shadow, light and desire.” What a line. This is a fitting description for our current Western Front; looking west, we see the Front Range spreading into eternity. In the foreground of that vista rests the cairn, an end to this long treasure hunt.

I move one rock, then another. The note referencing whiskey is a bullseye, as two bottles of bourbon sit in a careful hiding spot. I hear Professor hoot from the summit.

“Are you kidding me? I’ve been up here 100 times and never saw that before,” he yells.

We revel and drink in the moment, enjoying a view of forever, with only the Western Front and perfect corn snow in sight. Then we descend to the world below, ready to tell our story.

The Ski Journal - Volume 15, Issue 2

THE PROFESSOR

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