The Cold Shaft
This was supposed to be it. The storm on which the dreams of New England skiers lay. Vermont forecasters gleefully danced in front of their super imposed weather maps, heralding the coming "WINTER BLITZ," the return of snow. A smile danced across my face as they frantically pointed to the encroaching mass of precipitation, Vermont was to be saved, and with it, my sanity.
The warnings of snowy carnage were stamped into my mind as I loaded up my father's hideous black jeep wrangler in Cambridge. Blazed on the sides of the boxy coffin on wheels are two human skulls, an artifact with which my father has an unhealthy obsession. The skulls have quickly become the bane of my existence, forcing me into many uncomfortable conversations with people whom I had no intention of talking to. I don't like being accused of necrophilia and I could only hope that the heavy amounts of salt used on the north roads would permanently encase the decals in sodium.
I shuffled through my five pairs of skis, pondering which three would be chosen, and wishing that I could afford at least one more pair, no man should be limited to just five pairs of skis (actually, technically I have three pairs of Alpine skis and only two pairs of tele skis, I've tried to explain to Carolyn why this is in no way a sufficient quiver, but she still seems to get mad at me whenever she spots me drooling on my keyboard while I look at G3's website, she claims something about needing to save my money for food. Food shmood, I say, Ramen noodles can sustain a man for a surprising duration of time, G3 Rapid Transits are what will really make my heart sing. For some reason, she usually gets even angrier when I say that). Finally deciding on my world pistes, kingswoods and heads, I jump in front of the computer for one final check of every weather forecast known to man. "15 inches," I mutter to myself, frowning a bit, noting that the forecasted snow totals have been steadily decreasing, I quickly search for a more promising forecast, in order to calm my nerves (I generally enjoy rejecting the reality of professionals and substituting my own). Finding nothing more promising, not even some wacko on teletips who pulls numbers out of his ass, I look at the the forecast for Jackson, WY and see that -20 F will be the high for the following day, with periods of freezing fog (what the hell is that!?). While I feel sorrow for Tim's girlfriend (and maybe even Tim, but that's up for debate), I am overjoyed that TK and Natkin's chirping will be silenced for the time being. Suckas.
Northward bound at last, the incandescent glow of the city slowly dulls in my rearview as I cross the state line into New Hampshire, land of the speed trap. I ease my speed to 70 mph, and search for a cruise control function around the steering console. "Fucking Wrangler," I say to myself, the car handles like it was designed by a Community College dropout, and I swear if I look closely enough at the gas gauge, I can see the needle making steady progress towards empty, I add "lack of cruise control" to my growing list of gripes with the car. As the hours begin to tick by, my sense of alarm at the lack of snow begins to grow, after crossing the Connecticut River, alarm turns to outright panic. Snow has yet to begin to fall, and a paltry two inches covers the grass in the median, where is the four to six inches that the resorts claim fell from the sky? Fucking liars.
I pull into Stowe at around 1:00AM. Unable to stay at my ski chalet, err, I mean Quinn's house, due to Chrissy's head cold, I had instead arranged to stay with a cycling buddy in the lower village. While the snow situation had improved marginally, precipitation had yet to bless us with it's presence, causing a little anxiety as I brought my boots into the dark cottage. Within minutes of my arrival, I lay collapsed on a large brown couch, bringing back fond memories of my days passing out on Tim, Jon, and TK's beautiful and awesome "big brown" in Oakland, ME.
7:30 AM. Why is it that every single "free" ring tone that comes with a cell phone sounds like a goat being sacrificed? I cracked open a bleary eye and positioned it in front of the tiny opening in my sleeping bag, to see my phone vibrating and bleating across the hardwood table in the living room. I quickly got up, and groggily made a break for my phone. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to extract myself from my sleeping bag, and in my effort to hop my way across the room, I become entangled in what must have been eight pairs of ski boots and came crashing down quicker than George W Bush's presidency. Thankfully nobody saw this and I quickly crawled the rest of the distance to my phone to call Quinn back. I was surprised to learn that Mr. Green would be relinquished from his child rearing duties for the day, and would be joining us later in the day for some soft turns, I was overjoyed, it is not often that I get to see the big man, and the mini Colby reunion in the making had a lot of promise.
(I'll finish the rest later, I actually need to write an essay right now, and I think this may be enough procrastination for one day).
The warnings of snowy carnage were stamped into my mind as I loaded up my father's hideous black jeep wrangler in Cambridge. Blazed on the sides of the boxy coffin on wheels are two human skulls, an artifact with which my father has an unhealthy obsession. The skulls have quickly become the bane of my existence, forcing me into many uncomfortable conversations with people whom I had no intention of talking to. I don't like being accused of necrophilia and I could only hope that the heavy amounts of salt used on the north roads would permanently encase the decals in sodium.
