Most memorable New Year: Ski, fly a little, and survive
By John Gilbert
When I was a kid, our family used to get together with another family every New Year’s Eve. They lived at one end of Duluth and we lived at the other, and we never saw each other except on New Year’s Eve, although both sets of parents were close, and both families had a daughter and son the same ages. It was a wonderful and wholesome tradition, until their family moved to St. Cloud, and even a half-century later it regenerates warm and fuzzy memories.
I’ve always regretted that with my own family, we have never established or maintained any such holiday traditions. That doesn’t mean we didn’t have New Year’s celebrations that weren’t memorable. One New Year’s Day, in fact, remains the most memorable.
We all were very involved in sports, lliving in the Twin Cities in those days, back when Sprit Mountain had just been built as a ski area in Duluth. My wife, Joan, had tried skiing a few times, and our older son, Jack, had skied a fair amount. Our younger son, Jeff, was still tiny. I had never been on skis, although it looked exciting. That year, New Year’s Day fell on a Sunday, and the Vikings were in a playoff game that I really wanted to watch. But it was decided that the most fun thing we could do was to have a family ski day at Spirit Mountain.
My plan was to be what they call a “good sport.” I’d go out on the slope, fall down to give the rest of the family a big laugh, then come back to the lodge allegedly to recompose myself, but mainly to watch the NFL playoff game, while Joan and Jack skied and laughed, in equal portions.
It was a cold but bright day. Since I had never had skis on my feet, I had no ski clothing, either, although from coaching kid hockey teams outside, I knew how to stay warm. I had a huge parka that looked a lot like it was made from the hides of several wolverines, although the fur was of the fake, acrylic sort. My family used to say it made me look like a Sasquatch, despite my more exotic idea of a wolverine. Regardless, it was definitely warm, because of its thickness, and if it didn’t fit in with the sleek ski-wear on the slopes, I didn’t care. I paid our fees and Joan and Jack put their boots on and latched themselves into their skis. I got much-needed help from the guy renting equipment, coming away with some boots that fit and a pair of skis that fit onto the boots. I got the boots on, and walked with clumping steps out the lower door to catch up with Joan and Jack. As instructed, I clicked my Spademan bindings onto my booted feet, and hooked the tethering straps around my ankles.
Jack, old enough to be a wise-guy already, pointed me down a gentle slope running diagonally away to the southwest as the starting hill. I slid, cautiously, in that direction, then stopped and looked up. The silhouette of the chairlift, high above, way up in the sky, made me realize I had been suckered by my kid. I was now far enough down the hill that I would have to go the rest of the way.
OK, I figured, it’s time for me to provide the family entertainment. Off I went, heading down what looked like a near-cliff, leading to the St. Louis River. I was already an experienced motorcycle rider, and a veteran of having driven numerous race cars on numerous race tracks, amid the numerous cars I test-drove for my automotive column in the Minneapolis Tribune. Driving a race car or riding a motorcycle is a real kick, but you have have great care and a precise touch to make sure you don’t overdo it. Skiing, it seemed to me, was similar in exhilaration, but, in theory, going fast was its own reward — extra fun, without the risk of crashing into a wall or going to jail — and overdoing it meant crashing on snow, which provides a softer impact than, say, a guard rail.
I thought of that as I went over the crest and plunged down the steepest part of the slope. Immediately I was going fast, and then I was going faster. Too fast, for sure, but really exciting. The sunglasses I was wearing seemed to channel jetstreams of air directly into my eyes, which were both watering at a frantic pace, obscuring my vision. Skiing down an all-white hill, with your eyes watering, took the term “whiteout” to a new plateau. I had no idea about the technique, to say nothing of the ability, to swerve a bit from side to side, carving into the snow the way I have since I’ve closely observed experts on television. I was, instead, hurtling straight down the hill at bl;ur-speed, unable to see anything ahead of me except the occasional dark form of a “normal” skier that was gently weaving down the hill at moderate speed. Looking stylish or being cool was not in my consciousness, but in retrospect, the fur from that giant acrylic must have been standing on end on my parka as I flew down that hill.
