The 100% Perfect Skiing Run

Ernest Hemingway asserted that all he had to do was write One True Sentence. Well, sure – easy I suppose. He did it a bunch of times though. There was something about going out too far to catch a fish. And knowing that he was headed to the snowy summit of Kilamanjaro…that one never made any sense to me, how was he going to recover from his infected thorn scratch at that altitude? But his truest sentence (most true?) he ever wrote was about skiing from his greatest masterpiece, the six-page short Cross-Country Snow: “There’s nothing really can touch skiing…It’s too swell to talk about.” That sentence is true enough, but it didn’t prevent him from talking about skiing on several more occasions and mostly getting it right, both the skiing powder part and the social part (and the, um, alcohol part). And this was in 1924, when it would seem the sport of skiing barely resembles what we do today.

The story begins with two friends, Nick and George, on a ski run in Switzerland. They take turns navigating various sections and obstacles with a few moments of brilliance and a few spills, along with some swapping of tips. Hemingway writes, “The rush and a sudden swoop down a steep undulation in the mountain side plucked Nick’s mind out and left him only the wonderful flying, dropping sensation in his body…he knew the pace was too much. But he held it…hissing in the crystalline powder snow and seeming to float up and drop down as he went up and down the billowing khuds.” Along their run they come across an inn and stop to order a bottle of Sion – honestly I don’t know what Sion is, but this is Hemingway so let’s assume it’s booze. They get to talking about how much skiing kicks ass, but unfortunately one of them has to go to school and the other knocked up his significant other, so there likely won’t be much skiing in their future. As for the impending parenthood deal they note, “It’s Hell, isn’t it?”

“No. Not exactly,” Nick said.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know,” Nick said.

Now there’s a true sentence. They console themselves knowing that even though they may never go skiing again, at least they would have the run home together…sigh.

 

I was lucky enough to grow up close to mountains and have parents that took me skiing, although it was a bit of a slow start, going once per winter for the first few years. I took an instant obsession to it and I seemed to know at eight years old that my purpose on earth was to slide down a snowy mountain…perhaps not the noblest pursuit, but I’ve sure had a lot of fun. As I got into the pre-teen and middle school years I got to ski a little more frequently thanks to the weekend ski bus I took with friends to Snoqualmie Pass. In addition to improving my skiing, it was great fun and built an early sense of independence to be let out for a day on the slopes entirely free of adult supervision. Our little gang of 13-year-olds roamed the hills looking for jumps to show off on and probably were little shits everywhere we went, oh well. I had mostly been a middling participant in conventional team sports, but I had a bit of a competitive drive to be the top dog of our juvenile crew, I’m honestly not sure where that came from. I’d latch on to skiers I knew were better than me and mimic their style or head off alone to try more challenging terrain. At home I’d spend hours in the basement listening to Guns N’ Roses or whatever, waxing my piece of shit skis – not for any real reason, just that it was related to skiing. Even on non-ski days, there were countless calls to the resort’s snow conditions hotlines (pre-internet, remember) to hear the always chipper daily recorded messages on new snow and base inches. Whenever the opportunity arose I’d rent a Warren Miller movie to pass the time until the next weekend’s ski bus.  

The next step in independence and skiing came with driver’s licenses. A few friends and I, including Casey, a recent transfer to our school, would head up to the mountains a few times a year in my family minivan. This gave us the chance to explore some different ski areas besides Snoqualmie, which I was now realizing was at best, mediocre. It also added to the social aspect of the endeavor. Skiing was a big part of college too, where Casey and I did a half-hearted attempt at the Western Washington University ski team, but mostly we just went night skiing at Steven’s Pass after classes instead of studying. At this point, strangely, the goal of skiing for me was just to go fast and find jumps. At this same time, Mt Baker, the closer ski area to us in Bellingham, WA was breaking world records for snowfall (it’s true, look it up), but for some stupid reason I hadn’t figured out there was a higher, purer, more divine reason for skiing…that took an international trip.

