Loser life

So I'm lying there on the ground and the wind is howling and it's so cold that it's actually freezing my brain. Well, it feels like it's freezing my brain because I've got this headache and this little voice inside of me, no check that, this big voice inside of me is saying, go back to the truck you idiot, you'll die out here.

Which gets me to thinking, what if one of those waves decides to be a little bit bigger than the rest and it washes right over me? How long would it take to freeze to death? Could I even make it back to the truck?

The problem from a photographic standpoint is that I'm trying to make a picture that makes it look both as cold as it is and as windy as it is. The windy part is easy, but the cold part, not so easy because the light I need is fading fast.

I take a few frames, try a few different things, but sorry, it just doesn't past muster. It just doesn't look cold. Don't tell my forehead that, however. My forehead is aching. I jump in the truck.

The light croaks.

There's always tomorrow.

Tomorrow comes and while it's something like 6 below or so, I'm sweating like a pig because I got this bright idea that I'd try to ski to this one waterfall, get right at the base of it, and shoot it from there as the steamy water cascaded over the rocks, which were thick and marbled with ice already.

Problem is that this waterfall isn't where I think it is and after a rather crappy bushwhack through a thick stand of cedars I'm standing back on the Sun Road, of all places.

What the?

Turns out that the waterfall is the same waterfall you can see right from the road. Like a moron, I just went to the hard way. Luckily no one was around to see me, except for possibly that mountain lion, whose fresh tracks I crossed while grunting through the cedars. No one can hear me swear, either, which is a good thing. Because I'm sure my little tirade would have brought some fairly stern looks, all things considered.

On this day my feet are aching. The $300 pair of fancy boots I bought are rubbing my heels and yesterday I sort of ignored it and today, at mile three, I'm paying for it, because now they are raw with a capital R. I've been following three sets of wolf tracks up this prairie. I hope beyond all hope that I'll actually see a wolf, but the odds of that are nil. There is nothing noisier than a set of metal-edged skis on icy snow at 10 below. I might as well be carrying a bullhorn.

Still, the wolf tracks are fun to decipher. The way I see it, one is a female and big and the other two are smaller, maybe her young of the year. You can see how they split up on the hunt. One took the low bank along the river while the others stayed up high.

There's kind of this cool photo as the tracks make a beeline for the Livingston Range. I take it and turn around. That one sore on my heel is striking a nerve that runs right to the back of my skull.

I've had enough.

Later that night I get the bright idea that I'll shoot the stars. To do this you set a camera up on a tripod, set the shutter speed at bulb, lock in the cable release and then point it at the night sky. Come back in 10 hours and you might get a cool picture.

I come back in 10 hours and find a black camera coated in white frost. It's fogged up. The odds of a decent photo are slim and none.

I'm getting used to failure. I suppose for many folks, that would be a scary thing.

For me, well, it's just another day.

It's the loser life. It fits me well. I just wish my feet didn't hurt so bad.

Lousy boots anyway.

Chris Peterson is the sometimes blurry, lost and swollen photographer for the Hungry Horse News.