Be forewarned, mostly this email is about skiing and working on the mountain. I wish I had more to offer, but that's pretty much all I do. Mostly the working part. I hope it's not too boring, but I figured I haven't written in awhile and I owe an update.
Last week started off with a wicked storm, our first in months. This would ordinarily be pleasant news, but I knew that it was likely that I would be stuck on the mountain for the duration. The road gets snowed in pretty quickly, and due to the gale winds and white-out, there's no travel to or from the mountain during such an event. They need some groomers up there to keep the drifts in check and the trails passable, so we went up as the angry clouds were rolling in. Four of us were up for almost four days. There were also three ski patrollers, two caretakers, and the plow guy. It's quite an experience, being so isolated in a tempest, but after awhile it gets old. There's nowhere to sleep (I found a reasonably-clean couch) and you don't go outside. I did go outside a couple of times (once to shoot off avalanche rockets with the patrollers, which was cool). Even with my hood pulled so tight that there was just a slit, I still got sandblasted in the eyeballs with flying ice shrapnel.
I went for a run around the cafeteria in my work boots, and hung out reading or watching TV with the rest of the inmates. I didn't watch that much TV because the slightly (more than slightly) deranged caretaker was always in there boiling a gruesome fish stew and watching dog racing. I also talked shop with the patrollers over dinner. They were talking about trying to go for some ski runs when the weather broke. I said this was a fine idea and I'd be happy to shuttle them up in my 'cat, but I said I'd like to take some runs too. They looked sidelong at each other and I got the idea that they were sure I'd slow them down. Patrollers... always with a chip on their shoulder. At home, we call them "alpine heroes". I'm pretty certain that I would keep up with these guys OK.
Finally the storm broke and we could get out. I went home and showered and slept like the dead. I had the next few days off, and I was more than ready to get out of town. A dispute with my boss about being paid during my incarceration didn't help my mood. So I went up skiing at Temple Basin, a "club field" a couple hours' drive away.
These "club fields" are a remarkable experience. It is literally a club, with members doing the maintenance work in exchange for reduced rates on skiing and lodging. Everything is so back-to-basics, it's unbelievable. Even getting there is a challenge. This particular field required an hour to hike up to the lodge. The trail was pretty steep and icy for awhile, and I thought it was a pretty good workout. It got steeper and steeper and then just it went straight into a wall. There was a rope dangling down. A rope? I stared uncomprehendingly. It became apparent that this was indeed the right trail, and I proceeded to haul myself up pitch after pitch of ice and snow. This is just to get to the lodge! At Beaver Creek they have escalators and a lady handing out cookies. Here, you could quite easily end up a broken heap just getting there.
When I finally arrived, I sat down on a bench where there were five or six other skiers shooting the breeze. I introduced myself, and was immediately welcomed. Nobody was in any hurry to do anything, everyone was just enjoying the view and the sunshine. Eventually they invited me along with their group and we went exploring. It was bliss. Later we all went for a communal lunch, which was a big cauldron of ham and pea soup. You could have seconds if there was enough, and everyone does their own dishes. And the skiing was utterly phenomenal. If you felt like it, you could hike to any of a vast selection of crazy pinnacles and ski the kind of stuff that you see in movies. You could do whatever you want, and there's no hurry, because there were only about 40 people in the whole place and 20 of them are drinking beer on the deck and working on their tans.
Contrast this with Colorado, where there is often a lot more aggression and attitude. There is a mountain in southern Colorado, Silverton Mountain, which is renowned for its comparably extreme terrain. I've been there a few times and while it is indeed amazing, it's a totally different scene. There, you show up, and immediately people look you up and down to see what kind of gear you have. The staff starts yelling at you from the get-go, telling you that THIS IS SERIOUS and that you need to LISTEN UP! and IF YOU CAN'T KEEP UP, YOU'D BETTER NOT SLOW EVERYONE ELSE DOWN and DID YOU SIGN YOUR RELEASE FORM? Not so at this little club field in miles-from-nowhere New Zealand. Some old-timer in a 1970s one-piece ski suit might sit down and tell you a yarn about how things used to be when he was a wee lad, and you'll kick your heels up and listen because it's a nice day and a sublime setting and there's no hurry to do anything at all.
Anyway, thumbs up to that sort of thing.
Often at Mt. Hutt we are "above the cloud", which is nice. It's gray and dreary down on the plains, then you drive up and up and up the mountain road and suddenly emerge into clear blue skies. It's always a bit of an emotional lift when that happens.
One of my coworkers navigating his way up the mountain. Hopefully this illustrates how dodgy it is around here. When I arrived I was shocked and terrified for awhile, but you get used to it.
Coaches from the Swedish and Canadian ski teams, trying out our homemade slope watering device. This perforated pipe got attached to my blade, and a water hose is attached to one end of it. The idea is to spray water onto the snow while I drive around, so the racers have a nice icy surface when it freezes. The whole activity was an utter failure ("a shitshow", to quote the Canadian coach), with the pipe freezing solid and the water hose exploding all over the run. Luckily I just sat in the warm machine while everyone else was miserable.
After the big storm. This isn't fluffy snow, it's packed wind slab. Every shovelful weighs about 20 pounds, and since they built the lifts with absolutely zero clearance for a snowcat, it all must be dug by hand. The fish-soup caretaker really enjoys shoveling and attacks it with maniacal enthusiasm. I think it quiets the demons in his head.
Found a mirror in the unlikeliest of spots up there.
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