So I suited up with my heavy jacket. It's a Fenix, I bought it at Pepi's ten years ago, half off, $500 instead of a grand. I'd have never spent a grand, but Fenix is top-notch stuff, and it turned out to be warmer than any other jacket I own.
And I picked up my down mittens. Overkill if they were new, but they're just about worn-out, so good for weather in the teens.
And I rode up the gondola, then the Wildwood Express to the top of the mountain.
Visibility was close to zero. I couldn't see Chair 2 in the distance, my destination. Usually when it's this bad they put up posts with blinking electric lights, but not today. But I've been down this route a zillion times and I could do it blindfolded, which was what I essentially was doing.
I believe in a warm-up run. Only weekend warriors go to the difficult slopes first. But having said that, if a black diamond slope is groomed, sometimes you've got to hit it right away. Which I did about a week ago, on Ricky's Tube, in the back. The top is very steep, but only for about fifty feet. But I buckled my boots tight in preparation.
And then my feet were killing me most of the day.
As for those people who buckle their boots in the morning and leave them so, I don't know. I don't buckle mine until I'm about to get off the gondola. And I'm forever tightening them throughout the day. Actually, my boots are tight enough that I could ski in them without buckling them at all, but I want that precision.
So today I had my buckles relatively loose, and I rode across the ridge to a green run and...
Man I was going way too fast. This was crud (cut-up/tracked out powder) and it was heavy and my skis were not riding over it and my boots were so loose I was barely in control and...
I realized I had the wrong skis. I needed my 117s. But they're old, and I need a new pair that wide for conditions just like this. My old Rossi S7s have a turned up tip, they can ride over and through anything. Oh, despite the pictures you see, powder is rarely that soft. It might be in the Cottonwood Canyons in Utah, but in Colorado, snow lighter than air, that you can blow off your car...I haven't experienced it yet.
But those old S7s were in the condo. There was no way I was going back there to retrieve them.
So I went to my secret stash, a beginner area where...
The beginners don't ski on the fringes and you can get mini-pow, a few inches, it can be marvelous. But since it was a beginner area it was groomed after the storm and it was a nearly perfect carpet.
And I'm riding up Chair 2, Avanti, and my feet are killing me! I can't loosen the buckles, because unlike my Nordicas, these Langes leak if I do.
So I get to the top and I go over to Pickeroon, which had been groomed the night before, but had the fresh ten plus inches on it. Normally I scream down Pickeroon, but there was all of this dense crud and even some bumps and although I'd tightened my boots they still weren't tight enough.
Now I was feeling bad about myself. Am I that much of a wimp, that I need the absolute right skis for the condition or else I want to go in?
So I skied lower Berries. A black. And I was good, but I had to stop a few times, it was so much work.
And my feet were still killing me.
So I went back up and skied Berries from the top and Lodgepole at the bottom and I was skiing better, but to tell you the truth, I wanted to go in, to relieve my feet, if nothing else.
But no, I can't do that, I won't let myself. But maybe there's a time to break the rules.
So I figured I'd go to Game Creek, to ski Dealer's. A mild blue that had been groomed before the storm.
But that required me to ski down to the Wildwood Express and come back up and...
That's when I remembered Ouzo had been groomed the night before. The steepest slope in Game Creek...but there was one problem, the visibility. I could see maybe five or seven feet in front of me. My skis were riding over bumps I was unaware of. And when visibility is bad you ski by the trees, then the slope becomes clear, don't ask me the science, it's just true. But although there are trees at the top of Ouzo, after that it is wide open.
And I'm skiing alone. And I'm big on good judgment. Was this a good idea?
But when I got to Ouzo... It was nearly flat, i.e. there was no crud. Until I veered to the left side and found myself in deep junk. I think they groomed the slope after the storm so people could get to the Game Creek Club for lunch. Don't go to the Game Creek Club for dinner, when it's open to the public, it's lousy. But if a member takes you during the day...there's a buffet with iced seafood and everything. But to be a member...let's just say it doesn't make financial sense.
And after the club the visibility was bad and I got down to the lift and my spirits were up a bit, but I was still asking myself how long I had to be out there until I could go back in.
So I took the Game Creek Express up to Dealer's and... Usually the left-hand side of Dealer's is full of crud after a storm. And it wasn't.
And then it was.
This was the turning point. I could traverse over to the right, where the slope was packed, or keep skiing the crud. I buckled my boots and did.
And then on the bottom face, I went all the way to the left to ski the steeper crud. And I was going slower and turning on all the bumps and that's when...
I had a revelation.
That's right, I have to go slower, I have to have both hands in front of me at all time, I've got to turn on every bump...
And then I went up to Riva, Vail's signature run. From the absolute top of the mountain to the bottom. It had been groomed the day before, so I figured it would be pretty good today.
Wrong. It contained massive bumps and people were littered all over the slope.
That's when I committed, turn by turn, I was getting in the groove.
And then I dodged the people on Tourist Trap, one of the steepest faces on the mountain, and then zipped down lower Riva and...
