CosmicCowboy
01-28-2013, 06:53 PM
I typed this out for another forum and decided to share. Understand, I ended up having a condo in colorado and skiing double black shit. This was the g rated version. drugs were involved in the making of this epic ski adventure.
I was 19 years old and in love. My older (very hot) girlfriend had just graduated in December and gotten a scholarship to get her masters in Chem E at U of C in Boulder.
She decided to move to Steamboat Springs for the spring snow season before starting school in the fall, got a job cleaning condos and rented an apartment with a couple of other ski bums. They skied every morning and worked in the afternoon. Obviously they were very good.
Anyway, she invited me up for the week to stay with her and ski. I had never skied before but I had never found anything I couldn't do when I tried. Snow skiing? pfffft. I was bulletproof, and thought....no problem..I could water ski, surf, ride, rope, shoot, hunt like a madman, shoot a limit of doves with a box of .410 shells, ride dirt bikes, skateboard... never been skunked yet. I packed up my '68 Galaxy and drove non-stop. I was in love. Don't know a dang thing about snow skiing ( Personal computers and the internet hadn't been invented yet)
Got there in the late afternoon, we went to the bar, had dinner, went home. Did I mention I was 19 years old and in love? Didn't get much sleep that night.
The next morning all her friends were going to go ski a bunch of something they called black runs and I could tell she wanted to go but she politely offered to come with me and I said...aw heck no...go with them...i'll figure all this out and go with you guys tomorrow...
So I go to the ski shop and rent my ski's. SPADEMAN bindings. you guys should look that up. a little brass plate on the bottom of your boot that locks into a bigger brass thing a ma jig that was bolted to the ski.
I'm like cool lets get this over with. I put the boots on and step outside on the icy sidewalk, take about three strides and immediately bust my ass head over heels. Strapping a boot on with a little brass plate smaller than a saucer is NOT an all terrain shoe. Sooo I shuffled over to the gondola like my 92 year old father with my stuff, watching everyone else still trying to act cool.
I mean...how much cooler can you be than riding on a gondola in Steamboat Colorado wearing 13MWZ Wranglers and a carhart jacket. Those fools were WAAAAAY overdressed. I mean, it's MARCH dudes. ( I vividly remember the month because later that day a nude white guy with 2 foot long dreadlocks and a ZZZ top beard with a green shamrock painted on his ass skiied up to me throwing snow on me as he stopped and leaned over said "wow, dude, that was an AWESOME CRASH" and then skiied off.)
anyway, as I was riding up the lift I was looking down at all those little people trying to pick up technique tips...I saw guys going really fast and making these cool sweeping turns back and forth and then I saw other people all hunched over like they had just gotten up off the toilet skiing all pigeon toed with the tips of their skis almost touching and the heels of the skis almost 6' apart. That did not look cool at all. I mean, who wants to be THAT guy? I could run a water ski slalom course at 32mph and smoke it...this couldn't be THAT hard.
BTW, this was back in the days before they started teaching people with "stepped" length skis...you know, really short at first and then progressively longer as you learned how to turn and use them. Long skis were "in" and they sized you by standing the ski up next to you and giving you one two or three inches taller than you. Being 6'-5" they had given me the longest skis in the shop. Anyway...I finally get to the top in the gondola, get my ski's, walk over to the top of the first run I saw. I put the skis on, tied the straps around my ankles (this was before ski brakes...when you crashed your skis were coming with you) and as I got back up from that contortionists position I had to get into to buckle the straps the first twinge of doubt hit me. It just sunk in that I couldn't bend my ankles and my feet were suddenly almost 7' long. That twinge lasted about a half a second until my bulletproof male ego took over. I put my boots together leaned forward and pointed em straight down hill. This couldn't be that hard.
You know, it's surprising how fast snow skis can accelerate on that snow when they are pointed straight downhill. When I got going about as fast as I was comfortable with ( I was just zipping by those goobers doing their "teepees" I decided it was time to turn and leaned into my best water ski turn.
That's when I realized that although skis were involved the techniques were quite different. I was now still skiing straight down hill but my form was more like I was trying to win a limbo contest. The warning light in the brain started to blink and then it felt like the ski's had afterburners on them. My brain went into full alarm and started screaming "MAYDAY!...MAYDAY!...MAYDAY! It hit the eject button and I flopped over on my side in the snow. Heck, snows soft, right?
