Peak experience: off piste in Chamonix

Well, today has been a bit of a bust. Was supposed to fly to Denver for the end of my ski season. But CO got so slammed by a huge winter storm that my flight got canceled while I flew from Nassau to Atlanta.  When I landed in ATL, I figured I would get a flight for tomorrow. Have to spend the night in the airport, but not a big deal.

So imagine my surprise when I got to the agent to re-book and they offered me a flight from Saturday morning.  Ummm, today is Wednesday.  I was supposed to fly back to Nassau on a redeye Sunday night.  So that wasn’t going to work.  Now I am just heading back home, a bit poorer but looking forward to a long weekend with my lovely wife and precious Elle.  That is a wonderful consolation prize to travel plans gone very, very sideways.

Of course it is disappointing to have my very much-anticipated plans waylaid.  All that snow was going to be so fun to ski, but those turns will be for someone else. So be it.  I figured it would be good to take some solace from a peak experience a few weeks ago in Chamonix.  Revel in the memory of what has thankfully happened and not get depressed about the loss of an imagined future.

Chamonix - off piste 

3/8/2016

Have wanted to venture to this famed center of extreme skiing for years and years.  The interest and curiosity began from hearing about the glaciers, the cliffs and the steeps and from ardently watching ski videos.  The association with the extremes of Chamonix valley was frankly a bit daunting, as so many of the skiers in those ski videos ended up dying in the valley.  It is an intimidating place.

To be able to access it more fully, I hired a very capable guide.  This was costly, but oh so worth it.  Am eternally grateful to Mu for letting me indulge on this luxury.  I planned for the guide the 2^nd day after we arrived, so as to not be affected by jet lag or the travel generally.  I did a bunch of research and went with a company called Adventure Base out of the UK, which connected me with the very knowledgeable Federico.  He grew up in Bariloche in the lakes district of the Argentina, a place that I love and think about very fondly. So that was a great start.

Federico picked me up right at 8 am and we drove up to the Grands Monetets complex to start our day.  We got on the first chair "teleferique" to the mid station and then on the first Grands Monetets gondola up to about 3,300 meters from the valley floor of 1,000 meters.   We both had on the backcountry gear of beacon, probe and shovel, as well as climbing harnesses to aid rescue out of crevices.  Let’s try to avoid using those tools.  But they give a sense of what kind of terrain we were covering for the day.

Our first run was straight down the main glacier, and I followed somewhat carefully in Federico’s path.  It was quite cold and we had fresh tracks from the 20 cms of snow that fell over night.  It was sublime, a bit firm for the snow but it was cold and that can lock in the snow a bit.  Going to be a good day!

Next we went up a secondary gondola and were soon in a huge bowl with literally zero tracks.  First tracks for thousands of feet descending down the fresh snow with the whole valley opening up below.  Wow.  Really, really special.  With the danger of crevices removed on this bowl, I was able to get more expansive on my turns and turn up the speed and aggression.  Really lovely skiing and here we are an hour into the day and already skied like 8k vertical feet of entirely fresh turns in these huge bowls.  Nice!

With our legs under us, it was time to get into the routes that have made Cham so famous.  We took the gondola back to the top of Grands Monetets, these rides go disarmingly fast as you ascending something like 4,000 vertical feet in a handful of minutes.  From mellow to full on.    

Argentiere glacier

Our first route that felt decidedly different from any skiing I have done in North America came down the Argentiere glacier.  Once at the top of the gondola, we skied through a saddle and into this massive valley.  The glacier rippled below us and to our right, with crazy steep peaks ringing the entire valley.  The sun was starting to make its presence felt and the snow was softening a bit and feeling great under the sticks.

The glacier had an omnipresent gravity to our left, and there were a few big drops to the right so you had to be careful about your turns.  It was a bit of contrast to skiing in the steeps out west in the U.S. because I felt like I needed to be in more control and looking farther ahead than usual.  That is partly why I was so glad to have the guide. 

I had some great turns down the main slope and then we swooped to the left.  I had a visual reminder of the returning route from the lake chutes at Breckenridge, which was interesting. This happened a few times during the week in Chamonix, with terrain harkening to Breck, Heavenly and Jackson.  The seriousness of the terrain was mentally increased with a helicopter engaged in a rescue operation on the glacier face below us.  The arresting thump thump of the heli definitely increased my focus.  The bottom led us back to the same gondola, and I asked Federico about what happens if you ski below the cut back and don't hit the track.

“Oh that is cliffed out. It is good for ice climbing.” 

My mental response – “Well then, let’s make sure to hit the track back then. I don’t know how to ice climb.”

