I’ve come to terms with the fact that I am writing a ski blog. This happened entirely by accident. See, in the summer, I can be distracted by other things – running on pavement and diving into lakes, sitting in the shade of oaks and eating cherries. In the winter, I think of one thing and one thing only. Skiing.
In recognition of this, the blog needs a new title, and I’ve settled on Slackcountry Living.
The slackcountry (or sidecountry) is the sweet spot between the well-known Ski Area Boundary and the fabled Backcountry. Ride a lift, duck a rope, and you’re suddenly getting to know a mountain on its own terms, not yours. No snowmaking, no patrollers. Just you and the fall line. And maybe the guy behind you – slackcountry runs aren’t marked on the map, but locals know they’re there. At least it’s less crowded.
Hopefully by next winter I’ll have enough money to buy AT gear and disappear into the true backcountry on daylong tours. (If I do, you’ll hear about them.) But, even if I am so elevated to skiing and riding greatness, I intend to remain a slacker at heart.
Come ride with me as I explore the slackcountry. It’ll be fun.
It’s 7:00PM. Do you know where your daughter is? (She might be here.)
I joined the race league for all the right reasons, I swear. It’s an excuse to hit the slopes on a Thursday night, when otherwise I’d be home staring out the window feeling cooped up. It’s a way for me, usually so reserved, to meet like-minded people – each one a potential ski buddy. And, the league is definitely not serious, which is good because the last time I raced was in middle school. A little non-competitive exercise in the local beer league. Sounds perfect, right?
Beer league has created a monster.
My drive to the mountain is spent in eager anticipation, fingers drumming the steering wheel as I navigate the commuter traffic coming out of Burlington. I talk to my mother on speaker phone, catching her up on my day and my strategies for the night’s races. A few hours later, my drive home is spent reliving the gates, mentally scrutinizing each turn.
(If I initiate my turns a fraction of a second too late, causing a slide and scramble, I have dump speed to make the next gate. The trick is to initiate early and stay hugged in tight to the gate. But, the killer is the last gate, where the course flattens even as it flows into the finish line. I lose acceleration every time, a symptom of being too small on skis that ride too soft. I’m losing power like water through a sieve and it’s driving me crazy.)
Faster, faster, faster still…
I log my times in my phone that night before I join my teammates in the bar. Friday morning, when the official email hits my inbox, I drop everything to calculate my rank against the field. After only two nights of racing, I can tell that it doesn’t matter what time I post. All I will want is to go faster, faster, and faster still.
Now, every Thursday my bright yellow boots will stand guard in the corner of my office, keeping me company. They are a constant, welcome reminder that there’s a pair of skis in a car in the parking lot waiting… just waiting… to slide up to the starting gate.
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Sadly, it’s currently -8º in Bolton. They closed early last night, so there’s a good change they’ll close again tonight. I might have to wait another week to get my speed fix… How will I survive?
Beauty is thus an altered state of consciousness, an extraordinary moment of poetry and grace.
Beauty is a sunset over Lake Champlain, a barista that knows your order by heart, six inches of powder in the trees, and parallel lines of fresh corduroy on the trails. Beauty is the smell of snow that greets you first thing in the morning as you step outside balancing breakfast and car keys and briefcase.
I spent Saturday morning at the mountain, carving some much needed turns and practicing skiing solo. I ended up finding a friend and skiing a few runs with him and his 13 year-old daughter. Sharing the trail with a totally ripping girl, I couldn’t help but think of the blog post “How to Ski like a Man” by very talented writer and blogger Lisa Richardson.
Looking at my friend’s daughter, I realized what had bothered me so much about the post’s title when I first read it days earlier. The last thing this chick needs to do is ski like a man. She is kicking ass just fine as herself.
I know the phrase was used because it’s a common one. As the youngest of brothers, I’ve been told to “be a man” countless times. Even Disney’s all over it. But I think this a problem. The last thing a developing young woman needs to hear is “be a man” – because a female rider should be one thing and one thing only – the kind of rider she wants to be. You don’t need to amp up your aggression, unless that’s what you want. If you don’t like cliffs or speeding down the Hahnenkamm in a Spyder suit, that’s cool! Whatever it is about skiing that keeps you on the hill having fun, then that’s what you should be doing.
