Not on demo day!

Demo Day is something of an impromptu holiday for ski nerds and Joeys alike, and probly everyone else, too.  It's like National Doughnut Day, National Taco Day, and National Burrito Day in that you can definitely partake in demoing skis at other times, but it feels special when there's a bit of ceremony.  One doesn't just get up and go skiing.  There's planning to be done.  Depending on one's mood, there needs to be time to choose a good outfit, like Bridget Jones and Arwen Undómiel on Rex Manning Day.  Some folks pretend to not care, just like the lady from The Mentalist.  (I know the show cos my landlord in Greenwater was like reeeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaalllllyyyy into it.)  Robin Tunney.  Anyway, it's important.  Talk Like a Pirate Day important.

Last week, on a Wednesday--see below if you don't believe me--our local mildly confusing purveyor of seemingly unrelated outdoor goods (or seemingly related, if you are so inclined) had one of these National Holidays all by themselves.  They used to share the pitch with their neighbour, Greenwood's, who is literally walking distance away at the bottom of Bogus Basin Road, just across from Hawkins Pac Out and The Holler.  And not CityNerd walking distance, mind you. American Walking Distance.  I'll be honest that while waiting for a burrito at Hawkins on a powder panic morning, I've witnessed people driving the 13 feet, but that's neither here nor there.  I mean, there's a car wash Reed Cycle in between and going the fast way requires walking on a dirt driveway, and maybe that's too hard when there's snow in them thar hills.

Anyway, I donned my best chamois shirt and puffy vest so people knew I grew up in the 80s and 90s on a Dynastar Course GS, and Amy wore her Magnet Designs Tahoma Hoodie under her Patagucci shell to cover both nano-and macro-manufacturing bases.  I'm sure the cats hawking their wares were suitably impressed.  I mean, I was.  After a fashion, we tried a handful of skis apiece, and like Ray Delahanty, we have thoughts.  We'll share some herewith.

There's a chance they might not know how to count.  Either that or they possess a vortex and can experience multiple times simultaneously.

It starts with expectations.  Jim Steenburgh, the oft-mentioned PhD of Utah Powder, says the key to happiness is keeping them low.  With K2, I like go a little further, and keep them at zero.  I've been disappointed with skis from Blizzard, Nordica, Volķł, Atomic, Nordica, Sțocklǐ, Elan, Fischer, Nordica, Icelantic, Lib Tech, Salomon, Nordica, and probly many more.  Strangely, I cannot think of a disappointment endured while skiing K2.  Sometimes, like the Pinnacle from almost a decade ago, the ski didn't bend my mind so much as give it a gentle and kindhearted surprise, like when you taste the cardamom in an Ocean Roll from Sparrow Bakery.  Last year, during a particularly drawn out (like, seriously, days long) discussion about bindings, Ryan (The Owner) found a pair of Recons from '08 at St Vinnie's on Broadway.  They had the aubergine S914 binding I've been searching for since I sold my last pair back in around '010.  I had always hated that ski without ever having skied that ski.  LB and I tuned upwards of 80leven hundos of em, and we just spat and made fun of em.  Over, and over.  And yet, aside from a lower ceiling than I want from a daily driver, the Recon is actually really nice.  Very easy to ease into, clean, mid-radius sidecut, dense without really deadening, and real smooth in the more smooshier of snows.  Don't even try to ski the good cheesy pow on it, cos it'll be at the bottom dragging like an anchor, but that's not why you by a 76mm all mountain board from almost 20 years ago.

Here, of course, is the thing:  the Mindbender 99 Ti from K2 is really fun.  I didn't know what to expect, so I didn't, I just made a hard right around the top terminal of 1 and pretended the snow was actually good, and wouldn't you know it, the ski did exactly what you want a big, stout, metal all-mountain ski to do.  Broke through the meringue, carved up the carveable, held an edge on the groomers, and most importantly made me want to ski more, and faster, and at high edge angles, and drive the cuff, and turn left into the chop instead of right onto the groomer even though it was awesome on the groomers.  It's stiff enough without being overpowering.  Dense enough while still maintaining some rebound.  Ugly enough to remember what brand of ski you're on.  (I was in shops for the worst of their topsheet sins.  If I never see another deathclown graphic, it'll be too soon.)  For a ski this big, I doubt it'd float much, and I didn't get a chance to test my hypothesis anyway.  That, too, is part of keeping expectations low.  If it floats at all, it's a win.

Blasphemy, I tell you.  Thou shalt not think a K2 is good, let alone better than the Blizzard Bonafide.  But then, the Bonafide is on my list of disappointments.

The third ski I took out was the Dynastar MPro 94.  Since no one is paying us, I can say what I think, which is, wow, um, that was like, um, something.  Nothing?  Heck, I don't know.  I couldn't tell what was going on.  It was kinda like the front was one ski, and the back was another ski.  It was like the Apex boot that is a snowboard binding in skeletal ski boot shape.  Couldn't get a feel for anything.  The front of the M 94 is soft, deflectable.  Full of tip flap.  The rear is fairly stiff, which means it overpowers the flappy tip like me on a 1999 Specialised FSR XC with an undamped coil shock.  Flynn, who is somehow both the head coach for C of I and the shop manager at McU's, was pretty googly eyed over them, and I gotta say I now worry for his sanity.  I mean, this same cat rips on 15 year old 30 metre GS boards, knows the value of a good 18 din World Cup PX Racing, and yet thinks I'd dig this ski. He did not track when I told him it was two skis.  He also said it was a perfect teaching ski, which, sure, whatever, I've never taught anyone so I wouldn't know, but dag.  I was sorely disappointed.  I never skied the ski it replaced, but I skied the ski that the ski it replaced replaced, and with that apparently super old ski in mind, this ski is up there with the TenEighty Gun and the oldest new Enforcer as far as disappointments go.  There's just no there there.

