Endless Winter

Hello lamppost, whatcha knowin? Been a while… again. This time, it’s about the best winter I’ve ever had. And it stems, again, from the fortunate turn of life-events that brought me back to San Francisco. Of course, it may seem odd to be writing about the Winter long after the equinox. But as it progressed, I thought that I’d want to write about it as one big event rather than a series of small ones.

Last September, Arno, a friend of a friend of a friend who has since turned into a very good friend, broadcasted an opportunity on some cheap season tickets to Kirkwood. A screamin deal on the best snow in the Sierras. The Tahoe resorts tend to go after the big bay area companies to get employees and friends to come up and spend their yuppie money. As such, 20 of us willing yuppies signed up, all very competent skiers or boarders (although mostly boarders), and all either already good buds with one-another, or very easy going peeps. Yes, I said peeps.

And then Kim said “Hey, what about a cabin? Why not take advantage of a huge group and go in on a weekend crash pad?” So, six weeks later, after some thorough research, a house-hunting day-trip, and some convincing emails and phone-calls, we had a place and 14 committed occupants. A very cool house. Very functional, spacious, and just run-down enough to make it cheap. Go Team!

Furniture? Well, it just so happens that both my Grandparents and those of a friend of Kim’s were moving out of their houses concurrently. I had previously gone to LA to team up with my Uncle and move my grandparents to their new assisted-living home. A second trip, during the first weekend of November, to hijack my dad’s truck and a uhaul trailer stuffed with the remnants of G+G’s stuff, followed by some all-night driving put me in Tahoe on Saturday morning. I met up with Kim, Matt, Brandon, Tats, and Carlee, and the six of us unloaded and drove to the north shore to begin the real work. We pull up to Kim’s friend’s grandparent’s house, and holy schlamoley, what a house! 4 floors, 5000 square feet, packed to the gills with furniture, kitchenware and tchotchkies, and get this, 11 beds! These people, bless their hearts, were literally closing the doors on 30 years of memories in this place. Three generations of their family and friends had either lived, visited, skied partied, played pool, sat in the 15-person hot tub, cooked huge gourmet meals, gotten stupid-drunk, danced, played hide-and-seek (probably for days on end) or otherwise created some good stories in this house, and it showed. This was not just any big house. There was a lot of love here, and the brief interaction we had with the owners gave us but a glimpse of it all. He was a successful global entrepreneur, whose health problems required them to move from the thin air to their place in San Juan Capistrano. We could only hope to continue their legacy as they handed their furnishings over to us. It took three trips but we got a good chunk of it into our modest cabin, and in two days, we transformed it from an empty ski-lease to a comfy little escape route. Go Team!

So we got the place from November through April. Last year, there was skiing in October. Granted, winter ’04-05 was nothing short of freakish, but we thought we’d at least be able to ski well before Christmas. Wrong. We watched anxiously, as a solitary storm allowed us a decent mid-December weekend. New year’s was fraught with warm rain and wind until the last day of the weekend. Then… Then, the temperatures dropped. The flakes began to float from the heavens like bleached goose-down. The chain-control signs started to flip. The hills, streets, trees, and rooftops cuddled into a thick white robe for the season. Hence began what was to be an epic ski-season for this motley grouping of eager beavers.

Before I get into it, a word about New Years. I’ve never celebrated the holiday with as cool a group as this. The snow was MIA. It was raining. It was windy. We had all the makings for a debilitating tropical storm; certainly not a ski weekend. We were socked in for 3 days of cabin-fever. A power transmission line went down and caused a blackout that lasted from noon on new-years eve through the morning of the new year. But wouldn’t you know it… we had 20 people in that house partying by candlelight. Matt brought a fresh keg of his and Carlee’s home brew. Someone had an ipod boom-box which actually sounded pretty sweet. We had heat from the gas furnace. We even had a little battery-powered light that served as a bathroom pass. We got drunk. We told stories. We toasted. We partied some more. And then we crashed. Good times.

So on to the good stuff. The fun, fluffy, powdery kind of good stuff. Although a few of us were able to reap a return on the season pass investment before the year was out, it wasn’t until early February that it really got good. The powder… it… just… kept… coming. I was at 12 days before the month was out, and half of those were powder-days. I had already beaten any prior season by two-fold. Following people like Matt R, Brandon, Tats, Sandy, Neil, raised my ability and confidence in all kinds of terrain, all kinds of snow, by several notches. I was learning what it meant to be a skier for the first time in my life. Before this year, I was a pretender. A socialite. A visitor to the mountain. I started to feel at home in Kirkwood, and it really started around February. I remember specific instances of uncontrollable giggles, the deepest breaths I’d taken in years, perma-grins, utter joy, a sense of disconnectedness from the weekday world, and total connectedness to the primal mountain-madness that liberates yuppie weekend warriors such as our group. Weekends like these make the 50+ hours of tedium that we all endure every week oh so much easier.

