Wayback Machine Ski Related Memories

[Brownski]

This first one is a repost from the old forum. The death of Nabble seems like a good excuse to throw it up again.

What have the rest of you guys got?

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It's the late 90s (97/98 season I think) I'm working at Killington at the time and I'm absolutely thrilled to be living ON THE ACCESS ROAD and under a bar. The place was a defunct hotel. It was a total dump. I rented one room for almost no money. The other rooms were rented to other people. There was a common area with a kitchenette, a big fridge and a TV that I pretty much shared with a bunch of strangers.

So one night, after getting back from a late shift at work (I think), I'm sitting in the common area watching TV and drinking a beer. One of the guys who rents one of the other rooms has a bunch of friends visiting and they're all partying their asses off in the bar upstairs but the guy that actually lives there has already crashed and is passed out on the couch behind me.

I hear a noise and look over my shoulder. One of this guys friends just opened the fridge. I keep an eye on him cause I figure he's gonna try to take one of my beers. Oh shit! He is so drunk he thinks it's a urinal!

I jump up and yank him back. He's so wasted I am able to throw him like a rag doll. Of course he doesn't stop peeing.

He throws a big yellow arc across the wall, right over his sleeping buddy. I watch him go down, completely dumbfounded by what I'm seeing but I am aware enough to step back and not get peed on. Never saw that before.

Oh fuck. I had two big bags of fruit in there.

 

[Adirondack Johnny]

Dicey Rileys!

 

[Peter Minde]

Brownski, it sounds like there's enough material there for a blog post!

 

[Peter Minde]

My wayback machine memory. Sorry, I don't have photos and I can't draw. The year I hit my personal best in the Lake Placid Loppet. The high temperature MAYBE hit 15 degrees. This would be 1998, give or take a year. After I finished, I staggered into the lodge to get some dry clothes. I struggled to get one ski boot off, then I had to take a break. Removed my other ski boot, I had to rest. Same thing with the socks. My wife was looking at me wondering if she should dial 911.

Then Marc Gilbertson, bounced in to the room. He won the race and competed in the 1998 Winter Olympics. Having finished long before me, he'd changed and was collecting his pack. His energy was like he'd just gone down to the corner for a quart of milk rather than winning a 50 km race. Amazing.

 

[Brownski]

I think I may try to self publish a ski bumming themed graphic novel. Need to look for my colored pencils now

 

[Peter Minde]

Do it! Looking forward to red g your adventures!

 

[Campgottagopee]

I think I may try to self publish a ski bumming themed graphic novel. Need to look for my colored pencils now

dDooooooo it!

 

[Campgottagopee]

I smoked a joint with Susie Chapstick

 

[Brownski]

Here’s another rerun: my biggest f'up on a ski lift, mid nineties while working as a lift operator at Alpine Meadows. The old Weasel double was a slow fixed grip riblet with two spots to get off but also, more unusual, two to get on. The first ramp serviced a bunch of blue trails and then the line went through a low pass and travelled horizontally through the trees to provide access to the back side of the resort.

It was a storm day and the backside wasn't open but they still had to have a liftie in that last shack. I just spent the whole day shoveling off the ramp and the ten foot high platform the shack was on so that the snow wouldn't interfere with the chairs as it piled up. At the end of the day, I was supposed to download back to the mid station and ski down from there, something I'd done many times before.

This time, after changing into my ski boots and gathering up all my crap, I stepped out in front of the moving chars like I always did but some piece of my gear, most likely a pole, caught itself between the platform and the chair. As I went to sit, the chair rose up my back; the line was pulling but my pole was holding the chair, storing up energy like a spring. Right about the time I figured out what was happening the Weasel overcame the friction and the chair released all that coiled up energy right into my ass. It launched me like a catapult, off the platform. It threw me so hard it felt like I was flying.

The craziest thing was that I was flying through the trees like superman and when I looked left my skis were right there flying along with me. My backpack and sorrels too. For a split second, it was like we were flying along in a little formation together. Of course I don't have photographic proof but this is how I remember it (drew this in leiu of taking notes at a supplier training the other day)

I didn't fly very far though. It had snowed about three foot that day so my landing was probably softer then the takeoff. I sat up in the middle of this big crater, not knowing whether to shit or go blind. Not only was I not injured, I didn't even have a bruise. I felt around in the snow to find my gear, trudged back through the waist deep snow, up the ramp and got on the lift successfully on my second try. The guy at the mid station was like "what the fuck took you so long."

True story

 

[Harvey]

This is the wayback-est thing I have. I'm not going to repost it, just put up the link.

In 1998, I planned to winter camp with a partner, who bailed on me at the last minute. A huge storm was forecast, more than 3 feet, and I couldn't resist, so I went for it. Before digital, it was written a few years later from vivid memory, the first blog post on NYSB.

Winter Camping Alone: High Adventure

I didn't plan to go solo.

nyskiblog.com

After the storm