My Winter Games

With the Winter Olympics on TV now, I thought I might brag a bit about my own winter games.  I’ve been snowboarding in Colorado for several years now, and this year I set a world record… in skiing!  Well actually, it wasn’t skiing per say, but actually shot skiing.  And like all humble winners, I have to say, “I couldn’t have done it alone.”  As a matter of fact, I had the help of hundreds of people.  And now, I am - along with hundreds of my now closest acquaintances – a world record holder in the longest shot ski. 

No, it is not a combination of skiing and shot put, and, as a matter of fact, requires much less coordination or skill than either of those events.  Rather it is a combination of skis and alcohol.  A shotski is a ski with shot glasses attached to it, so it’s a team sport in which all members of the imbibing team must drink the shot at the same time and speed.  I guess it’s like synchronized drinking… with training wheels/skis for the less coordinated.   

The shot ski is organized by the local distillery and takes place during Ullr Fest in Breckenridge (or “Breck” as it’s known).  Ullr (pronounced ooh-lur) is the Norse god of winter and his Fest is one of the many winter events in the ski towns of Colorado.  Breck celebrates Ullr Fest early in the ski season to thank the gods for the snow that’s come, and sacrifice their livers in hopes of more snow for the rest of the season.  It’s the only event in which parade float members have tossed me a beer, instead of candy.  During the parade, onlookers can drink openly on the streets and many of the floats have drinking/Après Ski themes.  In addition, for the past two years the parade has been kicked off with the longest shotski in the world stretching down Main Street.  

The parade has actually ‘matured’ over the years; it used to have more of a Mardi Gras feel, complete with lore of skinny-dipping hot tubs rolling down Main.  A few years ago, I even ran in the parade dressed in little more than gold briefs and an Ullr helmet, cheering for more snow. Ah, the things we’ll do for a powder day.

About a month after Ullr Fest, Breck invites snow sculptors from around the world to participate in their annual International Snow Sculpture Competition.  Each team starts with a 10x10x10 foot cube of snow, and has a few days to carve it into something to wow the crowds and formal judges.  The results have been quite impressive, and sadly they are only around for a week before man and nature returns them to the water supply. 

Another winter event is Skijoring.  Why I haven’t seen this in the winter Olympics is beyond me; maybe we need to start a petition.  But, I guess you need to know what it is before you sign the petition.  Skijoring is derived from the Norwegian word, which means ski driving, and involves a skier that is pulled by horse, dogs or snowmobile.  In Leadville, they have their annual skijoring competition at the end of February or beginning of March.  I’ve been to two events and they were both been a fun time.  However, it doesn’t have the same emphasis on drinking as the Ullr Fest, so I recommend stepping back in time at the famous, I mean Legendary Saloon, if you want to wet your whistle.  

The skijoring events take place right outside the front door of the Saloon on the historic Main Street.  Snow is plowed onto the street for the day, in order to create a course with jumps and ring posts for the skiers to navigate.   Although, the event takes place in several cities across the western US, I think Leadville is a great place to experience it because the town still maintains its historic gold rush feel with period homes and storefronts.  

This past season, I lived in Frisco where they celebrate the New Year with a grand Bonfire of the Christmas Trees.  Rather than send all the trees to the land fill, they’re collected and burned in a town event that results in a deluge of calls to the fire department from concerned tourists. 

The fire leapt above tall snowbanks just off of Main Street, and the crowd cheered as the city crew dumped loads of spent trees on the fire with a front end loader.  It was a cold and blustery night, so it was hard to get close enough to the fire to beat back the cold, although the winds could quickly change, leaving the crowd scrambling to escape the smoke and flying embers.  Fortunately, there was food and drinks for sale, and the warm embrace of the small town crowd to distract me from my freezing feet.

Eight years ago, my cousin headed to Breck to spend a season in the mountains after graduating from college.  Then she spent a summer. She hasn’t left yet.  I tried to follow her footsteps, and though the mountains draw me back season after season, I haven’t stayed for a summer because have a laundry list of adventure jobs that keep me on the move.  My first season in Breckenridge was actually in pursuit of the adventure of working at a ski resort.  I applied for several positions and romanticized the idea of being a liftie (ski lift operator) or mountain safety.  Instead, I ended up working as a photographer on the mountain - fitting I suppose with my passion for photography - but I’ve never been real excited about shooting portraits.  