Pas de Chevre

After our last ride up Grands Monetets, we started on my favorite route of the day.  This route descends from the top of the gondola down to the town.  That is a full 2,300 meters of skiing.   The skiing was amazing, deep snow and fresh tracks throughout a massive gully.  I especially enjoyed skiing under the Aiguille du Dru, which for my money was the most visually impressive peak in the entire valley with a steep sustained face rising up to an impossibly narrow peak. 

After the excellent, sustained skiing on the top of the route, the bottom was very technical.  My skiing buddies know that is exactly what I like, for some reason I enjoy skiing terrain that is steep and demanding more than any other.  This fit the bill. At one point we used a rope to get over a little rough patch, which was a first.  Ultimately, we got to the bottom of the face and arrived on the Mer de Glace.  Then we picked our way thought some serious crevasses and then clicked out of our skis for a 15 minute hike up to the ridge that allows access to Cham. 

Aiguille du Midi 

Mount Blanc

Once we descended down to the city, with a stop for an espresso at this little idyllic shack of course, it was time for the last route of the day – the iconic Vallee Blanche.  This is about a 20 km decent from the top of the Aiguille du Midi back to Cham.  The skiing is not particularly hard, more open but it is technical in a lot of spots due to the glacier and crevices.  The coolest thing about the Midi is that it rises up the Mount Blanc massif, to about a thousand meters below the summit to Europe's tallest mountain.  From the top of the teleferique we looked deep into Italy, with dozens of peaks as far as my eyes could see.  Amazing. The Valle is a 2,800 meter decent, which as far as I am aware is a bigger drop in a single run than anything in the North America. 

Before I got to click into my skis, Federico and I had to get from the top of the gondola down to the entry point to the valley.  This was MUCH harder than I had anticipated.  The path down was hard packed snow and very slippery with a deadly drop on the other side of some ropes.   Sort of like the last part of the hike up Half Dome. I was scared.   I felt a bit out of control, not what I am used to in my ski boots where I feel so comfy.  Thankfully Federico had me backed up and on belay, he had crampons for dramatically better traction.  There was one moment when I slipped and took out his feet, but thankfully he arrested us and after a few more minutes we got to the stability of the shoulder to start the skiing.  It is weird that skiing in the dangerous glacier felt exponentially safer than walking off the top of the Midi.  

We skied down the face, getting nice turns and fresh tracks most of the way.  At one point, I was skiing back up to the guide and Federico yelled out, “No, not that way!”  I was about to ski down this little dip and up to him.  But that little dip was a crevice.  Whoops.  So I picked my way a different route and was reminded of the seriousness of the terrain.  We ripped down the big face and then stopped for another coffee and some apple crumble before connecting to the Mer de Glace and Chamonix.

What a day.  Skiing literally miles of vertical terrain and routes I would never have attempted solo.  Great snow.  Deep snow.  When I talked back into our rented apartment, Mu was relived as the skiing is serious.   I was beat.

B.A.B.E. Week 46: Today and the future

I started to blog about Brussel's attacks today and it sent me down a negative spiral.  How could it not?  But I erased the two paragraphs and decided to start over because while we all mourn these horrors,  that's not what this blog is about.  







This blog is fundamentally about Elle and the journey of trying to be a good mom while also being a well-rounded 30 something individual.








The week has passed in a whirl, again.


A mostly wonderful whirl for us personally with a continued visit from Elle's cousin, aunt, and uncle.


More adventures including beach time, a tennis club party and a get together with friends tonight.  


Our week was only mostly wonderful because we also had a serious event this past week.  Elle's grandmother ("Neny") had neck surgery on Friday. Happily, Neny is recovering well but our fragility, especially someone so cherished in our lives, is scary and we want her to continue to recover well. Elle loves her Neny and we really hope that Neny will be able to fully play with Elle by the time she come back to the Bahamas for Elle's first birthday.

Elle is starting to make a few crawling strides but it is hard when you are so big for your age.   Elle is 90-95 percentile in everything -- height, weight, and head circumference.  It is a lot to move around for still-developing muscles.  Especially her head, her head has taken a few bumps as she has lost her balance trying to crawl and collided with the floor.  I hate those bumps.  Wilson hates those bumps.  But they are sadly a necessary part of learning and moving.


But what she isn't doing in crawling, she is making up for in motor skills -- trying to screw the tops on old peanut butter jars, stacking her rings happily, taking balls in and out of cups, and placing toys on top of one another, and of course eating sand by the mouthful.
She is fascinated with the relationships between things -- maybe she will be a mechanical engineer one day.