I shuffled through my five pairs of skis, pondering which three would be chosen, and wishing that I could afford at least one more pair, no man should be limited to just five pairs of skis (actually, technically I have three pairs of Alpine skis and only two pairs of tele skis, I've tried to explain to Carolyn why this is in no way a sufficient quiver, but she still seems to get mad at me whenever she spots me drooling on my keyboard while I look at G3's website, she claims something about needing to save my money for food. Food shmood, I say, Ramen noodles can sustain a man for a surprising duration of time, G3 Rapid Transits are what will really make my heart sing. For some reason, she usually gets even angrier when I say that). Finally deciding on my world pistes, kingswoods and heads, I jump in front of the computer for one final check of every weather forecast known to man. "15 inches," I mutter to myself, frowning a bit, noting that the forecasted snow totals have been steadily decreasing, I quickly search for a more promising forecast, in order to calm my nerves (I generally enjoy rejecting the reality of professionals and substituting my own). Finding nothing more promising, not even some wacko on teletips who pulls numbers out of his ass, I look at the the forecast for Jackson, WY and see that -20 F will be the high for the following day, with periods of freezing fog (what the hell is that!?). While I feel sorrow for Tim's girlfriend (and maybe even Tim, but that's up for debate), I am overjoyed that TK and Natkin's chirping will be silenced for the time being. Suckas.
Northward bound at last, the incandescent glow of the city slowly dulls in my rearview as I cross the state line into New Hampshire, land of the speed trap. I ease my speed to 70 mph, and search for a cruise control function around the steering console. "Fucking Wrangler," I say to myself, the car handles like it was designed by a Community College dropout, and I swear if I look closely enough at the gas gauge, I can see the needle making steady progress towards empty, I add "lack of cruise control" to my growing list of gripes with the car. As the hours begin to tick by, my sense of alarm at the lack of snow begins to grow, after crossing the Connecticut River, alarm turns to outright panic. Snow has yet to begin to fall, and a paltry two inches covers the grass in the median, where is the four to six inches that the resorts claim fell from the sky? Fucking liars.
I pull into Stowe at around 1:00AM. Unable to stay at my ski chalet, err, I mean Quinn's house, due to Chrissy's head cold, I had instead arranged to stay with a cycling buddy in the lower village. While the snow situation had improved marginally, precipitation had yet to bless us with it's presence, causing a little anxiety as I brought my boots into the dark cottage. Within minutes of my arrival, I lay collapsed on a large brown couch, bringing back fond memories of my days passing out on Tim, Jon, and TK's beautiful and awesome "big brown" in Oakland, ME.
7:30 AM. Why is it that every single "free" ring tone that comes with a cell phone sounds like a goat being sacrificed? I cracked open a bleary eye and positioned it in front of the tiny opening in my sleeping bag, to see my phone vibrating and bleating across the hardwood table in the living room. I quickly got up, and groggily made a break for my phone. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to extract myself from my sleeping bag, and in my effort to hop my way across the room, I become entangled in what must have been eight pairs of ski boots and came crashing down quicker than George W Bush's presidency. Thankfully nobody saw this and I quickly crawled the rest of the distance to my phone to call Quinn back. I was surprised to learn that Mr. Green would be relinquished from his child rearing duties for the day, and would be joining us later in the day for some soft turns, I was overjoyed, it is not often that I get to see the big man, and the mini Colby reunion in the making had a lot of promise.
(I'll finish the rest later, I actually need to write an essay right now, and I think this may be enough procrastination for one day).
posted by Erik B at 10:52 AM
10 Comments:
If you don't enter this into Backcountry's essay contest, i'm going to copy it, send it in, and claim it as my own.
No, I closed my eyes as I passed the place, too many bad memories. Plus, the bastard charged me $150 just to look at my car and tell me it was toast.
Really? No shit, I couldn't have guessed that from the fact that the engine suddenly stopped when I was going 40 down rt 2.
Yeah, he also thoughtfully forgot to tell me about the extended warranty coverage on the engine. That greedy austrian bastard was licking his chops at the prospect of milking me for $5500.
What a douche nozzle.
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Erik, one word...Stowe.
Your first problem Eric is that you seem too much like an optimist. You can't be an optimist and be an east coast skier. I like to use the term realist to describe my attitude, pessimism is the way my wife describes it; either way, I'm never disappointed. Example tomorrow, friday: forecast 2-5 inches. My prediction, hopefully an inch. See, now if 2 inches fall, I'll be psyched.
What about Stowe?
Skulls!? This jeep sounds rad!
So did it actually snow or just another false alarm.
This past weekend, it puked, 18 inches at stowe, upper mountain woods were skiing great, even hit a few lines off the backside into smuggler's notch. Lowe parts of the mountain was still a bit sketch, I did my best TJ Burke impression and skied a little waterfall (no other option).
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