This, though, had a there.  And a here.  And just about everything else in between short of floating like a wood duck in 32" new.

I bought the original Vôlkl Kendo in '09.  Or '010.  Or '011.  Can't remember, because I'm old.  At least that's what Jake (the coworker) tells me.  I didn't know anything other than it was similar to the Mantra M2, but, like, the best width, which is 88mm.  The Mantra had surprised me with its carving prowess on a test ride with a customer who couldn't get a handle on his new pair, and I figured a centimetre less material should be even more carvier.  (Turns out his bindings had developed a Shaq-sized case of the Tyrolia Twists.)  At any rate, Lisa (the patroller with the deals) knew somebody who knew somebody, and in exhange for pro deal cash and, for some reason, an awkward hug, I had me a 177 Kendo, replete with fairly indecipherable topsheet graphics.  As I'd hoped, it absolutely ripped.  Top 5 skis.  I threw a take-off 14-din FreeFlex that itself would later develop a nasty bout of Tyrolia Twist on there and skied it until we needed the cash to escape the dungeon known as Weber County, when I sold it at the Fairgrounds Ski Swap.

The second Kendo I skied was in '016, and instead of surprising me with the goods, it disappointed me.  Those were some dark times.  Heavy rocker was on its way out, but still fouling a lot of should-have-beens like Boa is fouling the ski boot world right now.  It was damp, to the point of death.  It was solid, to the point of feeling heavy.  It had a set turn radius, to the point of feeling stuck.  And it was dark blue, boring to the point of disinterest.  I loved the confusing black paint-on-titanal topsheet of the OG, and this then-new ski was just utterly, utterly uninteresting.

This past McU's Happy Fun Time Demo Day, the first ski I grabbed was a 184 Kendo Mantra 88.  (Sorry, Volķl.  Silly name changes don't improve skis.)  In keeping with my Steenburgh-like dispassion, I expected little.  Especially in memory of that M2 ski back at The Place That Shall Not Be Named.  McU's helped my lack of interest by installing a 10-din piece of plastic I was worried would shatter at Tower 1 under the depression sheaves, but thankfully, that didn't happen and I'm still here.  Once all the pomp and circumstance and waiting was over, and I could throw it on a nice edge angle, I felt good.  Happy, even.  It's a stout ski, but alive.  Holds an edge like the original, and lets go when it should.  It reminds me of the original, though not quite as quick out of a turn.  Not as much rebound, which I guess is fine since they are aimed ever so slightly below me.  They still don't have the kick-in-the-teeth snap that the original did, and for that I am a touch dismayed.  I wish ski manufacturers were more willing to toss off a bike industry style f-bomb and say "here's a ski, and it's up to you to ski it."  No one does anymore, and we're worse off for it.

Centre of mass over base of support, 'bout 18 colours represented, half-assed racer roll on the pant cuff, not a single repeated brand, rack-find GS poles. . .this much steez takes years of work. Oh, and a Peregrine 80 doing what it's told.

The hand-offs on demo day are always a little awkward.  Usually shops send up their mechanic types so that they don't have to indemnify any sales kids who can't be trusted to actually know what forward pressure is, and we mechanic types don't always got that good customer service.  One guy told me I was stepping into the binding too fast, as though bindings care how quickly they open and close.  He took the Võlkļ Peregrine 80 I skied second with a rote and dispassionate "how was it," that wasn't even really a question, and then got really weird when I said it was super easy to ski.  I think he wanted me to say it ripped like a gelada baboon on MDMA or sliced like a dull ginsu through luke-warm camembert or something.  I don't know.  All I know is it was a ski that did skiing.  If I had never skied a race ski, or an old-timey Head Monster, maybe it woulda been interesting, but it just wasn't.  It held the edge like you'd want a frontside ski to do, released that edge quickly, and transitioned well, but that's like saying I turned the key in my Forester and it started up, and that when I pushed the gas pedal it went forward as long as I'd released the clutch while also in gear.  It is supposed to do those things.  

Record scratch.

I just gooooooooogled for retail (a cool grand, if you must know, and without choice in binding cos Marker Dalbello Vołķľ group) and realised that it was designed to be "approachable".  I did what Rob Christensen  back in '94 said I would when I assumed something.  This is a herky-jerky way of bringing it all back around, then.  Expectations.  I knew of the ski because one of the most relaxing things to do when I'm all tense or whatever is watch Ski Essentials product videos.  Jeff and Bob have that podcast chemistry, and they keep the sales goop to a minimum while still showing excitement for the product.  Apparently I sat too far in the back of the class during the Peregrine episode.  I figured that if it's named after the fastest bird in the world, it'd be the fastest ski on the hill.  I guess ze Chermans don't think like that.

Not being an aspiring intermediate on the ski like I very much am on the mountain bike, I can't say how precisely they nailed it, but Ima give em a solid A-.  As an expert skier--like, seriously, I'm the best skier on the mountain, hash tag G.N.A.R. points--I didn't have to think at all to roll out some nice full-width carves on LuLu My Favourite Run At Bogus.  It held on, more than I'd expect from something mainline publications would call "agreeable", all the way until I told it to let go.

So there you go.  Hopefully that's as clear as mud.

Elyse Saugstad, certified Blizzard ripper, definitely not on the Black Pearl.

Speaking of disappointing skis, women's ski reviews usually be like JUST BUY A BLACK PEARL 88, it's Got A Furry Cuff.  Don't ask questions, don't demand other things.  Never mind if you're as average as an American woman gets, you're somehow too big and too small and too strong (but not tall enough), so we just don't think you're our target market.  Just say yes and hand over swipe put your card in the slot tap your card wave your watch and make sure you buy an approved Marker binding cos marketing.  You only need a 9 din binding, I can tell.   Pretty sure they make pink 9 din bindings.

