Sunday, 3/10/1996
Big day here on the side of the mountain. The days start off quite hectic with everybody going in different directions, except for me, I am lying still with the pillow over my head. But Pam has already brewed a pot of coffee and BJ is already gathering the girls up for their ski school at 8:30. I lie here and thank God that they are early risers — it works out perfectly, don’t you think?
The boys — John and his two friends Lucian and Ian are a little bit slower getting ready, they are big snowboarders, and go God knows where.
Anita has her own school to go to. Judging by yesterday’s teacher — some kind of zen guy with a braid and lingo like “there is a dark side to the mountain, but you must go with the force…” she is in pretty good hands. She has improved tremendously and routinely takes the green slopes. I am very proud of her.
Monica and Julia are so close, its hard to pry them apart. I had the good fortune today to meet up with them at the bottom of the Teocalli lift, and by a stroke of luck was able to ride up with Julia. She told me some interesting tales of her adventures in ski school. One of her classmates even had the misfortune of having her ski delaminate while she was going down a pretty tough slope! Now that would be inconvenient.
The rate of progress of these kids is utterly astounding. I think they may be almost as good as I am! You think?
Monica went down the lift, Silver Queen, Teocalli, Paradise, Painter Boy, and lots of other incredible slopes. Monica and Julia are going shopping today. They will buy good things. They might buy milkshakes!
Elizabeth, by all reports is doing very well too. I was surprised to find her teacher mention that among her other attributes, such as cooperativeness and attentiveness, that she was “aggressive” in her approach. I was surprised, and in this case, pleased at the possible implications of this choice of adjective.
Oh there’s so much to say, I couldn’t possibly say it all. But I do not want to forget to describe this afternoon, after we all came back to the shack — San Moritz. The sun was setting over the mountain on the other side of the valley. Those perfect long rays cast a warm yellow light across the slope called “O Be Joyful.” Doesn’t that just say it all? There were kids sledding down the bottom portion of the slope, and a snow woman had been constructed by Pam and Elizabeth, and there was the happy sound of kids playing in the snow.
I was filled with a feeling I cannot describe, but if I had to put words to it, I might say that when we get to heaven it had better be at least as good as this or I will be disappointed. The humpback shape of the drifts catch the light in just such a way, they look like sleeping whales. The crystals in the sky catch the sunlight and make a remarkable ice halo. The glint of the final rays hit the slopes and reflect into a thousand sparkles of light like diamonds. It was just great.
Monday, 3/11/1996
This morning promises to be the most crowded on the slopes so we all agreed to take it easy in the early hours and go out later. The girls were delighted not to have to go to ski school, and I must say I could use a rest myself. Last night Anita and I went into town. Now this place has this remarkable feature of a shuttle suburban at your beck and call. You call this number and poof! they’re there! two minutes appears to be the average waiting time. Its great. Now we called for a ride into town — they’ll take you anywhere — no charge (but we make a point to tip well). Ok, so far, so good. Our ride was waiting for us when we came down. Unfortunately, before we could get on our way into town, a call came over the wireless. “Ken, we have a party of nine to go into town… and we can’t find Vito.” Ken’s face says it all. Well we ride up to another building on this campus and out come seven of the gabbiest perfumiest drawling-est people I have ever seen. “It would be best if you two came up here with me” Ken says. I roll my eyes and try to contain my frustration. But you know me — mister transparent. Anyway, these drawlin’ Texans pile in, one on top of another and all of them talking. “Where’s Maryjane?” someone asks. “Oh God” I think. Dad goes back in to see what’s the deal, and comes out a few minutes later “she’s coming, believe it or not” Sure enough, a few minutes later out comes Maryjane and her sister-in-law or whatever, in a full-length mink coat, no less. Well, I guess they’re loaded, no matter what else they are.
Ok, so Maryjane and her sister-in-law have to sit on Dad’s and Uncle Jim’s lap, and we ride on into the night chattering and admiring the utterly beautiful sunset. “We don’t get many colorful sunsets up here” Ken tersely mumbles. Anita proceeds to quiz him on the best places to go and see. I gladly let her — she is my best ambassador. He mentions the Idle Spur brew pub, and I perk up immediately. “Yeah, tell me more about that…” I say, and it is settled.