 

I didn’t grow up skiing powder for a few reasons. It’s a limited commodity anywhere you go, but especially at Snoqualmie, where the relatively low elevation and maritime weather dishes out rounds of snow and rain and everything else. We didn’t follow weather reports, we just got on the ski bus every Saturday morning and got what we got. In retrospect I’m quite happy I learned to ski in all conditions – rain, ice, frozen yogurt, dust on crust, or even crust on dust (where it snows then warms then refreezes), full sun, flat light, or fog so thick you feel like you’re inside a ping pong ball – it all made me a much better skier. It’s not always perfect out there (or maybe, it’s always not perfect out there), but if you ever get stuck on a chairlift with some spoiled crybaby Utah native get ready for some serious bitching about the conditions if it’s not blue sky and 12 inches of fresh blower champagne powder…or just put some headphones on.

 

So long boring story, a few years after college Casey and I both ended up teaching English in Sapporo, Japan. Former site of the Winter Olympics, the northernmost Japanese island is renowned for its quantity and quality of snow. We had organized our days off with a few other foreign teacher/snow sport enthusiasts and through a combination of public transportation and the one guy we knew with a car, regularly made our way to Teine Highlands ski area. Side note: public transportation to the ski area, very cool. Getting on a subway full of commuters with your skis and gear, also very cool. Additional side note: Japanese ski areas feature beer vending machines and ramen bars…so score one in the win column for Japan I guess.

We started to notice there was a group of old guys I presumed to be retirees that were always there. I also noticed that these guys could rip! There was a little bit of a mystique surrounding them as they would seemingly disappear off the runs and emerge at the bottom of the tram lift covered in fresh powder. So on one occasion we decided to follow one of the old dudes into the tightly spaced trees to see where he was headed. The trees eventually opened up into a secret powder stash, the guy turned and said in accented English, “Welcome to Shangri La,” then skied off into the trees, and legend.

Obviously I had been aware of the existence of powder and that it was supposed to be a good thing. But it might have been those old geezers in Japan and the legendary Hokkaido Pow, that made the search for fresh snow the primary pursuit in life for the next several decades and beyond, especially the search within a ski area for secret little spots of hidden powder…little Shangri Las.

 

This also coincided with an equipment and cultural revolution that was happening at the time. Let me explain: If you watch an old Warren Miller film or one of the many ski-related cinematic gems from the early “extreme” era (queue screaming guitar solo – you know what I mean) you’ll see an entirely different technique than what is being skied today. It was kind of a quick, bouncy, back-and-forth motion where you would try to make as many symmetrical turns as possible. Often, a neon-clad ski partner would follow down the exact same line, but would make opposite turns as the first skier in order to make the perfect “powder eight” that could be admired from the decks of the lodge by attractive big-haired women in tight pants tucked into their ski boots who don’t seem to do much skiing but I think there is some Lambada dancing and topless hot-tubbing that happens at some point (maybe I saw those 80s ski films too many times).

Then, something really big happened to skiing, it was called snowboarding. Snowboarders were carving huge turns down the hill, maybe one turn to 80s Powder-Skier-Dude’s five and skiers were like, “Hey, we should do that too, but not on a snowboard because snowboards are stupid. Let’s redesign skis so that instead of being narrow, straight, and like ten feet long, they are short, curved, and twice as wide.” (It took about 20 years for that to happen, by the way) Anyhow, that’s pretty much the entire history of skiing right there. Oh and there were also monoboards and something called “Ski Ballet.” Yeah, really.  