We don't do that here.  We turn our noses up at pink-it & shrink-it and gape open-mouthed at the Atomic rep who enthusiastically tells us they "took all the metal out," so it's better now.  Here, we use our gear until it's threadbare because the retail experience is so horrendous that we avoid it as long as possible (and if we're honest, can't afford retail prices anyway).  And when we do go to the shop, we try really hard not to make eye contact with anybody while striking a balance between not looking too interested in anything in particular and not looking too lost, because I don't want to be mansplained at and...

Not trying to be rude, I promise.  Just facts.

An obnoxious trend I've noticed of late is unisex skis.  It's not that the unisex skis are annoying.  No, unisex skis are a good thing.  In fact, any ski can be a unisex ski if you're a Tall Enough woman, or a Brave Enough man.  But what's obnoxious is rebranding men's skis as unisex and not making them in a full range of sizes.  IT'S NOT A UNISEX SKI IF THE SHORTEST LENGTH IS A 163.  Most women's skis come in a range of lengths, usually 4 or 5 options from 143ish cm long to 180ish cm long.  However, most "unisex" ski I've seen start at about 165 cm, with some variation for style (carvey skis go shorter, big-mountain skis go longer).  By not making the skis in shorter lengths, they're making these products inaccessible to a whole bunch of women who need a shorter ski.  It doesn't just suck to make a unisex ski that a bunch of people can't ski, but it's super gaslighty to say, "Oh, look at us, we are gender inclusive," and then exclude a bunch of of people who don't have as many options to begin with.  I get it: budgets are tight these days so you can't offer as many choices as you could in a better economy.  But, instead of actually doing diversity, we're just back to ignoring half the population.

Atomics have been so ugly for so long, it's hard to remember if THIS was the one they took the metal out of or if it was another misguided attempt at "art".

No surprise, amongst the 30-odd pairs of skis, demo day featured one ski I was excited to ski, and two others that I can say nice things about.  There were a couple (as in, two) other skis made for women that I just wasn't interested in, and my runs are limited these days, so you'll just have to look elsewhere for a review of the Rossi Rallybird and whatever Line is up to.  I would have been interested in trying the Rossi Super Blackops 98.  Technically a unisex ski, but a) I don't think they had it in my length, and b) even if they did, the two shortest lengths are sold out.  Go figure.

Volkl Secret 88 in 163 cm length

This ski is fucking great.  I would buy this ski.  That is the highest praise I can give a piece of gear.  Despite the tone of the previous four paragraphs, I'm being serious here.

It's lively and quick, springs from turn to turn.  Yet, it's also damp (metal!), holding an edge without chatter when loaded up.  I made small, medium and large turns and it liked 'em all.  This ski wants to be on edge and does not want to be ridden flat.  But it can also skid and slarve.  Other things to know: it has a little rocker, but skis more like a traditional cambered ski, and it's got those sweet, sweet sidewalls.  Ignore the 3D Radius Sidecut marketing copy that claims "Three radii in one ski for maximum TURNING & SPEED VERSATILITY IN ALL MOUNTAIN SKIING."*  The stated sidecut for the waist of the ski at 163 cm is 13 meters, which sounds about right based on its performance.  This is an all-mountain ski for advanced and expert women and it does it right.  Dang, good ski reviews are boring to write.

There we go.  Looks good on paper, and even better in person.  Functional, interesting, with just a touch of the feminine.  Eino told me he'd ski it and have you seen that guy's moustache?!

*This is an overly-complicated way to describe the shape of the ski.  In practice, you can't somehow get three different radii in one turn, which is what the marketing copy sounds like.  When you bend a ski, it creates an arc, which makes the ski travel in the shape of a turn.  When you bend it more, the arc gets smaller and the turn tighter.  Put less pressure on the ski, it straightens out and the turn radius increases.  The ski's sidecut affects how much you can bend a ski, but I'm skeptical that this technology makes a noticeable difference in how the ski skis.  I certainly didn't notice on my handful of runs on this ski.

Volk Secret 96 in 163 cm length

This ski also did it all, just in a different way than the Secret 88.  I personally don't prefer a width in the mid-90s (unlike the pop-punk bands of my youth); it's just too in-between for me.  I want a ski I can carve when I want to and it's too wide for that.  I can ski a mid-80s ski off-piste just fine, but I want something at least 100 mm underfoot for true powder.  So a 96 mm wide ski just doesn't have a lot of functionality for me.  That said, this ski edged almost as well as it skidded.  It was good and stable at speed.  The big different between the two Volkl secrets is that this one didn't like to make quick turns--which seemed to be the Secret 88's m.o.--but I also wouldn't expect that from a ski this wide.  Unlike the 88, it did like to go flat, so if you're into tucking down cat tracks, it'll do that for you.  Oh, and I just found out from looking at the Volkl website that this ski claims to have even more sidecuts: 4 in total!

I'd be remiss not to mention that "Secret" is the name of a deodorant.  How embarrassing!

Dynastar E-Cross 82 in 167 cm length

When Aaron handed me this ski, his eyes lit up and he said, "This is an instructor's ski."  I was suitably impressed, despite my initial skepticism.  No, I wouldn't want to own this ski or make it my daily driver, but it did do all the things and did them well.  The shovel-shaped, lightweight, rockered tip initiated extremely easily, and then the ski held on and held up as pressure built throughout the turn.  The ski was turney and slidey, which is to say, it's very easy to steer into any turn shape you want.  I'd call it "contemporary" as opposed to "traditional."  The older lady at the demo tent on the same skis seemed confused by it, and I don't blame her.  When I asked her what she usually skied, she said, "they're old," so I assume she's used to a ski that take a lot of input to direct them where you want to go.  You can't try too hard on this ski; it won't hook up and it doesn't drive.  But if you use a light touch, you will be rewarded by a smooth and stable ride.  Basically, as long as you don't expect it to go like a race ski, and if you would rather ski in the chop and slop than work on your schmedium-radius carved turns on the groomed, it'll do you well in most terrain and conditions.