Wait a second... Now I was having a good time, my mood had completely changed. It had to do with being out there, fighting the elements and winning. Man, I can do this.
So then I went up to Blue Ox, one of a trio of steep slopes on the left side of the mountain.
And there was no one there. Zippo. To the point that the top of the slope, which is flat, was all mini-pow.
And when I turned the corner to the steep...
That's when I realized I was truly the only one on the slope. And like Riva, it was a minefield of bumps, and it was blowing and snowing and I kept pushing myself around every bump and...
I was glad I was out there. I was calculating when the lifts would close, I wanted more.
Actually, I got the very last run. Me and a few other people, at 3:31, on Avanti. They always say not to take the last run, but I wanted to go back to that beginner area, to ski the mini-pow, at this point a few inches of fresh had accumulated, I'd just come down it.
And I came down it again and...
I'm skiing to the bottom and thinking about all this. How many people won't even go out in weather like this. Which is a shame, because then you're burdened psychologically, you've got to go out there and develop the skills.
And many people would just make a few runs and go in.
I never go in. Once I'm out there I ski until the end. Screw the overpriced lunch. This is not relaxation, this is not a vacation, this is a job! And just like a good job, when you know how to do it and keep doing it you get better and feel better about yourself.
But why me? I don't know a single person who is as into it as I am. I'm sure there are, but I don't know one. Except for my buddy Andy who passed, the radiation that cured his cancer caused a secondary cancer years later.
Now on some level it's just a raw inexplicable passion. But still, what was keeping me out there?
And then I realized, it was my mother.
My mother is dead, has been for a little over three years now. And to be honest, it's freeing. She was judgmental in a unique way. You could tell her you'd been to the moon and she'd say "And what did you do after that?" Whatever you did it was never enough. And she didn't give kudos either.
But man, put her in a group and she was the life of the party. Not that it was so easy being her kid. If she'd been born fifty years later I don't think she'd even have had kids, she would have been a career woman, something in the arts, she used to write musicals for the Temple. But that's what you did back in the forties and fifties, got married out of college and soon had kids.
But my mother would never ever let you quit.
I remember being on the Middlebury ski team... Let me just tell you, when you're on a squad with Olympic athletes...the training gets intense. There was this exercise where you had to hop up the bleachers on two feet, walk down and do it on your left foot, and then walk down and do it with your right.
This bleacher exercise separated the men from the boys. That's when I called my mother and told her I was quitting, that I was nowhere near good enough to compete anyway, to ski in the big races for the team.
She bad-vibed me. My mother was a pro at this.
So I went back.
You started off with four sets of bleachers (what the coach, Olympic athlete John Bower referred to them as). The trio above represented one rep. And they added a rep every week. To the point where they eventually got up to sixteen. I did it. I won't say it was easy, but I did it. And I'd believed four reps was too much.
And we had to run up the Middlebury Snow Bowl before the snow fell. That wasn't easy, but as the weeks went by not only did we have to run up, we had to run halfway back down and then to the top again.
But I couldn't quit, I couldn't make that call to my mother, she'd hold it against me for life. I can see the disappointment in her face.
So that's why I was out there today. There was no award, no competition, but I did it long enough until it was satisfying, beyond satisfying.
And then I started thinking about other things in my life. That I've stuck with longer than seemingly anybody else would. Like this newsletter, which used to be in print, which came out every two weeks, come hell or high water. Man, the nineties were bleak. Try facing the world with less than twenty dollars in your pocket after having written a bad check for the rent.
But then along came the internet and Napster and things turned around.
Now in truth my mother wanted me to give up the newsletter. But I wouldn't. She would say get a job, any job, literally at McDonald's. That was her background, her parents were immigrants, her father worked at a tannery.
But I wouldn't. Because somewhere deep inside... I was not a quitter. I stayed the course if I believed in it and myself. Which didn't and doesn't include all verticals, but when I'm passionate, which I am about a few things, man, I'm not giving up, never.
Oh, did I tell you my favorite Muggs story? (A nickname in college, it stuck, no one called her Muriel.) I got an e-mail from Quincy Jones. And I forwarded it to my mother. And she never e-mailed me back, she never mentioned it. So, a few weeks later I brought it up in conversation. "Ma, did you see the e-mail from Quincy Jones?" She said yes. Flatly. Which confounded me. I said "Aren't you impressed?" No, she wasn't. Then I had to drill down, make my case. "Mom, you're not impressed that Quincy Jones e-mailed me?" And then she said...HOW WOULD YOU KNOW QUINCY JONES?
Bada-bing. She literally thought it was some other Quincy Jones.
So, I can never please my mother, so I stay the course, keep at it, trying to. And now she's gone, but you can't take the parent out of the child, no way. And as much as I'm screwed up as a result of my mother, I think about all those kids who lack parents, or direction. They've got it in them to make it, but no one pushes them, no one holds them to account.
I'll be back out there tomorrow.
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