I would love to see my daughter in the STEM fields but whatever she chooses, I hope that her adult world has better career balance for men and women as well as much greater understanding between cultures in order to prevent today's horror.

B.A.B.E.Week 45: Balancing breastfeeding TOP 9 TIPS (part 2)

In part 1 of "Balancing Breastfeeding", I exclusively focused on wardrobe tips, this blog post is much more ambitious for me.  Below I attempt to summarize my top 9 tips of breastfeeding learned over these past 40+ weeks.   And then I end with my update on Elle.


Here's the tips in descending order:

9.  Acceptance 
When I was pregnant, a Spanish friend told me her breastfeeding woes from 20 years ago when she had her baby in a German hospital and all the German nurses told her -- "you don't have enough milk."   Her mother arrived within hours and told her -- "that is ridiculous, every woman has enough milk.  You just have to keep trying and drink water, juice, tea -- drink all the time."   She trusted her mother and was eventually able to breastfeed.  I think there is a lot of truth to the old Spanish mother's advice -- you need to have to confidence in your ability to produce milk.

I share that story because it gave me courage and hope in times when I feared (like most breastfeeding mothers) that I might not have enough milk.   It turns out that I had so much milk (or overstimulated my milk so much) that I got mastitis three times.   (See tip #3 below).  But that oversupply didn't last and there have been times in the intervening months where I have pumped a shockingly low amount of milk.

The bottom line for me is that breastfeeding is a journey.  And you have to accept what stage you are at during that journey -- whether you are at the beginning of the journey and you have found out that you can't breastfeed or you are in the middle of the journey and your supply is dwindling.  There is only so much you can do and you just have to trust your body to help you balance breastfeeding in the best manner possible for you and baby.

8.  Avoiding misc. low supply issues
The majority of this blog post focuses on low supply issues and here are an initial few thoughts:  (1) check out the kelly mom website --  http://kellymom.com/hot-topics/low-supply/

 -- I have found it to be a treasure trove of info.; and (2) going back on hormone intensive birth control may also wreak havoc with supply.

7.  Night feedings
In the vein of supply issues,  you may want to consider delaying putting baby on a schedule of "sleeping through the night."   While it seems idyllic to again have a full night of sleep, that full night of sleep could lead to a dwindling milk supply.  I have heard from many moms that not breastfeeding during the night has caused them to lose their milk supply.



6.  Extra milk
On the other hand, if your milk supply is good and you want to try to get your baby to sleep through the night, then having your partner give your baby extra pumped milk after you have nursed the baby until you are empty can help give her enough milk to sleep through the night.   This is a way to counter low milk supply in the evening.  For a few months, Wilson was giving elle her last waking bottle at 9 pm or so and then have her fall asleep upright to counteract digestion issues. I think that many women's milk supply is lower in the afternoon/evening after they are tired and have been expending calories all day.  Getting that extra boost of milk (after you are empty) can help the baby sleep through the night.

5.  Feeding in the quiet
While I am a big proponent of breastfeeding anywhere (public, private, in mixed company, on the plane, etc.), I found that breastfeeding in a calm quiet place can be very helpful to get baby to eat all the milk.   Baby wants to play and experience so it can be really hard to get them to focus.  Breastfeeding in a quiet regular place gives them the cues that they need that this is what they should be doing right now.

4.  Pumping tips
For me, pumping has been an integral part of the breastfeeding experience.  This is not just because I am a working mom but I feel that it has been such a relief to know that Wilson can give Elle a bottle of my milk if I am out for a run or on an errand.  It has been immensely helpful but there are a few tips that have helped me:  (1) pump to mimic when your baby is receiving any type of milk  (e.g., pump before you leave this house).  This assists with keeping your supply up.   (2) pump in the morning when you usually have a lot of milk.

3.  Letting your body adjust
As I stated above I had mastitis 3 times in the first month of Elle's life.  It was horrible. I think that it was partially due to my paranoia about having enough milk so I pumped milk in addition to nursing Elle.   I also didn't proactively try to stem my oversupply, in part because we were not at home in Nassau and I was living in an airbnb for the month.

It is important to realize that your milk supply won't immediately adjust to your actions.  It is an imprecise supply so you have to be patient and gentle when either trying to stimulate or decrease supply.   Some techniques to deal with oversupply that I have found to be helpful are: (1) nurse only on one side per feeding; and (2) lay on your side to nurse to allow the milk to dribble out the baby's mouth.

And one more tip to deal with undersupply -- let your baby suck whenever and however long your baby wants to.  In other words, try to put your baby to the breast as much as logistically possible.