Amy demonstrating that good schmedium radius on the E-Cross.  Of course it's worth checking out, cos all new skis are these days.  I mean, with all of our collective history, no design engineer would over-rocker a ski, right? RIGHT?!?!?

Dynastar M-Pro 92 in 162 cm length

Why?  Why would anyone want this much rocker?  What is this ski for?  I truly don't know.  I'm not just trying being rude here; this ski is not very functional.  The extremely rockered tip just flaps in the breeze, smacks the snow in way that is both distracting and destabilizing.  Oh god, I just looked at the marketing copy and this claims to be an all-mountain ski for intermediate to advanced skiers.  It would not be good for either.  It's squirrely; I realize that its goal is not to rail an edge (because it really, really can't do that), but an expert ski should be able to handle a little extra speed without feeling unstable.  And an intermediate who wants to improve their turns would not be well served by a ski that so twitchy that you can't rely on pressuring or tipping it to get you through the turn.

K2 Reckoner 92 in 169 cm length

To say this ski is "not for me" is being generous.  To be fair, this ski is not for me.  But I'm also confused about who this ski is for.  The advertising goes, "From the park to the trees, to the afternoon chop, these approachable, yet playful skis and their versatile All-Terrain Twin Rocker will have you wondering why you waited so long to jump on the twin-tip train."  Ok, let's break that down.  "From the park to the trees, to the afternoon chop" means it's a park ski that you might also ski to and from the chairlift and on a lap with your friends who know all the good stashes, which is to say, it's a park ski.  "Playful" and "versatile" in this case means a cheap, cap-construction ski that's not good at anything in particular.  The thing about jumping on the "twin-tip train" is so outdated, I am confused about what they're going for here.  Twin-tips were invented for skiing backwards.  That's all.  Rocker negates the need for this and adds the functionality of making transitions easier.  Straight forward twin-tip park skis haven't been a going concern since like, 2005?  Was this ski designed by some guy who watched some ski movies back in college?  In terms of actual performance, it has none.  It's bad at everything the Dynastar E-Cross is good at: it can't shape a turn (you just have to throw the ski sideways), lets the terrain throw you around, and the tip and tail slap the snow all the way down the hill.  But maybe that's what you want from a park ski?  A ski that goes straight, that you can throw around when you encounter obstacles, and makes a good noise when you land?  I guess if that's what you want, this might be the ski for you, you still shouldn't buy this ski.  See, that was way more fun to write than a complimentary review.

This ain't from demo day, but it's pretty purty.

Is there anything else to say?  All I know is we didn't dwell, we each just ate our house-made egg sandwich with bacon and arugula and a light mild aioli on a toasted Wolfermann's Heritage English muffin and packed the Forester, bougie stickers and all, and made for the turniest ski hill road I know.  All 178 of em by the time you're at the Patrol room.  And we had a real good time cos it was Demo Day.

Never was a world

Learning to tele, like really learning, took a lot of patience, repetition, and rain gear.  I crashed fell over at slow speed so many times that first full winter, and I learned really quick that the best way for me to stay at least sort of dry was a rain jacket, good Gore-tex bibs, and insulated leather gloves from Hardware Sales in the Iowa district.  You know the ones.  They don't need publicity anymore, having Henry Winklered the shit out of that water skiing stunt years ago.

Anyway, the gloves were easy to remove, with a cuff wide enough to hold onto my jacket sleeves, which both kept some snow out and allowed me to easily yank the glove off to shake the snow that inevitably did end up inside back onto the snowpack where it belonged.  They also dried easily on the rack above the propane stove in the shack at the bottom of 5.  I'd tumble, again, maybe the third or forth time in a run, grumble a little, get up, whip the snow out of my sleeves and gloves, and keep going.  I was 19 at the time, and determined that this, this fall right here, would be my last ever.  It would take years to accept that, different from the cheesy sticker that was all over gear and cars at the turn of this century, to free the heel is to free the body to fall.  I don't think my mind really followed, either, come to think of it.

Sure.  Okay.  I believe you believe that.

Below the top of what is now the Northway Chair* at Crystal is a nice southeasterly pitch.  Not super long, not crazy steep, just good open turns.  It's a lot bumpier now that that merger-era Unistar drive sits atop it.  At the turn of the century, it was smooth and creamy in the warm March sun.  Good terrain, then, to find a rhythm.  

I didn't learn to tele from the bottom up like the PSIA says you should.  I was dropping the knee on what Colorado folk think are black runs by the third day on freeheels.  (A little more than two years later I'd straightline the moguls here, skiers' left side of Green Valley, and have what is to this day my scariest crash.  Could've been so much worse than the broken nose and ganked neck and disapperated glasses I went home with.)  I tried a drill that day, one I came up with myself.  I sat all the way onto my trailing heel to feel what the foot and knee and hip and quad needed to feel like, to understand the shapes I'd need and how the turn progressed without needing to know how to actually do it.  I told myself it was only that run, and then I needed to be able to do it correctly.  It took a few moderate tweaks over the years, but by the bottom of the Valley I was what John Becker and Sam Lobet of P-A, WA called, with seeming affection, a telewhacker. 

The next day out, maybe a week later, I made some turns with a handful of fellow freeheelers, and it really clicked.  That wide open ramp under Northway Peak was quiet, and I watched three or four go, and then just made the shapes with my legs and torso that they made with theirs.  I found a rhythm, one I never really lost until my arthritis and tendinopathy took it away.  Looking up, I couldn't distinguish our tracks from some unevenness or poor turn shape I might have made, only that one set ended at my skis.  Somebody casually mentioned that I looked pretty experienced, and I had to hide my smirk when I said it was my fourth day.

