We were the first vehicle at the trailhead that morning. Snow was falling, not sideways or dramatic, just steady and confident. South Fork Canyon sat in that narrow winter window where the temperature hovers just above indecision: cold enough for clean flakes, warm enough to make you question your wax.
Before leaving, I told my wife I was glad for my old jacket, twenty years my backcountry touring companion, and still perfect from the teens to forty degrees. It repels moisture without drama, breaks wind without stiffness, warms without weight. I know exactly how it performs. No questions asked.
But I was also wearing new boots, which eventually raised several questions.
We headed out expecting first tracks but were beaten — likely late the night before or just ahead of dawn — by a man I decided to call Earl and his dog of some unknown breed. Their tracks crossed the final stretch of road crisp and defined, but even as we studied them, fresh snow thickened, softening the edges and flattening the dark-white contrast that revealed contour in the muted morning light.
The snow was too new and the temperature barely above freezing. This was not a day when wax answers the question. So I carried my skis most of the way in.
As we climbed, I felt the faintest hotspot in my heels. Nothing urgent. Just possibility. In the wrong terrain, a small hotspot prompts many questions. Was it the socks? My stride? The way I was carrying the skis?
I realized something subtle: I had assumed the boots were born broken in. If they didn’t yet know how I move, that was their problem, not mine.
The jacket required nothing from me.
The boots demanded attention, whether I liked it or not.
Some things already know you.
Others are still deciding.
An old jacket doesn’t predict the weather. It proves you’ve survived enough of it. New boots may promise comfort, but only eventually, but never without adaptation.
My dog Scout ran ahead, doing her version of trail maintenance — breaking path, darting into the pines, scanning for whatever small evidence of life might justify the effort. At the T, Earl’s tracks veered left toward the Great Western Trail, eventually winding toward Shingle Mill and Packard Canyon. I turned right, toward the old-growth pines, at least that’s what I call them, and the quiet approach to Big Springs.
For the first time that morning, we were making true first tracks.
It was then that I noticed Scout’s cadence. Right-left, right-left when she moved steadily. But when she accelerated, her pattern shifted to right-left-left-right, as though enthusiasm required a different kind of waltz. Near the top, she switched it up again, left-right-right for fifty feet or so, as if proving that patterns are suggestions, not laws.
At the top, I finally clipped in, zipped to my chin, and pushed off. The discomfort in my boots vanished as I settled into a glide, standing still while the world moved beneath me. My weight compressed the surface with a soft crunch, like packing a snowball between cupped hands, followed by a muted thump and the faintest vibration up through my leg. Not a buzz. Just feedback. Terrain speaking plainly.
Scout seemed genuinely surprised that I could now move faster than she could. Once I found a rhythm she approved of, she mostly trailed behind. Every so often, she dashed ahead and looked back as if to say, “We can do better than this.”
By the time we crossed Earl’s tracks again, they were nearly gone. Even ours were softening at the edges. The snow continued its quiet erasure.
When we reached the truck, it was still just us in the parking lot.
That’s when I noticed Scout’s burden. All twenty-eight pounds of her carried four tight knots of ice clinging just below her elbows and hocks. I hadn’t seen them at all along the way. I broke them free as gently as I could and lifted her into the warm truck to let the rest melt on their own.
The snow kept falling.
Driving home, I realized something else. Yes, my old jacket required nothing new from me. It fits because I’ve shaped it, and it has shaped me. But the new boots were another matter. They would only fit if I was willing to change — stride, sock, expectation. By the time I pulled them off, each heel had its own blister to make the point.
I want the certainty of the jacket.
But it’s the boots that will carry me somewhere new. And likely a little better with time.
Old jacket.
New boots.
Both necessary.
Both honest.
And like fresh snow in South Fork, neither permanent for long.