2.  Stress
As we all know, we live in a life of constant stress and breastfeeding adds to that stress.   Because even when you feel like you have the exact right amount of milk, that milk might not "let down."  In other words, your milk may not come out when you want it to.  This is because lactation doesn't come from a machine, it comes from us--complex organisms who can't always force our body to do what we want it to do on demand.

Stress of having to nurse or pump within a certain time frame can interrupt your milk flow, the psychological overwhelming the physical.   So my biggest advice is to try to find coping mechanisms to deal with the stress.   I found that seeing a lactation consultant early on (home visit paid for by insurance) was really helpful in decreasing my stress levels about whether Elle was getting enough milk, how we were doing, etc.   I had a lactation consultant come even though the lactation consultant in the hospital had applauded how I was such a great breastfeeder for a first-time mama.   Despite this praise,  lactation consultants are so helpful in a world where we are no longer surrounded by other women to give a ton of advice on breastfeeding.

1.  Water
Drink water until you're sick.  Well actually, I don't want anyone to get hyponatremia but, as a big water drinker already, I have been shocked by the amount of water that I need to drink to keep my supply up.  We go through several 5 gallon bottles of drinking water a week at our house, and Wilson is gone at work most of the day.  I notice a direct impact from all that water.  For example, I have noticed that after I drink a big glass of water while pumping, then often within 3-4 minutes more milk comes out of previously empty breasts.  It isn't a lot of milk but for me, it shows how important having a steady stream of water flowing through my system is.

Some adages about water are: (1) drink a big glass of water right before you feed/pump; and (2) if you aren't peeing a light yellow or clear fluid then you aren't drinking enough.   I heard the clear fluid adage with respect to athleticism not with regards to breastfeeding but I think that it is especially important in the breastfeeding context.  And if you forget to drink a glass before you start breastfeeding, get your husband to bring you a bottle post haste.  He needs to help in whatever little way possible.

Please feel free to leave your own tips, suggestions, comments below.




Elle update


Elle was a champ on a brutal traveling schedule.  Woke up Friday morning in Chamonix France then woke up Saturday morning in Geneva then woke up Sunday morning in London and finally home Sunday night to the Bahamas.   When we got home to the Bahamas, a big surprise was waiting for her -- her uncle, aunt and cousin who is four months older than her.




Playing with her visiting cousin this week has been such a highlight.  She LOVES her cousin -- she  enjoys laughing with her, sharing toys with her, "kissing" her, and watching her.  In fact, watching  her cousin crawl, dance, climb, stand, and move around has been very motivational for Elle.   She is starting to really move her arms and legs to get close to crawling forward instead of just creeping backward.    Elle is also discovering all the noises that she can make and how she can "dance" bounce her torso up and down and she can even wave her torso up and down.   And speaking of waving, her waving of her hands corresponds much better to saying hi, or bye, or all done.   She still waves her hands to signal "party time" but she seems to also use the waving more strategically to communicate things beyond joy or party time.



And the biggest news is that Elle may have actually said her first word -- "bye".   She said it twice yesterday in context to say goodbye to people so we may have now really gotten the first verbal word.  I, of course, think that she already knows the word "mum" since she will say that sometimes when she is crying for me.   But Wilson is skeptical, he is a strict constructionist on this point.  So maybe now her first word is bye?  Will see if she continues to say "bye".

B.A.B.E. week 44: Climb any mountain (Wilson's guest posting)

So climb any mountain

Climb up to the sky!

My love will find you.

My love can fly!

From Wherever You Are by Nancy Tillman

This week's post is going to be very heavily focused on the Baby and the Exploration of Muriel's BABE taxonomy.  We have settled in to our Airbnb apartment in Chamonix, France for the week and this guest post is written by the dad and husband.  I had frankly expected to write more posts during the last almost year, but Mu has remained so diligent, prolific and insightful that I have deferred to her.

We arrived at this mecca of skiing yesterday, after quite a challenging travel itinerary.  We had almost a full weekend at home in Nassau with dinner out, run/swim combo on our beach, and Elle's bestie's 1 year old birthday party, and then got on a plane to London at about 10 pm east coast time.  At the airport, Elle and I caught the last 5 minutes or so of Duke/UNC, so that was a nice indoctrination for her in the intensity of the rivalry.  She was quite a bit more interested in all the people waiting for the flight and other quirks of the Nassau airport.

The flight proved to be one where mu and I shared a 2 seater mini-row by ourselves, not great but not terrible.  Elle was her usual charming self, she slept really well on both mu and I throughout the flight and had everyone around us commenting about 'what a nice baby' and 'she is charmer' as we disembarked in Heathrow.  She, of course, lapped up the attention. But more than that, she reveled in being with her parents for these extended periods.  The burdens and frustrations of travel don't seem so debilitating for Elle, since she is enjoying some of her more treasured activities of being close and playful with her parents.

