(Mis)EDUCATION of a SKI BUM(bler)
I married into the Mountain life. If wasn’t for that, I would have probably tapped out at the “Après” stage of the evolution of a skier. Instead, we moved to a ski town with an elevation of 2,200M and average annual snowfall of 246”. This is a highly unexpected outcome given my inauspicious ski beginnings. I started skiing when I was a tween – both in age, and on the sliding scales of the world of skiing. I was somewhere ’tween' Jerry and Ripper; between jeans and skin suits; between cat track and triple black. It took me many years/decades to make my way over the midpoint to the GNAR end of the scale.
Early teenager-hood is not a great time to take up a new sport that is learned in front of an audience.[1] Especially a sport that comes with all the social trappings of a John Hughes movie (or, its' equivalent, a John Cusack movie: Better Off Dead). I desperately wanted to master my pizza slices and French fries without any witnesses. I wanted to melt into the scenery, ideally in a toque-to-boot Arctic Camo combo. This was not to be. It was the 1980s when all aspects of life, including ay the ski hill, emulated a WHAM! video on MTV. To paint a picture of the scene, I would have to break out my neon highlighters. At one point, I wore an overly-bright, primary coloured, Naf Naf knockoff, ¾ length jacket with shoulder pads and a cinch belt. This being the perfect accompaniment to my jodhpur pants and white, rear-entry boots.[2] On the ski-‘Fit' scale, this was dangerously close to the jeans end of the spectrum. And it definitely didn’t help me blend into the hill.
Also, where I learned to ski most of the runs were in a bowl on full view of the lodge. The floor to vaulted ceiling windows acting as a jumbo tron – ready to capture every wipeout in all its glory for the entertainment of the lunch crowd. Most significantly, I was "Jerry-adjacent". While I wasn’t failing spectacularly, I skied with a person who absolutely was. I learned to ski in a class with the resident “Jerry” (aka “Yeti”, ”Yahoo”, “Gapper”, ”Joey”, ”Gorb”).[3] My Jerry leaned into his pre-meme Meme persona. He would go straight down the hill (every. single. time.). He did a lot of Whoop-whoop!!-ing and Yahoo!!-ing, least his dive bombing otherwise go unnoticed. This was often punctuated by a spectacular yard sale crash at the bottom, which may or may not have been deliberate. And there I’d be, the instructor-directed two “turns" behind him, dying of mortification as only a thirteen-year-old snow plowing girl being watched by cute boys in racing team gear can be.
Going unnoticed was not just a matter of social survival. It was a requirement for actual survival: survival of the ski hill Brotherhood of Brothers. This pack of Lost Boys’ shared life goal was tormenting siblings - their own or anyone that seemed a suitable surrogate. The ski hill was perfectly suited for Brotherhood antics because they could ambush from above, behind and all sides, and get off scot-free by skiing off into the woods. Their tactics included such tried and true chestnuts as: heckling from the safety of the chairlift like the crabby old men on the Muppet show; Slamming their snow covered skis together to drop slush onto unsuspecting skiers below; Tipping the ends of your skis as they used you as a race gate; Launching over your head from treeline jumps (wiping you out 50% of the time); or Competing to see who can gob up the longest string of spit before letting it fall (ideally on someone’s head).[4] Then there were the myriad of ways they could cause havoc on the T-bars, having mastered the ways slow down, then sling shot the entire line of bars, or intentionally falling and steamrollering through the legs of everyone behind them.
To this day I don’t ski under a chair, I opt out of T bars, and I am hyper vigilant on cat tracks.
The next stage of my ski bum(bler) development was my era of Pack skiing. I, ironically, graduated from being a Lost Boys’ target, to joining their ranks. I moved from Jerry-adjacency to Jack Ass adjacency. This was thankfully before Go Pros and YouTube upped the poor decision-making ante, or I would never have survived. Our hoard of teenagers would collect at the top before slope styling down the hill en masse, like a locusts of Warren Millers. They would “Kick Ass Blaster” and “Lay-Tuck-Tuck Triple” off every bump.[5] Being the slowest of the bunch, my primary challenge would be avoiding all the fallen skiers they had left in their wake. Bringing up the rear, I took on a variant of Sweep duty, apologizing all the way down “Sorry! You okay? Sorry! Can I get your ski/hat/goggles/pole?...” I couldn’t really be that helpful, because there was a high likelihood I would wipe out myself. Also, I had to keep going or risk losing the pack for the rest of the day (this being pre-cell phones).