If you're doing it right, people who don't know won't be able to tell.

For a long time, I skied in Atlas gloves whenever I could.  They aren't super practical if it's cold or wet, but when it's sunny and the bumps on Upper Nash get suitably big, they breathe well enough and are dextrous and waterproof in the palm and fingers and they smell a certain way in the sun and, I don't know, the smell still reminds of that one time in the ticket office at White Salmon when I was getting a buddy pass and I'd just plumb blowed up the thumb ligament in my right hand and couldn't really grasp the old sticky wicket tickets well on account of the thumb brace I had wrapped over the Atlas glove and this really nice, utterly intimidating lady walked over and said "here, let me do that for you," and I was smitten for at least 5 minutes.  I was 18 and I never got her name and certainly don't even remember her, really, just that brief moment.

I will admit to certain conceits with regard to skiing, especially to tele.  I tried to ski in Carharrts or Dickies as often as possible, along with the Atlas, and later, other types of work gloves.  I had a couple thrift store button-down shirts to wear when I wasn't feeling my usual flannel.  I think I wanted to project a casual disregard for the possibility of actually falling, and to distinguish myself from the bougier elements in our little world with my grease-stained duck workpants and emotional distance.  To belie the existence of any fear or misgiving.  I'd worked so hard to overcome that first year of non-stop tumbles.  I wanted folks who knew to really know.  (There's that guy.  Y'know, Two-turn Eino.  He never falls.)  Also, I found it comfortable and thought myself stylish.  I still really like Atlas gloves. 

See?

About the third time the heel cable on my old Pitbull 2 broke, I caved.  Some idiot volleyball patroller on Nose Dive who stopped the heavily used Black Diamond touring ski with the nice mountainy topsheet and de rigueur Canadian flag sticker it was on told me I'd never lose my ski if I used G3 bindings like he did, despite his not recognising that I'd kicked the ski and not fallen out of the binding. He'd put me off of upgrading the part of telemark skiing that both ties the room together and necessarily needs to be in the background for too long.  It took a minute, but a month or so later a pro patroller named Andrew was selling some Igneous skis with a G3 Targa on it and I bit.  It was the first ski I bought for the binding, the first in a loooooong and still continuous line.  I'd told myself I wanted the ski, but at 197, made of like two full-height maples, and with a less-than-okay top sheet--a pic of Anna Nicole Smith, with a blatant heroin reference as a "pro model"--the ski and I never really jived.  The binding and I did, and I skied it probly another 300 days before I and the Cascadian humidity wore the retention springs out.

The cable wasn't the only thing I broke, just the most annoying.  I broke both ankle straps on my first bumblebee T1 in two winters at Baker, and my humerus on a particularly funky morning, far skiers' left of Gabl's.  It'd rained about halfway up 5 the day before, and then cooled fairly quickly and continued on with the precip for a while before clearing off completely for an absolute North Cascades stunner of a day.  The top of Gabl's was fluff on butter, just real creamy and fast, but right about the Chute 4 bench it locked down under the confectioner's sugar.  I was hittin it full steam, and got knocked off line by the frozen whatevers sitting four or five inches under the surface.  My left ski caught something and stopped hard, and I went down on my left arm.  I lay on the ground for a minute, then couldn't get myself situated to stand up because the arm was completely dead.  It took a while for it to shake out.  When I got to the bottom of 5 to bump chairs, Paul the mechanic asked if it was snowing still, despite all that blue sky and dry air.  I still haven't forgiven that fu    

Anyway, that Sunday night after work I drove to Enumclaw, 170 miles away.  If you haven't driven a manual with a dead left arm, I don't recommend it.  Not as bad as if your right arm was broken, but still.  No fun.  I got in to see Luther, the family doc, and after an x-ray and some poking slash prodding, he told me to take it easy.  I took that to mean borrow my brother's alpine skis, and otherwise go about my business.  Turns out I tore about two inches of deltoid and chipped a piece off the humeral head.  I still feel the muscle, over twenty years later.  Coincidentally, it's right about where the nurse jabs you with the tetanus goop.

When I called home to chat a few weeks later, Ma said Luther asked her to scold me for shoveling snow and trying to hide when he came through my line at the bottom of 5.  170 miles from home and it's still a small town.

Bend the knees to bend the skis.

In addition to the shoulder destruction and the countless slow-speed tumbles, there were a few truly hard crashes in the learning process.

My EMT instructor, whose name escapes my just now, said that some folks see "tracers" when they have a mild head injury.  I had no idea what he was talking about, and assumed it was just a folk tale.  I mean, in all the old comic strips, folks who'd just got a concussion had birds flying about their heads.  The second time I hit something hard enough my skis stopped, after a nice somersault I could never accomplish on purpose, I sat and watched the thousand points of light race each other in very messy circles, their light trailing behind, playing havoc with my sanity.  I described what I was seeing to Stina and she just said "tracers." 

The twisting lights slowly faded as I sat, motionless and concerned about all the trauma I was certain I'd inflicted, but aside from seeing these same stars a little bit easier now in my forties, nothing really ever came of it. I can still remember well the entire run, the hike to the top of the King, breaking trail for Stina and her buddy Mary and them giving me first tracks down the Appliances Chute as a thank you, the straightline and subsequent wallop, the tracers, and the much mellower run to the bottom of DFF, turning and turning and turning, wondering if I'd ever feel normal again. I'm 43 now, and I still wonder.  I still see not only the tracers that show up here and there, but the blood in the snow and all of each tomohawk way back in '001 at the bottom of the Valley and, later, on the frontside of the Queen this time, how the the world looked when I realised I'd stopped, tails tucked into the snow, as though I was poured onto a chair made just for me, without any understanding of why I wasn't still skiing.  That pivotal moment alone is just missing.