The town of Crested Butte is nestled in the cleft between two mountain ranges. I will have to look up the names of everything. I noticed from my early morning walk the other day, that the town benefited from the early morning sun and now I see that it gets the evening sun through the cleft at least at certain times of the year. It is a cute, picturesque little tourist trap, but we enjoyed the Idle Spur so much we just had to bring some home. Along with our leftovers, we noticed that by a strange quirk in Colorado law, they were permitted to sell beer, while the liquor stores are closed and the grocery store only sells 3.2 brew.
So we just had to buy a six pack of this great home brew. But, I thought to myself, I never get enough of anything when BJ and Pam are around, let’s go ahead and get two six packs. Imagine my surprise when our waitress, Stacy, brings out a case of 22-ouncers! Oh-my-God! What the hell, what we don’t drink I’ll bring back to my friend and brewer Dave for “chemical analysis.”
Mornings in the condo are crazy for late sleepers like Andy and me. Last night B.J. suggested that we have a contest to see who would sleep in the latest. I was wildly optimistic that we would get to sleep past eight, so I decided to splurge and drink one of my champagnes. Wouldn’t you know it, at 6:30 AM, the T.V. blares on and the entire household is jumpy and juicy. Luckily the boys vacated first and we have entered the MTV-free zone at last!
The kitchen is wonderfully huge and I after witnessing mass quantities of food disappear at an unbelievably rapid rate, B.J. and Andy are no longer poking fun at all the provisions Pam and I insisted on bringing. We are saving big bucks this way because everything is at resort prices.
I can’t wait to see the girls skiing together. Elizabeth has surprised us all in ski school. She has even been on lifts that I haven’t had the nerve to venture on. The sun has been so intense that we are all burned to some extent, especially Elizabeth and me.
Wednesday, 3/13/1996
Our last day skiing. Everybody is in great spirits. And we’re frantically getting ready to be the first ones in line for the lift. We’re starting to run out of the massive quantities of food that Anita and Pam brought, and we’re going through more than a gallon of milk a day. Everybody is feeling good and no one’s hurt (knock on wood). Yesterday we all went out together Anita, Monica, Elizabeth, Julia, BJ, Pam and myself and we did a few slopes over by the Painter Boy lift. Elizabeth is utterly amazing! She is great! Monica and Julia are also remarkably accomplished, you should see them fly down the mountain, confident and in control (most of the time). Anita has also made great progress and it was a lot of fun cruising down the mountain just the two of us while BJ and Pam took the kids back down to the base area.
A snowstorm hit the mountain just as the lifts were closing at 4 oclock, which was quite an adventure, compounded by the flight of the crowds off the slopes. Anita and I had some fun coming into base through the “rush hour” It was quite remarkable.
…
This morning, I tagged along with BJ and Pam for a few runs. Anita wasn’t feeling so great, and the girls really wanted to stay together. I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t persuade any of them to go along with me, but I can’t really blame them. They were tired, didn’t really realize that they might not get to ski again for a very long time, and really seemed to enjoy the idea of going shopping in town together. Must be some kind of girl thing.
But I really got to know the run down the Paridise Bowl to the upper section of Forest Queen through the non-obvious shortcut over to the lower section of Ruby Chief. I must have done it five or six times this morning. I wanted to explore more and find some new runs (especially over by the Gold Link area), but with the snow falling and the flat light, I felt better going over terrain that was more familiar. Anyway, the Paradise lift had to be at least twice as fast and was a quad instead of a two-seater, so allowed much more skiing and much less waiting.
The three of us did go the whole way down one time, down Canaan and Treasury, along with Mark, the son of BJ’s next door neighbor. Mark seemed to ski about the same level as me, but I guess being younger, was much bolder. He seemed to be a really nice boy, and told an interesting tale about how he only had to spend 40 bucks on his lift ticket for his whole trip. When I asked him why, he said “because people like me. I make them laugh.” This is behavior I would like to model.
Pam, ever thoughtful, went in early to relieve Anita, thinking that she might possibly like to ski during the lunch break. She went in but made sure that we would come in at some specific time. Anita had said something like 12 o’clock, but I planned to call and plead for more. I figured Pam would understand if I wanted to ski some more and would negotiate on my behalf, so we got another 45 minutes.
