February 2009 - If you are a dumpster-diving dirtbag like me, the Northeast is the place to be this year. I know, complaining about lift ticket prices is de rigeur thing to do, especially at the snowboard shop when you are trying to replace those broken Burton Mission bindings on the cheap…gotta pay to play they say. And then you also have a chance to talk about all that great backcountry stuff you did last weekend in the Dacks that took 18 hours round trip including hip-deep powder and a 3,000 feet elevation gain. There’s always that story along with your rock-torn, sand-blasted tree-stomped aging body to prove it. Hey, I’m 49 years old, I can complain about pain if I want to. There’s either free turns, earn your turns, or work for your turns, take your choice. If its liftserve you are looking for, the money exchange can be challenging, even on e-coupon days. Do you buy gas or do you spend your last $20 on a lift ticket? And what about food, cos those granola bars are getting way old.
Me, I like my stuff free or greatly reduced, always have. I used to work in bike shops so I could use the tools I couldn’t afford. Finally, after slowly building up my basement shop by buying used tools from retiring mechanics, I continued working in bike shops to acquire the bikes I couldn’t afford. Then I got addicted to snowboarding after working in a bike shop that sold snowboards. My climbing rack is comprised of free swag found at the cliff, old cast-off cams from friends, and deals from swap meets. Just so you know, before any comments, I do use new ropes. Well, maybe not perfectly new…
My whitewater kayaks are those that the shop couldn’t sell cos they had five years of dust on them and were too big to fit anyone under 250 pounds. Who weighs 250 pounds and whitewater kayaks, anyway? The foam inserts came from a factory dumpster … they almost float. Because of my fabulous volunteering skills, I finally won a new kayak at the Deerfield kayak festival one year in between beers. Stuff just comes my way.
Ya gotta eat right to live they say. I like organic veggies including fancy tomatoes and strawberries, so I grow them myself. Since good fertilizer costs a lot I also grow llamas and scoop their poop. I’m so lazy I fenced the garden next to their favorite poop pile so travel from one to the other is minimal. There’s a really great food coop nearby so I work there and shop with coupons for sale items each week. Not cheap but still, our eggs and cheese come from the next little town, and the apples are local too. Trips to town don’t cost much as our youngest car, a very beat-up purple Honda Civic hatchback with 171k miles uses minimal gas. Staying limber at my age means teaching beginner yoga once a week at the local library so that I can get a free yoga class and some pocket change. Think I’m kidding? You can stretch or die in my world.
It’s probably understandable by now that when it comes to winter, there’s just no way I’m gonna buy a ticket to a liftserve, and true to my lazy nature, I can’t do backcountry every weekend. Besides, I work Saturdays and Sundays, a time when most people play, and I don’t work at an office. Yes, it’s true, I have foresaken all corporate trappings and work at area ski resorts as a Mountain Slave. I am a ski patroller at one mountain and a snowboard instructor at another. Both these titles translate into: Cheap local labor.
The military precision of our incredible ski patrol team at very strict and jam-packed with guests Jiminy Peak in Massachussetts is rivaled by the unlimited tree riding/cliff hucking opportunities at wildly unregulated Magic Mountain in Vermont, where you can even hike up for free and earn your turns with your dog if he’s leashed. I looked at all the resorts in our area (there are many in here on the NY/VT/MA border) and picked the coolest, non-commercial, telly ho mountain I could find to teach at this year. Magic Mountain in Londonderry, Vermont is the sweetest, I love that mountain. I teach a little and play a lot. Last year, I taught full time, Monday through Friday AND holidays at Jiminy so this year my new motto is, don’t make your snowboard your corporate ball and chain.
Getting national ski patrol OEC training was easy, I just signed up and went to classes. Back in September, I thought it was so cozy and warm, sitting in class, practicing splints on other instructors. Drinking coffee. Once you pass the medical exams, ongoing mountain training lasts for a total of nine months. You begin to realize that you are also now officially a Mountain Slave and figure out how much work there is ahead. You start to feel the crunch of what happens when you screw up. Yes, that was my fault and it was a mistake. That was a major screw up and I understand the consequences to our guests on the mountain and to the future of skiing and riding here. Yes, I will attend training to make sure I never do it again.
The payoff is great, however, if you are a dirtbag like me. I can visit other mountains by way of my ski patrol number, some without even so much as a letter of introduction. Mountains want ski patrollers on their trails, anyone can google ski patrol certification and you’ll get gobs of free offers. Just this fall we could have stayed at Lake Tahoe for free and taken ski patrol training. Think about it, wouldn’t you like to ride for free too?
There is a downside to my story. I’ve had to improve my technique enough to hang on ice off double black diamonds pulling a freaking 150 plus pound sled with a 200 pound guy in it. Hey, I’m 125lbs and I am riding a snowboard. It’s below zero windchill, at night, and the breeze has become a tornado. I’m tired, I’m cold, my teeth are chattering and my hands are ice cubes. Still, the patient needs first aid including ABCs and O2, C-collar, extrication from the trees, backboarding, loading onto the sled, then sliding, successfully I might add, down the mountain to Hq. Doesn’t that sound like fun to you? Oh, and did I mention that falling or losing the sled is obviously not an option. It’s happened.
Have you ever tried snowboarding at night with a really big, two-foot long drill? How about carrying eight, six-foot long poles? Maybe you’ve tried refencing a closed trail while riding your snowboard switch. Then, there’s always the student who run over your board repeatedly till the top separates from the bottom and you have to buy Tips and Tails off ebay to save your gear. The best news of all is, if you get injured on the mountain you get pee-tested! How’s that for fair trade?
As for teaching snowboarding here in the Great North Iced, at Magic the rope tow is no piece of cake so we end up walking up and down the bunny slope while chattering our teeth and freezing our butts off. Ten or 15 laps on the bunny are all the cardio I need for the day, but wait, there’s more! Take the cold kids in after two hours of lessons, buy him/her overpriced hot chocolates and cookies, give them your warmies out of your gloves cos their hands are so cold, go back outside and do it again for another two to three hours, then hand the kids off to mommy and daddy. Explain how great the kids did, blah blah blah, oh that’s okay, don’t mention the hot chocolates and cookies, the kids were hungry, and what do you get? Certainly not a tip.
Then there’s the other mountain where I taught full time last year. Picture this: Me with 11 little four year old kids, snowboards that they have never seen before, missing gloves, runny noses, peed in pants, sometimes even poop, vomit, crying, mom and dad disappeared for the ENTIRE DAY and I am trapped till at least 3:30 p.m. with this mob. It’s six degrees outside, and our bunny slope with the Magic Carpet looks like an ice skating rink. We have to eat hot dogs and mac and cheese together as these are my charges for the day, including potty, snacks, naps and lunch. Shall I say more? It’s not a pretty picture.
When it gets ugly, you just keep breathing, and tell yourself you are getting a free lift ticket this year. What defines free anyway? Free means you can come and go to the mountain as you please, oh yes, let me tell you about the good parts to my story. Free means we have this fabulous Hq at Ski Patrol where I leave my snowboard and gear and can suit up in style. Free means I have private bathrooms at both mountains (well, I admit one of the bathrooms doesn’t lock and the little kids don’t knock). There’s the intructor’s lounge at Magic where we can toss our crap, and the wonder of hitting the slopes at eight a.m. before anyone is on the mountain. Closing down trails at Jiminy with Ski Patrol after 10 p.m. can be really fascinating, especially after it snows then rains. The entire mountain is covered in unseen moguls that you must hop over while searching the trees for a wayward skier/rider who may have fallen off the face of the Earth.
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