AN EASTSIDE RUNNER LAMENTS THE SHALLOW DATING POOL

By Jeff Kozak

Running toward the dream of finding the perfect line, and someone to share it with. PHOTO JEFF KOZAK COLLECTION

I DON'T REMEMBER JOINING THE EASTSIDE ORDER OF MONKS, but every time I attempt to renounce my faith, the missionaries once again appear at the doorstep of my social scene.

They’re as thick and persistent as mosquitoes surrounding a snowmelt pond, these forced adherents to the flying solo creed, and no amount of sprayed pheromones will keep them at bay.

As much as they want to be a witness to the miracle of your breaking free from the dogma (there ain’t no dog house when you’re single…but there ain’t no doggie-style either), secretly, they fear being left behind.

These determined missionaries are comprised of the revolving-door ranks of dudes clinging to the dream of moving to the Eastside to tease out not just the perfect line, be it on a granite face, a powder-filled north-facing chute or a glissading descent off a pass during an early summer backcountry run, but also a special someone to share the magic of discovery with.

At a party last New Year’s Eve, I came to the sad realization that ALL Eastside parties are sponsored by Jimmy Dean. Arriving fairly early in the evening to the traditional dearth of la femme, I sought out positive reinforcement with a fellow keeper of the faith. “Don’t worry mate, they will show up eventually.”
And show up they did. The door opened and a train of people walked in. All dudes, from conductor to caboose. Amtrak couldn’t have derailed our amorous aspirations quicker.

The trouble with the Eastside dating pool is that it is essentially a closed system. Any inlets are more ephemeral than runoff in a desert wash and the water of love that does make it in ends up like the Humboldt River in the Carson Sink, quickly vanishing out of sight into Aphrodite’s depleted aquifer. Water that doesn’t mix tends to stagnate and, unlike Keough’s, this pool ain’t getting cleaned on Tuesdays.

While “bromancing” with a climbing friend at Yamatani over Sapporos and California rolls, he mentioned that the dating pool seemed to be getting deeper at the female end.

“Yeah, well I haven’t needed any extra flotation noodles lately,” I replied, adding that my being a trail runner and not a climber most likely contributed to my excessive free-soloing time. The reality of my chosen form of elevated entertainment is that the training commitment required to mutate a typically weeklong backpacking loop into a one-day (single)track meet has led to a much greater familiarity with headlamps and electrolyte drinks than candlelight and wine. When attempting to gain entry into the high stakes dating game, a table for two at Nevados universally trumps a 60 mile run in remote wilderness, rationing your only remaining Clif bar and a handful of ibuprofen as the sun sets with no trailhead in sight.

“That could be a positive thing,” he said encouragingly. “A lot of women get tired of being around climbers, especially the bouldering mentality…those guys are good for like three maneuvers on the rock or in the sack and they’re done. You endurance runners go all day and night.”

My spirits were temporarily buoyed by this twisted, pretzel-logic; then I had a vision of what I look like after a 15+ hour push on the John Muir Trail: eyes more bleary and bloodshot than bedroom, limbs flailing with a lack of rhythm and control reminiscent of early voyages of discovery into the horizontal world, anything but sexy.

Still, even the most apoplectically ascetic among us have hope. At a more recent sausage social, grey matter plied with Mammoth Brewing Company suds, my brethren and I transformed ourselves into a temporary think tank (with only slightly more brain activity registering than in the one along the wall containing fish). It was like a MENSA meeting, only with a center of brainstorming attention on a problem whose solution would really be of no benefit to society as a whole: how to attract enough single women to the Eastside to bring the “available” male/female proportion into balance.

Here’s what we came up with: Instead of the local chambers of commerce wasting precious promotional dollars on the mundane spotlighting of the region’s recreational riches (Whitney, Mono Lake...I mean who doesn’t already know?), we’d like to see a portion of that coffer help market a different local attraction.
We propose bussing in, on a seasonal basis, single women from around the world (the Eastside IS an internationally renowned destination) on an all-expenses paid (by the single male taxpayers of course) vacation in the Sierra playground. I know there will be no shortage of tour guides.

We believe some of these lucky ladies would stick around. If not, at least there will be the illusion of a Garden of E(astsi)den to get us through the drought years.

After all, isn’t that what mountain-moving faiths are for?