            So a modern powder turn involves a lot more speed             than its Neanderthal cousin and allows the skier to lean much deeper into the banked curve. With the speed comes more floatation on the snow and more control. Tiny adjustment in the angle of your skis shoot you off into a g-force turn or lets you take wildly aggressive lines through the trees. And it was skiing powder in the trees where I may have found my true calling. Nothing really focuses the mind like skiing full speed though trees (remember the speeder chase scene in Return of the Jedi? Don’t crash!), but it’s a type of focus that doesn’t require much thinking – in fact, too much thinking just gets in the way. Better just to let it rip and let your brain do the work without any stupid thoughts. Does that even make sense, or was that the dumbest thing ever? There’s also a hidden purity to it in the trees, fewer people, less of the powder frenzy crowd, the chance to find more untracked snow throughout the day, and no care of anyone admiring my line from the lodge…I’d still be interested in that hot tub though.

            There are however, you might be surprised to learn, a few relics that still prefer the old way. I guess those powder eight lines were like da Vinci’s brush stokes to them. Whatever, they probably still prefer the old fashioned way to do brain surgery too.

 

As time went on Casey and I noticed we had a consecutive year streak of skiing together at least once per winter. We’ve somehow managed to keep this going for 29 years now. Starting in 1994 with those first trips driving ourselves to Steven’s Pass, this streak includes high school, college, a year in Japan, a winter ski-bumming in Park City, road trips from one world-class resort to the next where all you had to do was roll into a ski bar at night and of course you’d end up with a couch to crash on before the next morning’s skiing and all it cost you was a round of Miller High Lifes, because that’s how the world works when you’re 25. It also includes years with injuries, years where we only overlapped in town for a few days, and years where the only skiing we did together was with kids – Casey’s daughter and my two boys seem to have inherited the love for snow. There’s no prize or accolades for longest running ski partnership, mostly we just get rolled eyes from spouses and other friends, but it is pretty cool. Nick and George would be impressed.

 

So what makes The 100% Perfect Skiing run anyway, now that we’ve decided it’s not about the symmetry of your tracks? It’s a difficult task, describing powder skiing, although Hemingway did a decent job of it. I guess you could liken it to something akin to floating…but I think that sells powder skiing short (and floating, perhaps). It’s a bit of a controlled fall, balanced against a forward motion and the resistance of the snow. Maybe instead of trying to detail all the factors that go into creating the conditions that have to align just right (snow depth, snow moisture, steepness of the hill, weather) and then trying to put words to the experience of actually doing it, I’ll just share a few memorable runs:

 

Park City, Utah. After a stressful few months that included surgery and getting laid off I drove out to Park City from Seattle for some skiing and a little change of scenery. After 14 hours alone in my car I found a parking space at the base of the resort, folded down the back seat of my station-wagon, got in my sleeping bag, drank a few beers, watched half of a bad movie on my laptop, and fell asleep.

I woke up in the morning to the sound of avalanche control, a far-off dull blasting that is a common fixture in ski towns and war zones. It had been snowing heavily. I made plans for later in the day to meet up with Bob, a friend from when I spent the winter in Park City two years earlier. I ate breakfast out of my cooler, bought an expensive lift ticket, and got on the six-person chair lift as the sky started to clear.

The Jupiter Chair had been closed all morning as the Ski-Patrol continued setting of TNT charges. The chair lift accesses the highest part of the resort and a ridge that, if you are willing to hike up a few minutes, takes you to some of the best skiing on the mountain. We heard Jupiter would be opening soon and duly headed over to try to get some first tracks. There were plenty others with the same idea, so there was little time to lose.

A long wait for the lift and a short climb up the ridge later, we slowly traversed looking for the best line down the open face to ski. This is no small choice as you sometimes only get one shot before the best lines get skied out. I spotted a good untouched line that had been protected from the first wave of skiers by a five-foot-wide band of exposed rocks. I sided-stepped up a few feet to get enough speed, jumped over the rocks and softly landed at the top of probably the best run of my life. Any amount of powder skiing is great, but there’s an exponential increase in fun as one links up more and more consecutive turns on untracked snow. Your smile somehow keeps doubling in size with each turn. I’m not sure I know exactly why this is, perhaps a scientist could explain it.