But – if you do want to frontflip off of the cliff on Jackson Hole like Jamie Pierre or lobby the FIS to race against the men on men’s skis like Lindsey Vonn, THEN GO FOR IT. Believe me – following someone else’s expectations of who you should ride like will at worst make you miserable and uncomfortable in a sport that is all about being awesome and trusting in your abilities. (At the very best, it will inspire you to write a feminist skiing blog years later.)
In short… ROCK IT, SISTER – and let me know how it goes in the comments. I’d love to hear what you think and how you ride!
Tuckerman Ravine – prepping for ascent.
There are other blog posts that get into the physiological differences between male and female skiers. It’s all true, and we do have different stances and need different gear. (I sort of dig into the separate-but-not-quite-equal aesthetics here.) Lisa also has a lovely post on the Liftopia blog that talks about the psychological differences.
All I care about is spreading the love – All for One Mountain, One Mountain for All.
I’m really embarrassed by the Mickey Mouse pin. The button’s legit, though. It’s vintage.
This is the first of what will be a series of ski area reviews. Since I live and ride in Vermont, I’ll start close to home.
I really don’t understand why so few of my fellow Burlington residents head north to Jay Peak. Apparently “it’s too far away.”
Too far away? Seriously? An hour and a half is never too far for good schuss. Besides: 50% of Jay’s skiers and riders come from Canada. It takes two hours to drive from Montreal to Jay – so stop your complaining, eat your Big Mac, and get off the couch, America.
I will happily swear up and down this state that Jay Peak is the closest an east coaster will get to western skiing without buying a plane ticket. The vertical’s impressive (over 2,000 vertical feet), as is the natural playground that is the snowfield summit. But what will really give you western déjà vu is in the trees. Jay’s glades are wide open and ever green with plenty of room to roam. Hit it on a powder day and you’re cruising through face shots so easy you (might) feel guilty.
Jay’s terrain is challenging with steep pitches and a little high altitude rock-hopping coming off the tram. Timbuktu is one of the most satisfying marked glades in the east, with plenty of features to find if you’re looking to get air. (I distinctly remember my eldest brother teaching me huck there. And by teaching, I mean he pointed at a rock and said “ski off that as fast as you can.” Surprisingly, I survived.)
If you’re lucky, you’ll even get to experience the Jay Cloud first hand. There’s a peculiar microclimate that exists solely around the summit of the mountain. It could be sunny and warm everywhere else in a four hour radius, but dumping on Jay. Granted, this phenomenon isn’t unique to Jay. Mountains like to hold to passing precipitation. But it’s really fun to talk about.
On the downside, Jay Peak is cold. Like, really cold. As in – no matter what you’re wearing it’s not enough cold. But, to quote their wonderfully witty marketing campaign, nobody grew up soft on rugged terrain. Builds character.
Oh, you’re cold? That’s too bad.
Pretty perfect sounding, eh?
The funny thing about Jay is that as much as I love it, it’s really… just another mountain. The trails are great, the glades are great, the unmarked glades are great. (While I’ve been skiing this mountain my entire life, I don’t claim local knowledge. I’ve never had the “backstage tour” as it where, so I can’t speak to what I haven’t found entirely by accident.) But there’s something almost… boring about all this perfection.
Two years ago, I hit Jay during the late-season blizzard of my dreams. My ski buddy and I hit powder run after powder run, braving the cold and wind for some of the best turns we got all season. And yet… I was a little relieved to get back into the claustrophobically tight trees of Mt. Mansfield. The glades are so roomy compared to the Peak’s southern neighbors that you’re rarely stuck without anywhere to go but down a tiny, squirrelly chute. You don’t have to drop the feature in Kitz Woods. There are plenty of ways around.
I can count the times on one hand that I stood uphill from a Jay feature and gone “oh shit.” Where’s the challenge in that? It’s not really skiing if I haven’t said Oh Shit five times in as many runs.
To sum up: Jay Peak is a must-hit that is a little like that one guy (or girl) you dated who was so unbearably awesome you couldn’t believe they knew your name, let alone kissed you on a regular basis. You ended up breaking up with him (or her) for that other guy (or girl) with the weird twitch and questionable hygiene habits because, man, they really made you feel special, you know?