It's probly an old timber feller.  Checkin in, sayin hi.

There are things I miss about making that turn.  Real and quantifiable, or ethereal and mearly mystical.  I was almost a cliché, making hay while the sun shone brightly, knowing that--without knowing when--the ride would end.  My legs aren't as strong and I'm not as fond of steeps these days.  Skiing is still paramount for me, but I haven't stepped into a tele binding in a long time.  In point of fact, I just handed my last binding over to my brother when he bopped on through BoyCee in November.  The last real day of making the freeheels was the day my former employee who became my boss took the photos on this page in the Spring of '016.  These photographs hurt a little, just looking.  Things gained and then lost, skills developed and then forgotten. 

So many turns, steeps or flats, crashing hard or pinning it top to bottom, solid, fast, controlled.  I could turn both ways and stop, in damn near any condition, on damn near any pitch.  I'd step into those bindings, and every time the feelings would flood my arteries.  Memories of people and places and times gone by.  Playing a show for 400 college kids in Tacoma or hiking alone at Chinook Pass.

The day I first stepped into those tele boots was the day my maternal grandfather passed away in February of 2000.  The phone rang early in the morning, 6 or so. I heard Ma cry out and go quiet, and I knew.  Grandpa Kelly had been languishing; a stroke had laid him low and there wasn't much to be done. He was 85 and a quiet fighter, a man who could outlast the hard times.  He could fall asleep when all of us grandkids were running around screaming, 41 of us by the time the youngest came along.  

Noël had wanted to ski with me again, or more acurately wanted me to follow her on the hill and chat while riding the chair.  There wasn't much for me to do at the funeral home, nor much room for all of us, so Ma said to keep my plans.  I rented gear, and that was that.  For the next sixteen years I felt like I belonged to something, that I wasn't just sliding along like all the other folks.  Sixteen years of feeling a connection to my paternal grandfather who passed away in '62, nineteen years before I came along.  He was a freeheeler back in the day, leather boots and leather strap bindings, Sámi muscles kicking around far northern Sverige's beautiful and low-slung mountains before moving to the states and meeting my grandmother in the UP, up around Calumet somewhere.  I think of him every time I see a raven on the wind, or hear one calling in the deep Doug fir in the rain.

-

Title from Jonatha Brooke's Landmine, which she released on her first fully-solo record, 1997's 10¢ Wings.  Rock may have sucked in the late 90s, mainstream country as well, but there were some really good artists doing other things who went largely unnoticed because, well, there wasn't a a funky beat you could bug out to or catchy, yet misogynistic rap lyrics written by white dudes who should probly have been cleaning toilets instead.  I listened to that album over and over and over again in my little '81 Tercel driving back and forth to Crystal and GRCC in '000.

*Bonus points if you can spot me.

Sendin postcards when they get there

 It took me a minute the other night to think of my roommate's name, but it was Rory. She wasn't actually my roommate, but she was dating Jason the bartender and he was my roommate, and somehow they fit on that tiny little Mt Baker Employee Lodge mattress.  The things we do for love, I guess.  Or short term ski area romance.  Anyway, Rory and I were having a chat about racing gates, specifically the citizens' Super G we'd just run that day.  Raven's Edge, I think the Howats called it.  I mentioned in passing that I didn't understand how I made up time on the second run, because I'd felt so much more in control throughout the first run.  Having never run gates before, I had no idea what it should feel like.  Rory just laughed, and said you know you're going fast if you're uncomfortable and maybe a little outa control.  Today that just sounds like race coach gibberish, but it was super profound to me then.

Yawgoons.  Learn the name.

Recently, our local hill was voted "Best Ski Resort - Readers' Choice" by the well-known ski magazine,  Newsweek.  As we all know, Newsweek has correspondents in all the major ski markets, like Äre, Innsbruck, St Moritz, the Vail Valley, Burlington, Cham, Santiago, Hokkaido, Scotland, the Eastern Townships/Memphremagog, Santa Fe, Cuyahoga, and the like.

Sorry.  I can't keep a straight face.  I honestly forgot that Newsweek existed.

At any rate, Best Ski Resort.  I won't dig into the list very far, other than to say that one of these things is not like the others.  They rate highly some familiar faces, like Telluride, Sun Valley, and Deer Valley.  Y'know, resorts.  Places with amenities like lodging, after-ski activities, and, I don't know, Maserati dealerships with complimentary Courvoisier served in Swarovski crystal with a side of blow.  Bogus just seems, well, bogus in comparison.  (If this setup sounds familiar, hear me out.  Ima do something different, hopefully.)  Without question, however, the only other joint on their list that's also on our list is Whiteface.  Fur might be commonplace in the town of Park City or the ersatz, ridiculously named, and utterly pointless Town of Mountain Village inside a corner the Telluride Ski Resort.  It stands out like a fur coat in a mud parking lot in the parking lot mud next to Chair 5, though.  And we try to park in the really muddy lots.

Sounds fancy.

The rangeland along the upper Arkansas south of Bueny is like a lot of the West.  Fairly arid, scrubby conifer and sage and aspen, which you can tell because of the way that it is.  Sheep country, if there ever was.  It's gentrified over the years, slowly at first, more rapid now as everywhere.  Salida has definitely arrived.  In the snow of a cold December day, though, it is a quiet winter scene of the sort we all dream about.  You can't see the accumulation deepen, but when you get to Monarch, there's six or eight and the Christmas Trees are holding better turns than you might expect.  The parking lot is half full, a lot of Texas plates this close to Christmas.  The bar is full, Texas drawls and cowboy boots and beers that don't cost a fortune.  It's cold on the hill, windy, inconsistent as the Rockies always are.  