About 5 minutes later I stopped flipping and rolling. I kind of laid there in the snow looking up at that beautiful blue Colorado Sky and my brain went through it's 110 point checklist looking to see what got damaged this time. Surprisingly I passed inspection except for a knot on my head where one of the skis had whacked me and the 3 gallons of snow that had somehow gotten packed inside my 13MWZ's. Lucked out and it was the flat and not the edge of the ski that hit me. Back then head cuts were common and it wasn't unusual to ski up on a bloody patch in the snow like someone shot a deer there.
That's when ZZDreadlocks skied up and threw snow on me. I remember looking up and making a mental note not to ever ski nude. It's not a very good way to impress the ladies as with the cold it looked like a scared turtle.
Since I was basically at the top of the mountain after getting off the gondola and crashing in flames I had a few thousand feet of elevation to practice on. It was pretty apparent that turning and stopping was a basic skill I needed to master fairly soon. I figured out I could do a little bunny hop when I wanted to turn and slide my downhill ski around and then pick up my uphill ski and put it next to the downhill ski and skid to a stop.
That was so cool! 30 minutes on the mountain and I had already figured how to skid to a stop and throw snow. The problem was, once I did that I had to turn around with my 7' long skis and do it in the opposite direction. Trying to figure out how to link the two without stopping took another hour or two and another thousand feet or so of elevation. It was ugly, but as long as I had enough width to do it I was fine. There was even about a 15 minute period I didn't crash.
Did I mention that all the exertion had melted all the snow in my pants which had refrozen on the outside of my jeans? I couldn't stop working at it or I would have frozen into a hypothermic snowman.
I'm really congratulating myself now about how well I was doing. Then the big wide ski run ended and I was still at least a thousand feet above the base area. From the end of the run there were two trails about 20' wide pointing downhill. I was learning about "runout trails". They were just designed to get people that knew how to steer, slow down, and stop off the mountain and back to the lift. At this point I had really mastered one of those essential skills. Like the experience skier I now was, I consulted my ski map to see which trail would get me the quickest to a pair of dry jeans and a cold beer.
The first two thirds of the war down was a painful exercise of getting as close to the edge out of the way as possible and going straight, gaining speed all the time, bunnyhop, skid, go straight, bunny hop skid, etc....all the time everybody else is blasting by me like I'm going 40 on the Katy Freeway...it was humiliating...I was driving like my grandmother.
We make the final turn to the left and three or four hundred yards ahead I could see the giant flat snowy base area where I was confident that I would have plenty of time to gradually turn uphill until I was going slow enough to do the cosmiccowbuy bunnyhopstop.
iwas like sweeeet and turned those babys downhill...now it was MY TURN.
I was passing THEM now. I was working on my olympic tuck and trying to get as streamlined as possible when I looked further up ahead realized that EVERYBODY was making a right turn. Uhhhhh....
And that's when I saw the yellow nylon rope strung across the trail sagging down to about knee high. Uh Oh.
It was decision time. crash in flames and roll and flip like a crazy ski ninja with my twin 7 foot sabers of death right through that crowd of 20 or thirty people milling around the turn or take the fence.
No choice there...the fence had to go...I hit that thing going about mach 3 and looked left and right and fortunately the fence was strung with bamboo stakes and nylon rope and not with t posts and barbed wire like we would have done it in texas. It was like a lazy mellow colorado stoner fence that I was now dragging behind me like a giant clicking/clacking storm anchor.
It finally slowed my to a stop like an F14 on the arresting wire of a carrier and just as I finally came to a stop a very irritated ski patrol guy came skiing down and skidded to a stop throwing snow on me (again) and it suddenly dawned on me...Throwing snow on someone else was the Colorado equivalent of Clint Eastwood spitting tobacco juice. Not really a compliment.
He didn't even know what to say so I broke the ice.
"uhhhh who put that fucking fence there?"
Him "the ski school did. You might want to consider buying a group lesson and visiting them tomorrow"...He was actually pretty cool about it and we started chit chatting and helped me get untangled from my sea anchor and let me go without pulling my badge.