Bob and I took huge carving bottomless turns down the entire run without crossing any tracks. Certainly the most consecutive virgin powder turns I’ve ever linked up, and in perfect snow and blue skies to boot. We reconvened at the bottom of the bowl and did the obligatory pole clink high five. There may have been some attempt to put the experience into words but it likely failed to capture the moment, probably because the term “swell” has fallen out of fashion.

 

 

Mt Baker, Washington. If there are prettier ski areas in the world than Mt. Baker on a sunny day there aren’t many. So close on one side you feel like you could reach out and touch picturesque Mt. Shuksan, with its hanging glaciers, sheer rock faces, and pyramidal summit. To the south, a few ridges away, is 10,786 foot Mt. Baker itself, a near perfect cone of a volcano. Baker is almost entirely covered in year-round snow, it’s native name is translated to something along the lines of Great White Watcher and the mountain can be seen from hundreds of miles around, including from Seattle on a clear day. From the top of Chair 6, which accesses the mountain’s best terrain, you can see deep into the wilderness of the North Cascades – no freeways or luxury resort accommodations in sight. Even as someone who regularly takes backcountry trips into the area, it’s a real treat to get to see it in the dead of winter. A friend and I were lucky enough to get an early start one sunny day at Baker after the top of the mountain had been closed for two days due to weather, which meant two feet of accumulated snow on the best terrain that no one yet had access to (sometimes life is just about being in the right place at the right time). We were among the first batch of riders to head up Chair 6 that morning as snowy wisps of “cold smoke” blew from the trees and ridges. There’s always a palpable feeling of energy in these situations. That first run was unreal. As we flew down the seemingly bottomless snow, hoots and hollers rang out through the trees and across the mountain, it’s a great feeling to know everyone is having as much fun as you are. At the bottom of the run we could barely form complete sentences, just shit eating grins and profane explanations of disbelief. A snowboarder we shared the next lift with remarked, “I feel like I need a cigarette after that one.”

 

Beaver Mountain, Utah. Utah, for all its renown in terms of snow and terrain, also has the obnoxious trait of being overpriced, over developed, crowded, and fancy. To be fair, I didn’t mind the overpriced fancy part when I was on the receiving end of the bargain working as a bartender for Sundance Film Festival events. This isn’t, however, universally true. As you might also know, Utah is known as a home to many devotees of a particular religion (besides skiing that is). Nearby the medium-sized college town of Logan is a very quaint resort called Beaver Mountain. Unlike the apparently heathen towns of Park or Salt Lake Cities, Logan has a Mormon population in the 90% range, who, also apparently all prefer church on Sundays to skiing (different strokes for different folks, right?). So partially by chance, I had the great opportunity to be there on a blue-sky Sunday with over a foot of fresh powder. There were maybe 25 cars in the parking lot. We skied fresh turns in the sun from first chair till we were ready to keel over from exhaustion. Despite their shitty 3.2% beer, I vowed never to complain about Mormons again.

 

Snoqualmie Pass, Washington. In recent years I’ve come full circle on Snoqualmie Pass with regular trips to the mountain with my two boys. It’s actually a pretty great place for family skiing (and seriously, do these kids know how lucky they are to get to go night skiing on school days almost every week?!). Closed between Sunday and Wednesday evening you can get lucky with some good conditions when they open at 4:00PM, a bit of a peculiarity for night skiing. Any ski parent will tell you, at least the ones who didn’t just dump their offspring in ski school and hit the slopes sans kid, the first few years is as much hassle and logistics (boot buckles, foggy goggles, bathroom breaks, wet gloves, snacks, hot chocolate, tears, screaming “Pizza, French Fries!!!”) as they are actual skiing. Truth be told, I had a great time those early days, but they did kick my ass sometimes and I never got to enjoy any skiing myself. So as the kids progress into more competent and self-reliant skiers, it becomes more and more of a joy to ski with them. One recent Wednesday evening Casey and I, along with the three kids, met up for some night skiing after several days of accumulation. I wasn’t entirely sure they were ready for actual powder skiing but everyone seemed keen, so we all dropped off the groomed run into some untouched snow. I got to ski fresh powder while watching the kids yelp with glee. One of the kids actually exclaimed, “I’m shredding the pow!” I mean, come on!