Monarch has five chairs, with plans and okay for a sixth.  Runs the new lift will serve are already cut, and the new Skytrac triple is slated for completion this fall.  If you're not a nerd like me, you might not know that there was really no other option for who they went with on the new chair.  Skytrac's only drive terminal is the Monarch, named after King George III the ski area who bought Skytrac's first-ever drive terminal.  Skytrac is now owned by HTI/Leitner-Poma, but the cats who founded the company were former CTEC engineers.  Probably not coincidentally, the last full lift built at Monarch is a Garaventa-CTEC, and the other four are Halls, which, through a few M&A manœuvres, is owned by Dopplemayr/Garaventa.  The unsexiness of all this business speak aside, Monarch is in my book the best ski area in Colorado.  (And as we all know. . .)  There are arguments to be made, of course, even for Alterra-owned A-Basin and Powdr-owned Copper, but I just don't care.  Monarch is not where you go to be seen, it's where you go to ski.  And that, good people, is the entire essence.

This is a Monarch, but it's not one of that Monarch's Monarchs.

I've been to Burlington, WA, and the Burlington Coat Factory in the SuperMall Outlet Collection Seattle (actually Auburn), but never to Burlington VT.  As such, all I can do is dream.  Not necessarily about Burlington itself, but of all those towering ~ 4,000' peaks that frame the skyline.  (Did I actually say "towering"? Oof.)  There's Mansfield, of course, and Jay, but I'm not really interested in water parks or trams or in paying Vail for the priviledge of accessing the state highpoint.  I want the ragged rawness of Madonna and Sterling, at Smuggs.  The family-owned and -run Bolton, or the hopefully-not-too-too-bougie charm of Mont Sutton, just over the line in les Cantons de l'Est.  (Which is what you call the most English part of French Cannuckistan so that you can ignore names like Glen Sutton and Dunham.)  The Eastern Townships look like what a French prøtègé of Norman Rockwell would paint.  Snow, stout thickets of mysterious trees, gorgeous hills the locals call mountains, snow, cafés, brioche, thick wine from the old country, and probly a poutine or two.

This part of the world is by no means unknown, with Stowe just sitting there like a jewel waiting to be stolen, and Jay up there by itself, smug like a narco who actually got out of the game alive, water park and fraud convictions notwithstanding.  Burke in its corner, the forgotten cousin.  It's not the glamour, or the Boston accents off to do some weekend warrin', that I want.  It's the still-remaining mystery.  The certainty that it'll snow, even if it's not until next year.  And yes, the rain.  I swear, I'd learn how to ski in the rain again if I were there.

If we're parsing bests, and we are, we cannot ignore New England.  There's just so much history, so many little hills and big, so much life.  Little towns tucked into the draws and hollers, amazing views on the days where the sky turns blue and the trees stay white.  Names, gosh, they just roll off the tongue.  Smugglers' Notch.  Saskadena.  Sugarloaf.  Whaleback.  Saddleback.  Owl's Head.  Mont Bechervaise.  (Frantically checking if it's named after a cheese.  So far, no go.)  Bromont.  Catamount.  Yawgoo Valley.  Moon Valley, although that is now Titus.  Which makes me sad.  Big Rock.  Le Massif de Charlevoix, better know simply as Le Massif.  Mad River Glen.  Mont Tremblant.  Loon, Cannon, Wildcat, Plattekill.  Maybe none of them are Hash Tag The Best Skiing In North America Tee Em, but maybe, when the Nor'Easter sets up just right, one of em can be for a week or two.  If you've skied the Platty trees with a Laszlo or Brownski in a classic dump, well, hats off.  Supposedly it does get better.  I got not clue just how.

Do the trolls hide in here?

People ask me from time to time about my favourites, and I always demur.  Choosing is hard, even if it's options for gloves or goggles or helmet liners.  When it comes to where one should ski, it's so personal as to render recommendations null and void or at least more of an impressionist sketch than a real, hard and fast guide.  The truth is, even if the only option is Alterra, one should ski.  In sickness and in health.  If there are options, try em out.  The drive to Soldier isn't half-bad, easier for sure than to McCall, but folks here always go to Brundage or Tam and leave Fairfield to the sad losers who don't know better.  Like me and Amy.  Folks here are wrong about a lot of things, not the least of which is Soldier Mountain.

It's quiet in the loudest of times, and gets less snow than Bogus or Tam.  It hasn't trademarked the useless and untrue marketing phrase "The Best Snow in Idaho" like Brundage has.  There are only two chairs.  The lodge is small, and the parking lot unpaved.  There was a fire here not that long ago, and, unlike at least one recent late-season burn in the west is rumoured to have been, it wasn't started by the ski area to get around permitting issues.  They lost a bridge and almost lost the lower lift and the lodge.  Locals, as always, showed up and saved the structures.  The newly-open pitches are nice, even if the small stands of Doug fir that used to, um, stand here made for some interesting turns.  Soldier has what so many small family joints have, what so many corporate joints with their fancy chondotrams and gondobriolifts and giant blue bubbles and television screens don't.  Space to take a breath and clean air to actually breathe.  Belonging, or at least the room to believe you might could.  Small rollovers, unfamiliar trees, and some old folks from somewhere else who ski every sunny day because that's what they've done since 1949.  T-shirts with a snowcat or ski area logo for sale next to the always decent pot o' chili.  Good grooming, too, once the grass is covered.  They're open three or four days a week, and the local kids all yell at each other from the chair and cheer each other on.  (I'm sure there's some cliquishness here, like anywhere, but I'm painting an idyll at the moment.  Let me have my dreams.)

Best view of a 14er from a beginner chair with many Abies.  Also, since we're stating opinion as fact, best Abies: the fairly aptly named Shasta fir.  The big ones are off to lookers' right.  You'll just hafta imagine.