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What do you think? Was this review helpful, or am I really lying through my teeth? Keep me honest and let me know in the comments.
Some of these are seriously retro. Others are seriously Mikey Mouse.
It was Dad’s idea to start our pin collections (one for each of us). The rules, while simple, are strict – one mountain skied, one pin. Since we made a conscious effort to ski far and wide, exploring the mountains of the world, we’ve amassed a pretty impressive collection.
This is (almost) what 24 years of skiing looks like.
Dad’s collection was set into framed rectangles of felt and hung in the basement between the posters for Zermatt and French wine from 1998 (Beaujelais Nouveau est arrivé!). My collection lived in a ziplock bag in my sock drawer. When my parents moved from Massachusetts to Illinois in 2008, Dad’s pins were packed away in boxes and left in the new basement, unopened. Mine remained in my sock drawer, only this time the sock drawer was in Illinois and blatantly lacking socks.
Mom mailed me the ziplock bag last week. When they arrived, I dumped the bag on the floor and spread them out – weeding through. A few didn’t belong – one boyscout pin stolen from an elder brother, two from ski areas in British Columbia I’ve never skied. I set those aside. The rest, I laid across my bedroom floor in a rough approximation of the world. Just above my left knee was Chile, as far right as I could reach, France and Austria.
I watched with smug satisfaction as Utah blossomed out, blending with Colorado – same with Vermont and New Hampshire. I paused with special fondness over the visits I remembered most strongly and puzzled over areas I didn’t remember at all.
My memory’s not very good, you see, and that’s why this pile of pins is so precious. It is less a collection of things picked up to be displayed for aesthetic pleasure, and more a series of ticks on a timeline. Here is Wachusett, where I almost broke my collarbone showing off to a boy in seventh grade. Here is Portillo, where I met the US men’s and women’s downhill and super G teams. Here is Crystal, where a double amputee and his two friends led Drew, Dad, and I through hip deep powder (he was more impressive than the men’s and women’s ski teams combined).
Then I realized I was missing one. Then more than one. I was horrified to find that I’d let six years go by without realizing I was skiing “pin days” (the first day riding a new mountain).
Worse, Bolton Valley, which I’ve skied since I was knee-high. Smuggler’s Notch, which I was devoted to for two winters. And now Stowe. All gone.
Today, in the midst of the January Thaw, I drove to Smuggler’s Notch just to buy a 4 dollar pin from the ski shop. I made my roommate promise to get me a Bolton pin the next time he’s there (I’m only there for night skiing, when the shops are closed). Stowe I’ll pick up next weekend.
But Sunday River? Sugarloaf? My college haunts. Missing – and me without any idea of when I’ll make it back to those mountains.
And then there are the obvious gaps in the set, the mountains that glare out at me demanding to be ridden. Magic Mountain. Mad River Glen, namely. How can I be a Vermonter and a skier without a pilgrimage to MRG?
This post was so long, I figured it deserved a second picture.
Finally, the sudden realization that it’s up to me now to meet these mountains. Next month, I’ll be riding a pin day at Saddleback with two of my best friends. It’s sad to think that this will be my first (known, realized, conscious) pin day without my dad with me, too. Suddenly, entirely without my realizing it, I’ve grown up.
Whose woods these are I think I know His house is in the village though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow.
Because of Robert Frost.
Growing up in suburban Massachusetts, Frost’s poems transported me to the fields and forests of Vermont – the Vermont of my summers by the lake and my winters in the mountains, and the imaginary Vermont where I swore I would someday live.
My first poem was Fire & Ice, memorized from the pages of my eldest brother’s diary. (Otherwise, it wasn’t very interesting. No offense, Drew… and… uh. Sorry for reading your diary.)
Much later, in college, I flipped through The Complete Works, drifting from poem to poem. When I was lonely or anxious, they were a source of comfort.
He writes for me, speaks to me in the silence & beauty of the North – in crumbling stone walls and bending birches.
Buil Soil: A Political Pastoral is not his best work. It’s rather long. It’s rather of boring. I have no intention of ever memorizing it. But it contains some of the most beautiful fragments in literature.
Sidecountry Living 