After depositing Dave in the beginner’s class at Dollar Mountain, we swung over to the River Run parking lot. Three chairs later, we were on top. Leigh quickly began accumulating her acquaintances; she seemed to know everybody there. Two or three came with us down the impeccably groomed ridge of College, over to Flying Squirrel and down to the Warm Springs lift. I found myself riding up with Jim, who worked for the cable TV company where my sister was secretary. He dug ditches for the cables. It being winter and all (with the ground frozen), there wasn’t much call for his services, so he spent most of his time skiing.
“So, you’re sort of like a grave digger in paradise this time of year, huh?” I ventured.
Jim was skiing in overalls and a pea coat; his long blond pony-tailed hair hung out from his heavy watch cap. His eyes were perpetually smiling behind glasses almost as thick as mine. His glowing face broke into an even bigger smile as he laughed heartily. “Yeah, that’s right I guess. All we do now is go around and unhook the boxes from the sets of people who won’t pay their bills. Hey, you got any matches?”
Apparently Jim smiled all the time because he was stoned all the time. Who wouldn’t be with the world wired like he had it? As I’d never tried skiing stoned before (and don’t smoke cigarettes), he had to show me all the tricks of lighting up and staying lit on a chair lift. I quickly discovered the first problem was lighting the match; and the second was keeping it lit. Working behind four cupped hands, I tried igniting the joint from the match’s initial flare-up. All I got was a nose full of sulfur. Next I tired working inside my parka; I quickly saw the dangers of self-immolation with that technique. I was getting desperate; Jim was still smiling benevolently. Then he drawled, “Hey, wait a minute; I’ve got a lighter in here somewhere.” He fumbled in his overall pockets awhile, and drew out a Cricket.
Luckily, Warm Springs is a long lift, and by the time we hit the off ramp, I was totally loaded. I wasn’t sure my legs were still operational. I had some Raichle Red Boots, which weighed about ten pounds apiece, some off brand metal skis, and Look bindings. In that get-up, I felt like a life-size Bozo balloon doll; knock me down, my feet stay planted, and I pop right back up. Of course, that’s not what happens when your balance is disrupted while skiing – usually your posterior hits the snow, and hands and feet reach for the sky. But its a good attitude to have while skiing, to think your feet will always stay below you, especially if you’ve been up all night, and have reached that state of muddled euphoria where your brain is having a tough time distinguishing between aural and visual sensory input.
Forgetting my sister and her friends, we took off down the slope. Upper Warm Springs starts with a gentle track down to tree-line, then reaches a short, steep face (usually well-moguled) and opens in a long steady evenly pitched trail 2000 vertical feet to the bottom of Warm Springs and Plaza lifts. When packed smooth, as it was this day, it is a cruiser’s paradise. The morning had been overcast, but the sun had been out for an hour or so, softening up the dry hard surface of the snow until it felt like the wet slick smoothness of a newly Zamboni’ed ice rink. I was still in the skid and slid stage of ski ability, and Jim was no better, but the sun, the snow, and the vaporous refreshment seemed to allow me total enjoyment of what I was doing. For the first time I experienced a feeling of disconnection between my observing, calculating self, and the part of me that was actually skiing. The first two or three turns were tentative, but after I realised I could actually ski in this seemingly debilitated condition, I began to enjoy myself totally. Meanwhile, my thighs and lungs were getting a workout. Desperately, they tried to send messages upstairs, but the circuits were blocked. I mean, I was lost in the scene somewhere, and I wasn’t going to let little things like shaking rubber in my legs, or fiery dyspnea in my chest stop my fun. Reaching the bottom, I skidded to s stop, landing on my butt. Jim was already in a similar position, leaning back against the post of a “slow skiing Area” sign, letting the sun shine flush against him as he watched the skiers slide by.
“Whatcha doin’?” I asked.
“Look at these people!” he shouted, although I was only two feet away.
I looked. There was some kind of rhythm going on up there; everyone swinging back and forth, taking one turn to the right for each turn to the left. Skiers of all abilities, each coming down the hill in his or here own unique fashion, yet the whole scene had a consistent pattern. I was as if the whole hill were wired into one organic unit, with each skier running on his or her own little track, like a subway or an electric street car. Of course, every now and then, someone would jump the track, but, hey, they always got back up, maintaining the flow. As each person floated by me, the visual image seemed to precede the muted scrape of skis against the snow, much like a fast jet passing overhead. I focused on the sound of the hill, again a rhythmic swishing, accentuated by a dopplered ebb and flow as someone passed by. The noontime sun blazed directly into my face, burning the scene into an abstraction of reality.
“Yeah,” I said.
(To Be Concluded)