[First Draft…AI says, “To improve engagement throughout all parts of the narrative, incorporating more personal reflections or sensory details could enhance reader interest.” I’ll give that a try tomorrow.]
Sliding into the Snowbird Mall at 2 PM, I saw a mini tornado of food wrappers swirl towards me as I unclipped from my skis. After six trips to the top on the tram that day, my legs were rubbery from the final descent on Peruvian Gulch – Silver Fox. Four days without snow, after a two-foot dump, and the bumps resembled a tilted parking lot of white VW Beetles. Five weeks of daily skiing the steeps had at last delivered an epiphany: if I kept my shoulders perpendicular to the fall line while my ankles and knees absorbed the sudden transition from peak to trough, I was able to string together four or five turns without stopping in the middle of a mogul field. I wanted one more trip to cement the kinesthetics of that lesson.
And to get seven rides up the tram. That had become my daily measure of success. 21,000 vertical feet a day, 6 days a week, and I had started to become an accomplished skier. The combination of periodic deep snow falls and subsequent transition to treacherous moguls was honing my skills, building a base of confidence that would last a lifetime.
Heedless of the signs of an impending storm front, I clamped my poles onto my Olin VII skis, shouldered the package, and clomped into the tram loading area. It was ominously empty. I looked up at the cable lines and noticed the red car had just passed the upward bound blue. During the 3 minutes it took to arrive, several stragglers joined me, all regulars I recognized from my daily trips to the top.
The Snowbird tram holds 120 skiers when full, all standing in a steaming mass holding their skis upright. The daily riders knew the drill: LIFO, Last In, First Off. Stand next to the pole at the downhill end of the sliding door and scoot off as it opened. Then head for whatever powder patch seemed least skied on the way up, usually Great Scott or its cousins in the Cirque.
At the uphill side of the door, the tram operator wielded his controls. Most of the time, there was little to do except throw a few switches to open, then close the door, and start the ascent by restarting the cable motor. Let the autopilot do its thing, then slow down gently when near the top. During that final glide-in, turn on the microphone and repeat the warning to watch for obstacles and follow the recommended route down, “Chip’s Run”. It was always Chip’s. I’d ridden so many times by now that I gave little thought to the nuances of their work, which appeared to be as simple as the now anachronistic elevator operators of years gone by.
Until today. Most of the weekday crowd had been dissuaded by the failing, fading light of an overcast sky, the lack of fresh snow and the capricious wind. A perfect time to call it a day. Except for the die-hard dozen who filed in. We each found a spot to rest our hips on the ledge under the windows.
“It’s getting windy. Are they going to shut the tram down early?” one asked the tram operator.
“It was OK coming down. I think we can make it one more time,” came the response.
The tram rises nearly 3,000 feet from the mall, taking the shortest route up. Four massive towers guide its cables, with a long dip in the ride between each. If the tram stops suddenly, a vertical roller ride begins, first bouncing upwards, then dropping down, gradually reducing the distance. The operators know to start up again at the bottom of the cycle.
Sometimes a downslope headwind impeded the upward progress, slowing the tram to a crawl. On this day, as we crossed over the lower ridge 1000 feet above the valley, we began to feel the wind hit us, this time coming not head-on, but up the canyon. Without its usual load, the car began to sway from side to side. At first a gentle drift, but as we passed the second tower, an unspoken chill rose among our band. All our eyes turned toward the third tower, rising on the rock outcrop at the base of the Cirque. At our current speed, it looked like our sway would bring us directly into it.
“Um, what do you do about that?” someone asked the operator.
He said nothing. He pulled the lever to slow our speed, attempting to time the sway so we passed the tower as far to the left as possible. Beyond that obstacle, the final tower awaited. Gently throttling, now slower, now faster, he again timed our passage to perfection.
Awed silence consumed the cabin. But one more challenge awaited. Even at the slowest speed, we still drifted side-to-side. The tram station loomed above, its Erector Set skeleton allowing little leeway to fit the giant gondola into the platform. Rubber bumpers on both the cabin and the landing allowed for a slight miscalculation, but without a precision entry, either the metal girders or the tram itself would be crunched.
Once again, he timed it perfectly. He opened the door, and we filed out. Wind whistled across the girders, which screeched with the strain. A few skiers were still on top, struggling to get into their bindings.
The last one off whispered, “Thanks, man.”