The job introduced me to many interesting characters from all walks of life.  I worked with a fast-talking nomad who looked like a skater with a mop of curly black hair.  He worked real estate in California for the off season and vied for top sales in our photography shop every day of the ski season.   Several others were also seasonal nomads, but I’d say they were a bit more laid back, fitting the profile of ski bums enjoying the recent legalization of marijuana in the town of Breck.  Another co-worker had been working as an architect before he quit his job to travel the globe for a year before landing in Colorado.  He had worked on a yacht to travel the oceans, wandered the rooftop of the world in Nepal, and taken amazing photographs of the pyramids that served as the backdrop of his business cards.  

During the season, I also chatted with lifties when business was slow, and met one who was literally a rocket scientist in a previous career.  He had quit his job designing missiles for the Air Force, and loved the laidback lifestyle of a lift operator.  The people I met were definitely one of the perks of the job, and their backstories were always unique and interesting.  However, in the end the job got in the way of my ski bum lifestyle, so I had to quit.

This season I’ve met many more interesting people.  Like the ‘Single Serving Friends’ you meet on an airplane, you meet all kinds of people on the short lift ride up the mountain.  From pot-smoking, lift-chair lawyers that argue their case to smoke on the chair, because for that moment it is private property as long as all parties on the chair agree; to the barstool homeless that are stranded in town due to storms closing the roads home; and an assortment of the 800 students on their class trip from Booth, University of Chicago’s School of Business.  Then there are the southern drawls up from Alabama, zee German accents from Austria, and Chilean businessmen; all awed by the size of the Rockies.  Their enthusiasm always reminds me how lucky I was to call the mountains home for a season.

I even met a fellow snowboard bum that was making a much better show of it by traveling across the US and Canada to ski at as many resorts as he could in a single season.  He’d been laid off, and decided he wasn’t getting any younger, so he might as well pack up his life in Boston and move to California’s Silicon Valley via every mountain in between.  All I can say is, “Well done sir, well done.”

Now, to be fair, I must also talk about the darker side of ski town living: snow porn.  In the mountain towns of Summit County, they actually have a local cable channel dedicated to this filth.  During the day, you might think it is just a local information channel, but at night the neon ‘Late on 8’ sign comes on in the lower corner of the screen and the classic snow porn music starts.  Not the typical Bom-chica-bow-wow, but surfing tunes for the snowboarding and alternative rock for the skiers.  

Warren Miller is one of the most prolific purveyors powder porn, but many have followed in his footsteps.  Warren started out working and living out of the back of a van in the Sun Valley Resort parking lot, but today snow-porn is a billion dollar industry, and he has studios in Boulder, Colorado.  His films have the typical titles filled with innuendo like, Wandering Skis, Swinging Skis, Ski Fantasy, Winter Fever and White Winter Heat.    

As you might expect, the plots are typically pretty weak and filler scenes are kept short between the hot action shots in mounds of luscious virgin powder.  And, when they have you all excited and convinced that every day is going to be a powder day, with fresh lines for all; they follow up the fluffy filth with an infomercial about a timeshare to convince you that you could be the next powder-star – like Glen Plake, or Jonny Moseley - living the slope-side highlife for the low, low price of half a million.  You’ve been warned.  

I never bought into the time share, but I suspect I’ll return for future seasons and maybe another adventure job in the mountains.  However, my next adventure job is going to take me to the beaches of South Korea where I’ll be teaching English!  I haven’t been back since my trip in 2009, and I’m excited about living there, slowing down to soak it all in, and a return to random rambling from abroad.  

While I’m there, I also plan to do some more snowboarding. The next Winter Olympics will be held in South Korea, so it’ll be fun to ride on the same slopes where the next Olympic champions will compete.  With my own shot ski record under my belt, I’ll also look for more winter events and ice festivals where I might try a sake (sock-ee) Shotski, or more accurately soju, the Korean version of Rice Wine.   Cheers, or as they say in South Korea “Gunbae,” which literally translates to “empty cup” or bottoms up.