Mt Baker has the snow, and the terrain, and the absolutely stunning views, and on the face of it in the right crowd, you could easily call them the best.  They have that new mid-mountain chalet, which is gorgeous, and Don Wilcox's fever dream at White Salmon, the main lodge.  Hash Tag World Record Snowfall.  Legendary baked salmon.  And, unfortunately, the attitude to go along with it all.  A mean undercurrent from which you're never fully safe.  One of the rudest, most condescending coworkers I've ever had is one of the top muckety-mucks, and in his on-hill reports he sounds exactly the same as he did in the fall of 2000.  Baker is the personification of the common human misperception that because the place you are is legit, by extension, you are as well.  You could die inbounds at Baker, fairly easily, and folks have.  Baker's been shut down at least once by their liability carrier for exactly that reason.  Many folks then take this knowledge and run with it, believing that since they're alive, they've bested some demon that weaker folks can't.

Folks pass through, good folks, like Rory and Jason the Bartender.  People who stick, though, with few exceptions, are mossbacks, meaner than hell and hiding from something or other.  That fake-chill pseudo-hippie bullshit where you're always wondering when the hammer's goin down.  When the trustafarian in full Arc'teryx kit is gonna unleash a tirade on you for not smacking the icy chair seat with enough angst and wore out sheave liner.  When Howat's gonna just sell you down the river.

See?!  Super Fancy.  Best Ski Areas need Best Ski Area Bars.  Even if neither of us has had a sip since the last presidency.

To call something the best is hubris.  Unnecessary.  There are no objective measures that matter.  Snowfall? Okay, Baker wins.  Unless Alyeska does.  Or Alta.  Japow.  Erie, PA.  Or Bogus, if you can believe it.  Not season or monthly totals, but just last month we got more out of a two-day cycle than anyone else in North America in that same two-day stretch.  It's not just politicians and free-marketeers who bend the data to serve their own ends.  As well, too, also, do we only honour the amount of SWE that falls?  That sticks around?  Or do we start getting snobby and try to quantify what is "best"?  I disagree with Ski Utah, and even with Professor PowPow himself, Jim Steenburgh.  Utah is not the greatest snow on earth, just as Big Sky isn't the Biggest Skiing in the US, let alone North America.  (Although, they seem to have backed off that particular marketing angle.)  The quality of a turn, how it feels in the moment, is so heavily personal, and effected so aggressively by mood, and ability, and timing, and add in your own metrics, that measuring it is as impossible as it is unnecessary.  (Thanks, Stacie.  I'll never misspell that word.)

Is Bogus the best precisely because of that ephemeral, unknowable thing?  Some unknowable that we don't have any idea what it even is?  Or is it because some random in town built a bot to stuff the ballot box?  Does it even matter?  To that last point, I'd say no.  It does not.

This is what Rossignol was talking about when they said "BEST. DAY. EVER." Bonus points if you can name that chair.  Double happiness points if you know what kind.

I can't remember exactly which turnout I waited so long at, but it was one or two or three below Cayuse, on the north side.  410 is a winding tunnel of a mountain road in the Park, always wet.  Maybe not under that one heat dome, the one that burnt Lytton, BC and set records I pray to God will stand for millennia, but otherwise, wet.  It's gorgeous, and the air is clean even with the higher burden of motor tourism this modern era hath wrought.  That day, I don't even remember which summer, was quiet, to the point where I probly shoulda maybe not planned a long descent that ended with a mandatory hitch or two-hour skin.  Who are we, though, if we always follow what is "best"?

I started the day up at Chinook, mostly skiing the east face, looking down the upper American River drainage.  After a few fun-but-perfunctory runs, I figured what the heck?!  I'd been considering a long tour, long for me anyway, for quite a while.  Top of Yakima to wherever I landed down on 410.  I started by booting up the north chute to the peak itself.  Steep, almost a crux at the top.  The turns in the chute were smooth and creamy June corn.  Every turn that day was.

Upon exiting the chute, I traversed left under the cornices that hang menacingly off the the north side of the west shoulder of Yakima, and when I saw the longest descent on the pitch to my right, dropped my right knee and skied to a small bench where some older folks on AT gear were collected, looking up at the ridgeline.  One of them asked if I'd heard it behind me.  "Heard what?"  He pointed with his pole, looking a bit shaken.  I turned around to look, hoping to see my sweet turns, only to see them covered by a slide.  Part of the cornice had gone, maybe two fridges wide.  (I grew up at Crystal, and at least then, some lines off the King were named by the size of common debris slides.  Hence, Appliances, Toaster, et cetera.)  The rubble crumbled as it went, but I'm betting it woulda broke a leg or two, or worse.  I raised my eyebrows, shrugged, and headed off the bench toward the upper end of Klickitat Creek.  From there, it's tree skiing to the road.

Mt Bachelor is the best at rime in the country.  This is just a lodge, halfway up the hill, during a short storm in April.

It took almost two hours waiting, but finally a gray sedan pulled up.  There were four Mexican dudes out on a drive, super friendly, really interested in what I was doing.  They didn't speak much English, and I even less Spanish, but we got the point through gestures and laughs.  They gave me a ride up to Chinook, one of the fellas even taking off his shoe and using the whole thing to tie the trunk down over my skis.  Up top, we took some pictures, and they tried to ski on my tele boards.  There aren't any real easy pitches on the east side of the pass, and they all fell a bunch, but they were clearly enjoying themselves.  I was as well.  We hung out for a while before I realised how late it was getting, and I headed off to town.

The turns were solid that day, but with repetition and exposure, not actually remarkable in the arc of my skiing life.  I am privileged when I say that, I know.  I can't measure anything about those turns, even in memory.  They are long gone, the snow melted two decades ago along with my recollection of any individual motion.  Thing is, though, much like Bogus last month, I have no doubt that for that short time, those turns were the best in the country.

See?!

-

Title from James McMurtry's I'm Not From Here.  One of many incisive tunes from one of the best storytellers and social critics of his or any generation.