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Slowly I rolled out of bed Thursday morning. I had slept poorly. At 7,000 feet, the air’s thin and my body struggled to adjust. Despite the lack of sleep I was excited to hit the slopes.
The first day of skiing is always the hardest logistically. It’s challenging just to locate all your gear, especially if you had to stuff it into nooks and crannies for the flight out. Then you have to figure out how many layers to wear so you won’t sweat or freeze to death. Putting on your boots becomes a solemn ritual; you have to make sure your ulta-thin ski socks aren’t bunched at all or it will come back to haunt you. It’s real important to take time to check off what you need, make sure it’s stowed in the right pockets, and that those pockets are zipped up—something I’ve been known to forget. Finally at this altitude, even if it is cloudy, it’s vital to slather on sun block and lip balm and stash them in a pocket for re-application. Then there is the lift ticket. Luckily the lodge had a shop where I could buy one. Staying up the mountain meant I could spend a couple of hours fumbling with all this and still be the first one in line at the lift.
Early that morning I touched base with Jim Seiter.
Jimmy and I go back to high school. Originally we were going to drive out to Utah together, but plans changed. Ultimately he wound up on a 1,2000 mile car trek with his ex-wife, mother-in-law, and teenage son Earl. When I asked Jimmy why, he said it was the only way he could ski out west with his son. It was Jim’s sixth day skiing and he was moving slowly that day; we made plans to meet at the mid-mountain chalet @ 11:00 a.m. I was on my own for the morning–fine with me.
In the lift line by 9:10 a.m, I was the first skier up the mountain. I made my way over to Catherine’s area off the Supreme Lift. I’ve always been partial to the runs off Supreme. As I skied down Rock and Roll, I stopped and looked over my left shoulder at Devils’ Castle, a jagged shoulder of rock that’s one of the Alta’s signature sights. I had arrived.
(Jagged Devil’s Castle at Alta.)
I made seven runs that morning, including a couple down Challenger: a black diamond run that several years ago was the scene of a disastrous fall for my friend Bob Cramer. He broke his pelvis there on the first run of the first day of the ski trip. I can never look up that run without flashing on Bob’s slumped body hugging the slope. Luckily for me, Challenger had been groomed (unlike the icy mogul field Bob faced) and I skied it without incident.
At 11:00 I met up with Jimmy. He and I have been skiing together for about 30 years. Jimmy is a better skier that I am, but I’m prettier, so it all evens out. We spent most of the day skiing the middle mountain—Sugarloaf—and then Ballroom over by the Collin’s lift. (For those of you so inclined, you can google Alta Ski and view a map and interactive guide of the place). The snow on Ballroom was the best we could find that day and we skied it several times. That afternoon, Jimmy made his way down the mountain and I made my way over to the Peruvian.
One of the highlights of any trip to Alta is the Peruvian hot tub. For years the Peruvian charged $5 for non-lodgers to use its hot tub, sauna, and pool, as well as enjoy the appetizers that magically appeared near the bar. Then, about five years ago, they revoked the policy, so we just used the hot tub for free. The key was to walk into the lodge acting like you belonged. Because of all our practice, we never had any problem. Now, since I was actually staying at the place, I was legit.
Alta tends to draw males skiers. Over two-thirds of the lodgers at the Peruvian are men. So when four charming women entered the hot tub that Thursday afternoon, we boys were in hog heaven. De De and her buddies were from Durango CO. They were all married and had ditched their families for a girl’s week at Alta. Great gals! The only problem that day was they had not skied Alta and were full of stories about how wonderful Telluride was in Colorado. We listened patiently, because we had an ace up our sleeve—a storm was coming.
That night I had dinner with a couple I had met at breakfast. They had arranged to have some friends of theirs come up the mountain and dine with them, so I met several interesting people from SLC; as usual I pumped the locals for information about the economy of the area and, especially, for any Mormon stories.
Meanwhile across the way, an economist was holding sway. If there is anything more aggravating then a historian trying to fit the history of the world into a nice neat package, it is an economist (sorry Don) trying to explain the world through an economic lens. This know-it-all posited that all cultures are completely alike, and that it’s all about GDP. We got off on China, something I know a little about. I challenged this GDP-world-viewer on the fact the China had a very different culture then the west, as evidenced by their invention of the printing press in 400 CE (Current Era is more PC than AD) and the fact that they never used the cussed thing because the Chinese upper class wanted to maintain control and didn’t want the plebs to learn how to read or write. He said “the printing press was nothing” and I of course unloaded on him. The prig. Luckily we were rescued by the others at the table who turned to talking about other less volatile issues. Later the economist’s wife (who I had shared breakfast with) turned to me–her husband in another argument with someone else–and sighed, “Heated debate.” I replied, “Was there any other?” I can be such a snot.
Meanwhile, outside, storm clouds were approaching.
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