It was a whole new type of trial-by-fire. I now had a ski gang to hang with, but they knew every inch of a massive hill with 16 lifts and countless runs, none of which I knew the names of. Skiing with this crew went something like this: They would yell out some end destination at the top of the hill and then take off - at 10x my top speed. My tactic was to go just fast enough (basically skiing like good ol’ Jerry - I learned from the best) to spot the last person’s coat as it disappeared through a hidden short cut or unmarked run. By the time I got to the bottom, the group would be fifty people, and five cattle queue turns, ahead of me in line. I would have to “excuse me, pardon me, sorry, I’m with them …” my way through, earning dagger glares from all the people they all had already budded in front of. I would rejoin them just in time for the evasive manoeuvres required around any lift operator. Generally, between any ten of us only three would have bought a ticket (me being one of them, obviously). A favourite tactic to distract the ticket checker was cause some major distraction - by flailing about, dropping their poles or performing a dramatic prat fall. This often necessitated stopping the lift and elicited a chorus of groans from the line up.
Decades later, I still get nervous and clumsy loading onto chairlifts.
Skiing with the Brat Pack meant that I, out of necessity, learned to ski fast. But not well. I didn’t master my Stem Christies until years later when, as a parent, I entered my Shield Wall phase. Even after the girls had graduated from release and catch skiing, to the between the legs skiing, to the larping-harness skiing, I shadowed them like I was Secret Service. I knew full well that they were going to be used as Pylons. I spent hours/days/months/years skiing at toddler pace, maximizing my hill time by doing approximately 1 million slalom turns each run. When it came time to ‘free’ ski for a run or two, I would typically opt for the alternate adult activity on offer: the "Après". Given the option between skiing hills where the lift-time to ski-time ratio was 10:1, I would readily swap out my ski pants for my bubble skirt, and start a bar tab. It was the responsible parent course of action. Even in the “it takes a village” approach of ski lodge parenting, there was invariably a kid-meets-Hot Chocolate fiasco to manage.
To a fair-weather Eastern skier, the Après era, once introduced, is a Bermuda triangle – especially since you’d rather be in Bermuda, or any one of those hot “B” places. There were days when I started thinking about a lodge warm up on the first lift ride. There were days when I would have paid the exorbitant lift ticket price NOT to be skiing. A non-inclusive list of factors that eliminate 99% of ski days for me includes: too cold (if heated boots, mitts or Le Mask are needed – I’m out); too icy (which is always); or too expensive (again, always); or too busy (these days, always, even though it is also expensive, icy and cold). But the main reason we don’t ski in the East much anymore is that we made the “mistake” of skiing out West.
Once you ski West, there’s no going back.
So, we didn’t…and my (mis)education as a Ski Bum(bler) continues.
After finally mastering skiing "hard pack”, I am throwing my ice-carving skills and my chatter-proof Dynastar skinny skis out the window.
It’s back to the rope tow, POWder-style.
Watch out for me on Jerry of the Day…
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[1] Full props to those brave souls who take up skiing as adults. You are my heroes.
[2] I would have blocked this fashion era from memory, except the coat is still in my closet. If it were a one-piece, I could sell it to a hipster vintage shop for hundreds of dollars.
[3] A Jerry, according to Freestyle Magazine is “a skier or snowboarder doing a boneheaded move”. Or, more broadly, “an individual who exhibits a true lack of understanding for their sport, or for life in general.” More generous, but I don’t believe they’re not mocking, is Jerry of the Day who claims to "set out to give Jerrys the recognition and entertainment they deserve. Don’t worry, everyone is a Jerry in their own way, but we're here to capture those moments and bring light to them for the world to see.” [sic bad sentence structure]
[4] Not to brag, but I just am be married to the 1983 reigning gob-string champion.
[5] I was advised by an O.G. of the Ski Pack that I couldn’t write about skiing in the ‘80s without a Hot Dog…The Movie reference. These jump names are the only remotely appropriate quotes from it. It is telling that this movie was a socially acceptable (in so far as it was shown in theatres) reflection of ski culture at the time.