I stored my stuff, ran up to the apartment, changed jeans and got to the bar just as my girlfriend and her friends got there. she asked me how it went and I told her I loved it...fell a few times but no big deal.I'm ready to do it again after lunch. LOL
I was 19 years old and in love. My older (very hot) girlfriend had just graduated in December and gotten a scholarship to get her masters in Chem E at U of C in Boulder.
She decided to move to Steamboat Springs for the spring snow season before starting school in the fall, got a job cleaning condos and rented an apartment with a couple of other ski bums. They skied every morning and worked in the afternoon. Obviously they were very good.
Anyway, she invited me up for the week to stay with her and ski. I had never skied before but I had never found anything I couldn't do when I tried. Snow skiing? pfffft. I was bulletproof, and thought....no problem..I could water ski, surf, ride, rope, shoot, hunt like a madman, shoot a limit of doves with a box of .410 shells, ride dirt bikes, skateboard... never been skunked yet. I packed up my '68 Galaxy and drove non-stop. I was in love. Don't know a dang thing about snow skiing ( Personal computers and the internet hadn't been invented yet)
Got there in the late afternoon, we went to the bar, had dinner, went home. Did I mention I was 19 years old and in love? Didn't get much sleep that night.
The next morning all her friends were going to go ski a bunch of something they called black runs and I could tell she wanted to go but she politely offered to come with me and I said...aw heck no...go with them...i'll figure all this out and go with you guys tomorrow...
So I go to the ski shop and rent my ski's. SPADEMAN bindings. you guys should look that up. a little brass plate on the bottom of your boot that locks into a bigger brass thing a ma jig that was bolted to the ski.
I'm like cool lets get this over with. I put the boots on and step outside on the icy sidewalk, take about three strides and immediately bust my ass head over heels. Strapping a boot on with a little brass plate smaller than a saucer is NOT an all terrain shoe. Sooo I shuffled over to the gondola like my 92 year old father with my stuff, watching everyone else still trying to act cool.
I mean...how much cooler can you be than riding on a gondola in Steamboat Colorado wearing 13MWZ Wranglers and a carhart jacket. Those fools were WAAAAAY overdressed. I mean, it's MARCH dudes. ( I vividly remember the month because later that day a nude white guy with 2 foot long dreadlocks and a ZZZ top beard with a green shamrock painted on his ass skiied up to me throwing snow on me as he stopped and leaned over said "wow, dude, that was an AWESOME CRASH" and then skiied off.)
anyway, as I was riding up the lift I was looking down at all those little people trying to pick up technique tips...I saw guys going really fast and making these cool sweeping turns back and forth and then I saw other people all hunched over like they had just gotten up off the toilet skiing all pigeon toed with the tips of their skis almost touching and the heels of the skis almost 6' apart. That did not look cool at all. I mean, who wants to be THAT guy? I could run a water ski slalom course at 32mph and smoke it...this couldn't be THAT hard.
BTW, this was back in the days before they started teaching people with "stepped" length skis...you know, really short at first and then progressively longer as you learned how to turn and use them. Long skis were "in" and they sized you by standing the ski up next to you and giving you one two or three inches taller than you. Being 6'-5" they had given me the longest skis in the shop. Anyway...I finally get to the top in the gondola, get my ski's, walk over to the top of the first run I saw. I put the skis on, tied the straps around my ankles (this was before ski brakes...when you crashed your skis were coming with you) and as I got back up from that contortionists position I had to get into to buckle the straps the first twinge of doubt hit me. It just sunk in that I couldn't bend my ankles and my feet were suddenly almost 7' long. That twinge lasted about a half a second until my bulletproof male ego took over. I put my boots together leaned forward and pointed em straight down hill. This couldn't be that hard.
You know, it's surprising how fast snow skis can accelerate on that snow when they are pointed straight downhill. When I got going about as fast as I was comfortable with ( I was just zipping by those goobers doing their "teepees" I decided it was time to turn and leaned into my best water ski turn.
That's when I realized that although skis were involved the techniques were quite different. I was now still skiing straight down hill but my form was more like I was trying to win a limbo contest. The warning light in the brain started to blink and then it felt like the ski's had afterburners on them. My brain went into full alarm and started screaming "MAYDAY!...MAYDAY!...MAYDAY! It hit the eject button and I flopped over on my side in the snow. Heck, snows soft, right?