Thrilled as I was, right about then I suddenly became aware of something else. I was airborne. Combining flat-out speed and watery eyes left me unable to see any contours in the whiteout conditions, and the inability to see became an elimination of any chance to avoid something called a mogul. I apparently had gone right over one, launching me into what seemed like outer space. At height of my flight, both in altitude and elapsed time, I became aware of yet another sensation — my right ski was no longer attached to my right foot. I felt the freedom of my right foot just about a millisecond before also feeling the tug of the tether as the free-falling ski reached its limit from the free-falling body, which was me.
The thought flashed across my consciousness that this might be how my life would end. The cartoon image of Beetle Bailey after being beaten up by Sarge came to mind, the one where Beetle lies in a pile of disjointed bodily parts. My adrenaline rush was already maxed out, but it went to emergency overload as I realized that, at some point in the near future, my flilght I would be ending and I could hopefully be found after cartwheeling the rest of the way to the St. Louis River.
I did, indeed, come back to contact with the earth, on one ski. Only instincts were still functioning, and those instincts sought to come to a complete stop as quickly as possible. I cut sharply to the right on the inside edge of my left, and only, ski and skidded to what might be best called a hockey stop. Immediately, I was at a complete halt. Without any such statistics being kept, even in Olympic skiing, I’m quite sure I just set some sort of record for going 60-0 in the shortest possible time.
But I was still standing, still, in the middle of the run, with my still-adrift right ski bumping softly into my boot as it dutifully returned from the length of its tether. It was like an obedient pup that had run to the end of its leash, nearly strangling itself before returning apologetically from its over-exuberance. I reached down, opened the binding, put my boot into it, and latched it shut, turning the crank a couple twists to tighten it. Only then did I realize that I had just committed all in a moment, an act that was simultaneously dangerous, exciting, and spontaneous. A maneuver that nobody should try on skis. And maybe something never before tried by anyone, at least on the first-ever attempt at a downhill skiing run. I was still standing there. I did not tumble end-over-end, I did not even fall down, even though my first run on two skis turned into my first and only run on one ski, and all at high speed, while impersonating a berserk Sasquatch.
Nothing to this skiing, I thought, and I resumed my run. Zap! I was at the bottom, Joan and Jack expressed something bordering on amazement. I had left them far behind — gravity will do that for you on a ski slope — but they had the perfect vantage point to see the whole event unfold.
The football game was immediately excluded from my plans, as I spent the rest of the day flying down the Spirit Mountain slopes at what could only be called banzai speed. I never curved, I never figured out the way to do anything but blast down the hill as fast as my enthusiasm, gravity, and the complete lack of common sense could carry me. I learned later they call it “bombing” the hill, but I’d never heard, or considered, such a thing.
The advantage of going that fast was that I was able to make a lot of runs; the disadvantage was that each run consumed about 20 seconds, or about as long as it might take a boulder to hit bottom after being dropped off the top of a cliff. I must have made a dozen runs, until my building confidence edged over to cockiness. Only then did I have a full-speed, fly-through-the-air, crash and burn going down that main slope. That crazy acrylic parka must have made it look like a Sasquatch-induced avalanche, and the rest of the family got their long-awaited chance to laugh at my expense. I made them wait to get it, but it has remained among the highlights of family reminiscences.
It was dark by the time we finally quit. I think the Vikings won their playoff game, but I never saw a single play. Funny thing, though. I know all my runs were lightning fast, because I was bombing each run, so how come that first run remains indelible in my memory, with the whole airborne/ski-jettison/one-ski landing/complete-stop seeming like it took about five minutes, while it must have actually taken about a half-second?
Great way to spend a New Year’s Day. But maybe not a wise course of action for a family tradition.
About the Author
John Gilbert is a lifetime Minnesotan and career journalist, specializing in cars and sports during and since spending 30 years at the Minneapolis Tribune, now the Star Tribune. More recently, he has continued translating the high-tech world of autos and sharing his passionate insights as a freelance writer/photographer/broadcaster. A member of the prestigious North American Car and Truck of the Year jury since 1993. John can be heard Monday-Friday from 9-11am on 610 KDAL(www.kdal610.com) on the "John Gilbert Show," and writes a column in the Duluth Reader.
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