Of course it’s not just the yuppies, lone-wolfs, or DINK’s that enjoy these kinds of days. Many call Kirkwood home when the snow falls. Exchange employees come from all corners of the planet to work the lifts and shops for only a bunk, meals, and a ski-pass as payment. Locals who have been skiing the mountain for 20 years share stories over a pale-ale at Bubs. Geezers share a chairlift with 8-year-olds training for their next heat in the slalom tourney. Kirkwood even has special pricing for super-seniors; those over 70. Globetrotters who know where the good stuff is, and who don’t mind the 45 minute drive from Southlake, find their way to the ‘Wood. They come from Colorado, east coast, Scandinavia, French/Italian Alps, South America, Australia, New Zealand. Tats had friends come in from Japan. Small families, big families, extended families all come up from the peninsula, the City, East-Bay, wine-country, Stockton, Sac, Fresno, Reno, Carson, you name it. Kirkwood draws the enthusiasts from far and near. But there is one thing that this mountain is not, and for this we are eternally grateful. Kirkwood is not a tourist attraction. It is not a resort for those seeking après-ski night clubs, world-class shopping, or any diversion other than that granted by mother nature. This mountain caters only to the focused thrill-seekers. Cross-country, alpine, telemark, even dog-sledding. Yes, they have an ice rink, albeit I’ve yet to see anyone use it this season. Kirkwood is the purists’ resort.

Along with the constant desire to take advantage of the house and the snow came logistical matters that seemed to matter less and less as the season continued. In fact, all the BS we went through paled in comparison to what drew us to the mountain. Carpooling for Friday-night blitz’s up hwy 50, chain-on, chain-off, traffic, grocery shopping, packing in, packing out, shoveling snow, calling dibs on beds, money jar monitoring, cleaning, packing out trash, arranging the plow service, utility bills, traffic, busted sunglasses, kissing the landlord’s ass (a very nice guy, by the way), cleaning and repairing gear, adjusting bindings for different kinds of snow, between 3 and 6 hours of driving each way depending on… traffic, roadside food, late Sunday nights, 180-degree skids, white-out mountain passes, closed roads, bumps, falls, scrapes, bruises, one torn-up knee, marching up the remote peaks, early wake-up calls on powder days, breakfast on the run, hangovers, foggy goggles, one delam’d snowboard rendered useless, traffic… it goes on.

But it all was worth it. All for the precious few hours of the good stuff. In fact, on some weekends, it was worth it for as little as 4 hours of skiing. All for the sake of the pow-pow, the crunchy nuggets, fresh tracks on fawn ridge, waist-high Eagle Bowl, speed runs down chair 10 if it was groomed, bump runs when it wasn’t, Palisades, tree tracks, plotting lines from the lifts, buddies, green-buds, budweisers and bud-lights, Palisades, lips, hits, jumps, stumps (not me, necessarily), watching Matt R fall flat on his back sliding through the parking lot in front of Raley’s, the psycho at the drug store counter, all-you-can-eat sushi, snowball fights inside the car, exploring the gullies, peering over the cornices, so-so Reggae, Palisades, the film festival, face-plants that don’t hurt, hitting turns not thought possible, skiing a little too fast, losing control, yard sales, getting up, collecting gear, skiing too fast some more, record-setting snowfall for March, texas hold-em, deep but not profound, watching Kim and Brandon fight, watching them forget they were fighting and move on, becoming a better skier, adrenaline rushes, skiing with my sisters and niece (Momo), learning a lot about other people, learning a little about myself, Palisades, utter exhaustion from a day well-spent, the magnificent views, the 2pm opening blitzkrieg to the backside with Carlee, attempting to teach the game of Cribbage while hammered to an audience that's... hammered, 50-year-old skis, learning how to p-tek, 58-foot base, 30 ski-day season, prospects of skiing in July… it quite literally goes on.

As the season wraps up, it is my fondest hope that the momentum gained throughout it is kept through the Summer. Not just with me, but with this entire group of adventure-seeking weekend warriors. Bring on the music festivals and backpacking trips. Sign me up for the road-trips to nowhere, the sunshine, the day hikes, rafting, exploring. The beach calls my name as do the alpine trails. As of yet, I’ve turned away several come-ons from the Renegades, and the positive results have been real and plenty. Let us hope that a smooth segue to Summer proves as lively and experiential as the past six months.

The endless winter of 05-06. Here’s to you, and by the grace of God, may there be many more like you.