About 5 minutes later I stopped flipping and rolling. I kind of laid there in the snow looking up at that beautiful blue Colorado Sky and my brain went through it's 110 point checklist looking to see what got damaged this time. Surprisingly I passed inspection except for a knot on my head where one of the skis had whacked me and the 3 gallons of snow that had somehow gotten packed inside my 13MWZ's. Lucked out and it was the flat and not the edge of the ski that hit me. Back then head cuts were common and it wasn't unusual to ski up on a bloody patch in the snow like someone shot a deer there.
That's when ZZDreadlocks skied up and threw snow on me. I remember looking up and making a mental note not to ever ski nude. It's not a very good way to impress the ladies as with the cold it looked like a scared turtle.
Since I was basically at the top of the mountain after getting off the gondola and crashing in flames I had a few thousand feet of elevation to practice on. It was pretty apparent that turning and stopping was a basic skill I needed to master fairly soon. I figured out I could do a little bunny hop when I wanted to turn and slide my downhill ski around and then pick up my uphill ski and put it next to the downhill ski and skid to a stop.
That was so cool! 30 minutes on the mountain and I had already figured how to skid to a stop and throw snow. The problem was, once I did that I had to turn around with my 7' long skis and do it in the opposite direction. Trying to figure out how to link the two without stopping took another hour or two and another thousand feet or so of elevation. It was ugly, but as long as I had enough width to do it I was fine. There was even about a 15 minute period I didn't crash.
Did I mention that all the exertion had melted all the snow in my pants which had refrozen on the outside of my jeans? I couldn't stop working at it or I would have frozen into a hypothermic snowman.
I'm really congratulating myself now about how well I was doing. Then the big wide ski run ended and I was still at least a thousand feet above the base area. From the end of the run there were two trails about 20' wide pointing downhill. I was learning about "runout trails". They were just designed to get people that knew how to steer, slow down, and stop off the mountain and back to the lift. At this point I had really mastered one of those essential skills. Like the experience skier I now was, I consulted my ski map to see which trail would get me the quickest to a pair of dry jeans and a cold beer.
The first two thirds of the war down was a painful exercise of getting as close to the edge out of the way as possible and going straight, gaining speed all the time, bunnyhop, skid, go straight, bunny hop skid, etc....all the time everybody else is blasting by me like I'm going 40 on the Katy Freeway...it was humiliating...I was driving like my grandmother.
We make the final turn to the left and three or four hundred yards ahead I could see the giant flat snowy base area where I was confident that I would have plenty of time to gradually turn uphill until I was going slow enough to do the cosmiccowbuy bunnyhopstop.
iwas like sweeeet and turned those babys downhill...now it was MY TURN.
I was passing THEM now. I was working on my olympic tuck and trying to get as streamlined as possible when I looked further up ahead realized that EVERYBODY was making a right turn. Uhhhhh....
And that's when I saw the yellow nylon rope strung across the trail sagging down to about knee high. Uh Oh.
It was decision time. crash in flames and roll and flip like a crazy ski ninja with my twin 7 foot sabers of death right through that crowd of 20 or thirty people milling around the turn or take the fence.
No choice there...the fence had to go...I hit that thing going about mach 3 and looked left and right and fortunately the fence was strung with bamboo stakes and nylon rope and not with t posts and barbed wire like we would have done it in texas. It was like a lazy mellow colorado stoner fence that I was now dragging behind me like a giant clicking/clacking storm anchor.
It finally slowed my to a stop like an F14 on the arresting wire of a carrier and just as I finally came to a stop a very irritated ski patrol guy came skiing down and skidded to a stop throwing snow on me (again) and it suddenly dawned on me...Throwing snow on someone else was the Colorado equivalent of Clint Eastwood spitting tobacco juice. Not really a compliment.
He didn't even know what to say so I broke the ice.
"uhhhh who put that fucking fence there?"
Him "the ski school did. You might want to consider buying a group lesson and visiting them tomorrow"...He was actually pretty cool about it and we started chit chatting and helped me get untangled from my sea anchor and let me go without pulling my badge.
I stored my stuff, ran up to the apartment, changed jeans and got to the bar just as my girlfriend and her friends got there. she asked me how it went and I told her I loved it...fell a few times but no big deal.I'm ready to do it again after lunch. LOL