We then took the connecting flight to Geneva, which is a city I lived in for a summer before meeting Muriel.  That was a crazy summer.  And it was fun to return to the city yesterday even just in transit.  We come back to Geneva at the end of the week for a night and a dinner out with an old friend of ours and his family, which will be lovely.  Even in the passing time through the city in the transport, I was thinking about how important that summer proved to be and what a privilege it was to get to go.

The reason we, and the we is kind of generous as it has been a huge push from me, have longed to come to the Chamonix is its central role in the evolution of extreme skiing. And waking up this morning after arriving in darkness last night, the mountains are as massive as advertised.  Both sides of the valley tower over the town, and we can see both from the living room of our apartment.  On the left, a massive cirque of a glacier rises thousands of meters in elevation.  On the right, the mountain has the impossibly improbable top of the Brevent teleferique, a full 4,500 feet above the valley floor and nestled in steep cliffs.  It is a lair out of a Bond movie, and one that both Mu and skied off of today.  I even lucked in to the first gondola to the top after 36 hours of sustained snow.  Really, really lucky.

We continue to split time at skiing, while the other parent watches our precious angel.  This works well, admittedly better for me in terms of time out skiing than for Mu.  Having our home base of an apartment within easy distance of the three main access points we want to explore this week make things so much easier.  No car, no parking, no hassle.

This town is so walkable and with excellent public transport to get throughout the valley.  Those two things are in short supply in Nassau.  This week we revel in hanging out with Elle, crushing the steeps and deeps, enjoying the euro feel of this mountain mecca.  We are so thankful that Elle is a willing and able traveler.  She is a fantastic daughter and an even better little human.

B.A.B.E. Week 43: Balancing breastfeeding… wardrobe choices (part 1)

Elle's fine motor skills and comprehension are at the forefront of her development.  She understands words like "bye" or "baby" (referring to the stuffed animals that she loves to cuddle).  She also has gotten really good at putting the toy rings in the designated spot or putting her bottle lid on her bottle of pumped milk. 

Pumped milk brings up this week's topic: breastfeeding.  A caveat -- Am not blogging about this to promote breastfeeding – we hear about that quite enough – thank you -- and am not blogging about because I think that breastfeeding is the best thing since sliced bread.   Indeed, I have struggled with breastfeeding, and consequently thought about it a lot and that is why I am blogging about breastfeeding in the hopes that my lessons learned can help other folks on their unique breastfeeding journey.

On Friday, Elle will turn 10 months old and I feel that I am still learning tips about breastfeeding.   So I thought that I would use the next few blog posts to concentrate on my top lessons learned.  My lessons learned run the gamut from overproduction (mastitis 3 times in the first month) to underproduction (various times that I would like to have pumped more milk or felt like I wasn’t producing enough milk).   But today because  I have limited time, I will start with the easiest lessons learned -- wardrobe choices.  Here are my top four lessons learned.

#4  Not wearing dresses

Don’t expect to wear dresses while you are lactating unless they have a plunging necklines or some other way to access the milk supply.   Dresses are often super inconvenient for both breast pumping and nursing.

#3  Handsfree bra

I have noticed that I pump much more milk when I am wearing a breastfeeding hands free bra rather than attempting to hold the pumps myself.  Also, the handsfree bra is great for pursuing your normal life (e.g., typing on your laptop).  In fact, I heard of one facial surgeon who pumped using a handsfree bra as she commuted in and out of work.  (She also talked on her blue tooth headset and ate a sandwich as well… a little out of control doing those 4 things at once but you get the idea.).

#2 Using your normal bra

Even though I just extolled the virtues of the handsfree bra, it can be a pain to take on and take off.  So when you are pumping at work, you can often jimmy-rig your pump system into a normal bra.   This is a huge time saver.  One caveat is that I don’t seem to pump as much when jimmy-rigging the system.  Can’t seem to fully relax into the pumping.

#1 Wearing 2 shirts

My best tip on wardrobe choices is to wear two shirts – one to cover your torso and another shirt to cover the top of your chest.  Thus, when you lift up your top shirt to allow your child access to nurse, there is another shirt that covers your stomach.  I use this method often and don’t actually use a nursing cover because I feel that the two shirts are sufficient.  With two shirts, you don’t see any of my flesh and it allows my daughter to look around while I am feeding her.  As one of the shirts, I like to use a nursing tanktop.  That way, I don’t have to wear a nursing bra and I find them very comfortable.