The snow began to fall more heavily, and I thought at least we don’t have to worry about sunburn anymore. BJ and I did a few more runs. Here my memory gets a little foggy, because I was concentrating on the slope in front of me so much and people started to go in because the weather was getting worse, and I was trying to keep up with BJ. So I don’t remember exactly what we did or how many runs we got in. I do remember we had a great time.
Then came the appointed time, and we did one more run all the way from the top of the silver queen lift because we had to get pretty high to find the cutoff for the easy way to ski directly back to the condo. I noticed that there were several obvious ways straight back, if you happened to feel comfortable skiing black slopes the whole way. We did not, so we took the fatiguingly slow Yellow Brick Road down a few turns out of the bowl. I got confused several times trying to do this myself the past few days, and I insisted that Pam and BJ show me the way back. They said there was supposed to be this cutoff from the green slope we were on over to Aspen Park road and the rest of the way was pretty easy and fun. I had tried three separate times after they told me about this. The first time, I wound up on the International Run, way out of my league. After a few missed jumps, I decided to head for the deep snow among the trees. This was my first experience with fresh new snow and a totally different technique was required to negotiate it. I found this out the hard way.
I went a few hundred feet through the trees, shin-deep in fresh powder, and I started to enjoy it, until I found myself on a roller-coaster run, a track cut through the powder, very narrow, going up and down, and it was fun for the first few seconds until I realized I had no idea how to stop or even slow down. So down I went, then up (thank you ma’am), and down again even faster, and then up… into the air. ka-boom! into the snow. Well, at least no one was watching, that I know of.
So I made it down that time. The second time, I negotiated the same hill, having made the same mistake, and decided to take it extremely slowly, consuming the whole width of the run, maintining control the whole time. I was kind of tired, since I was coming in anyway, and barely made it, but managed not to fall.
The third time, I was feeling a little more competent and tried it a little faster, trying to keep a line the way I had observed several people do. Of course, I fell. Twice.
This time I had BJ with me so I thought it was going to be easy. Besides Pam had shown us the way when she went in. We did everything I think we were supposed to but wound up faced with the same goddamned slope! BJ wasn’t interested in doing it either, so we turned back through the powder again and this time had a little more success. We loooked at each other and shrugged and just did it.
We didn’t get away without going down a few hundred feet of the international slope, but made it pretty well. We had a great time!
When we came in, Anita fed us, I learned neither she nor the kids really wanted to ski, despite my pleas, and the snow was falling more heavily. We both conked out.
While I was asleep, Monica came in and asked if it would be ok if she went into town to shop with Anita and the girls, and of course I said ok, although it made me sad. Before, when I had asked who would like to come with me, no one wanted to and I made an exaggerated face to Anita, suggesting my feelings. Elizabeth immediately sensed the feeling, and although I was kind of kidding, rushed over to hug me and make me feel better. I was really touched. Monica responded by saying that she would go with me even if the others went into town. It was this promise she asked to be released from.
After a nap overtook me, I felt refreshed and anxious to get out for some more skiing on this, our last day here. Only the hard core would go -out- in the snow, but it was coming on 2:30 and the lifts shut down at 4. It was 3:00 by the time I got to the lift. I had time for probably four runs, if I was lucky. I went straight to the top of the silver queen and straight down through the bowl and the run I had done this morning. As I came onto the Ruby Chief, the sun began to come out! I thought to myself, God is with me today! And said a little prayer of thanks.
When I got to the bottom, BJ was just getting on the lift. He saw me and waved as the thing scooped him up. This one moves pretty fast, and its scoop packs a whollop. To my delight there were no lines, everyone having gone in because of the snow and perhaps lunch. I got right on and met him at the top. By this time I think we only had 10 minutes left until 4:00. We made it down in 5, and were among the last to get on the Paradise lift this day.
We got to the top just about 4:00 and the lifts stopped. The slopes were almost empty and the sun was coming out! What a treat!
This time we decided we had all the time in the world and went down at a fun but relatively sedate pace. All the way down and back to the condo and an ice cold Red Lady ale. And with that, another delightful day entered the books.