 

Looking at what these memorable runs have in common it would seem that in addition to the particular conditions and circumstances, The 100% Perfect Skiing Run must be shared. Skiing can be done alone, in fact, it can only be done alone, the actual skiing part that is. But I truly believe that at its core it is a social endeavor. Hemingway knew this of course, Cross-Country Snow isn’t about one guy having an amazing run by himself, even though many of his great stories are solo adventures (Big Two Hearted River, Old Man and the Sea).

 

So then here’s my One True Sentence: When you’re skiing powder with friends in perfect conditions, everything else is stupid. Which, come to think of it, is really the same sentiment as, “It’s too swell to talk about.” Nothing else matters and there’s nowhere else you’d rather be. It’s an indescribable amount of fun, but it’s balanced with the knowledge that it’s a fleeting moment with no promise that it will happen again anytime soon, or when and where that might be. Of course there are other activities that focus the mind, but with skiing there’s an effortless joy that comes with being really good at something. Not that it isn’t strenuous or difficult, or that it doesn’t take years to get good at, but given a base level of fitness and skill, skiing never feels like work – as much as I love climbing, I can’t always say the same about walking up a mountain.

 

            As a young man, Hemingway wrote well describing the social aspect and the actual act of skiing in Cross-Country Snow. But he also wrote about skiing near the end of his life with a bit less clarity and perhaps more melancholy in his unfinished memoir A Movable Feast.  My copy contains several drafts of the ending that he had apparently been working on with five different rewordings of the same partially clear sentiment about skiing. He wrote, “Nobody ever climbs on seal skins now. They do not have to…They ski much better now, are better taught and the good ones do it beautifully. They come down faster and they drop like birds, strange birds that know many secrets…They all know many secrets now as we knew other secrets when we ran the glaciers un-roped and there were no ski patrols. They are better skiers than we ever were and they would have done the high mountains too if there had been no lifts and that was what they had to do.” He also tried several wordings of the idea that everyone seems to break their legs now, but they will be stronger in the broken places. I’m not sure that’s how broken bones work but it was presumably a reference to his famous line from A Farwell to Arms. Nice quote, but not exactly the concise, clear, visceral writing of Cross-Country Snow.

Hemingway would be happy to know climbing on skins has come back into popularity recently. Thankfully no actual seals are harmed in the making of climbing “skins” these days. I don’t know how Hemingway would feel about that…he seemed to like killing things. Presumably he was working on this passage near the end of his life while living in the ski town of Ketchum, Idaho. It’s been said that at this time he was struggling with the process of writing, something that had always come so naturally, and it shouldn’t surprise anyone that the story of a self-obsessed celebrity with severe substance abuse, chronic head trauma, depression, PTSD, electro shock therapy, and a family history of suicide doesn’t end well. However, I think maybe I know what he was trying to express. It’s an understanding where you are on your age trajectory, a bit of old man “kids these days” lament, but also the knowledge that it’s a young man’s game to push the endeavor to new places. Some nostalgia for the way you used to do it, and a partially reluctant admittance that the new generation is up to some cool stuff – kind of like when I see someone do a switch nose-butter off-axis front flip in the terrain park (seriously, how do they even think up some of these moves they can do now). Hemingway’s 1920s Alpine ski days would have looked very different in technique, style, and equipment to what he would have been seeing at Sun Valley in the 1960s. Maybe not unlike the difference between what I grew up with in the 80s and 90s, to what we see now. So I get it. The kids these days, Right? I can still rip though.