Mad River Valley Memories

Thanks for the stories Camp and Scotty.
ml242,regarding Sigi, a real gentleman, good boss and one of the greatest natural skiers I ever saw.
Sunday downhills on Snowball were a blast, Sigi was always first untill those Eagen boys showed up.

Here is an excerpt from my journal I was required to keep this past semester for my creative writing class. This is actually a story of my first night working at the Stagecoach Bar and Grill in Wilson Wyoming.

                                                                                 The Coach

     I'm sitting at my bar stool right next to the front door. It's my first night working and there is a DJ playing dance music to help celebrate Heather Thomson's birthday. She was the actor who played Jody Banks in the 80's television show The Fall Guy. I'm the night time door man. I was hired the week before and I can't believe the scene going on right before me.
     
     A young girl introduces herself. She tells me that she is only nineteen but it's ok, she is friends with Bette the bartender. She sips on her cocktail through a straw and once she finishes her tongue licks her lips sensually from left to right making them shine like chromoly in the catching rays of the few neon bar lights in the surrounding dark room. Her upper teeth then bite down on her lower lip. She is talking to me but I can barely make out a word she is saying over the thumping dance music. I take a sip of my cocktail, a mix of bubbling sugary coke and exquisite Tennessee whiskey. Apparently a job perk is that I can have as many cocktails as I want while being on the clock.
     
     I look off toward the dance floor, Heather Thomson is shaking her sexy ass and is surrounded by two obviously flamboyantly gay men wearing Wyoming chic and another Ken doll looking man that I assume may be her boy toy. Her perfectly sculpted plastic Hollywood tits bounce with the thumping base. Then everything is disrupted. Tommy Moe the gold medal Olympic skiing athlete crashes through a bar stool and lands on the floor just below my feet. It sounds like the thunderous downpour of rain or colliding trains as the bar stool, floor, and flesh all smash together at once. His buddy Todd Jones picks him up off the floor as we all laugh in a drunken uproar. I look up at the bar, Bette gives me a look of disapproval letting me know that we can't have people falling all over the place, but this was Tommy fucking Moe. I wasn't going to kick him out of the bar.
     
     I look back up towards the dance floor, the turning sensation makes the room look like a splattered water color painting, I'm probably eight cocktails deep and it's only eleven. Then, out of my haze I hear “Josh, my eyes are up here.” The young girl in front of me has been talking the whole time and she is laughing while trying to direct my eyes to hers instead of her voluptuous sweat beaded breasts.

Tommy Moe down for an 8 count

Oh dude, it was a regular occurrence back then! :)

campgottagopee wrote

My time at Smuggs:

Every night was a Friday night and every day was a Saturday. That's the only way I can explain it other than we partied out balls off for 4 years.

That sums it up so well right there. I love that.

raisingarizona wrote

Here is an excerpt from my journal I was required to keep this past semester for my creative writing class. This is actually a story of my first night working at the Stagecoach Bar and Grill in Wilson Wyoming.

                                                                                 The Coach

     I'm sitting at my bar stool right next to the front door. It's my first night working and there is a DJ playing dance music to help celebrate Heather Thomson's birthday. She was the actor who played Jody Banks in the 80's television show The Fall Guy. I'm the night time door man. I was hired the week before and I can't believe the scene going on right before me.
     
     A young girl introduces herself. She tells me that she is only nineteen but it's ok, she is friends with Bette the bartender. She sips on her cocktail through a straw and once she finishes her tongue licks her lips sensually from left to right making them shine like chromoly in the catching rays of the few neon bar lights in the surrounding dark room. Her upper teeth then bite down on her lower lip. She is talking to me but I can barely make out a word she is saying over the thumping dance music. I take a sip of my cocktail, a mix of bubbling sugary coke and exquisite Tennessee whiskey. Apparently a job perk is that I can have as many cocktails as I want while being on the clock.
     
     I look off toward the dance floor, Heather Thomson is shaking her sexy ass and is surrounded by two obviously flamboyantly gay men wearing Wyoming chic and another Ken doll looking man that I assume may be her boy toy. Her perfectly sculpted plastic Hollywood tits bounce with the thumping base. Then everything is disrupted. Tommy Moe the gold medal Olympic skiing athlete crashes through a bar stool and lands on the floor just below my feet. It sounds like the thunderous downpour of rain or colliding trains as the bar stool, floor, and flesh all smash together at once. His buddy Todd Jones picks him up off the floor as we all laugh in a drunken uproar. I look up at the bar, Bette gives me a look of disapproval letting me know that we can't have people falling all over the place, but this was Tommy fucking Moe. I wasn't going to kick him out of the bar.
     
     I look back up towards the dance floor, the turning sensation makes the room look like a splattered water color painting, I'm probably eight cocktails deep and it's only eleven. Then, out of my haze I hear “Josh, my eyes are up here.” The young girl in front of me has been talking the whole time and she is laughing while trying to direct my eyes to hers instead of her voluptuous sweat beaded breasts.

Seems like there should be more to this story where it abruptly stopped

raisingarizona wrote

Oh dude, it was a regular occurrence back then! :)

That's cool

One of my buds was on the US Ski Team, complete natural skiing ability and ran hard back in the day (still does too )

They were at some qualifying race, can't remember where. He took his first run (pretty sure it was a GS, may have been DH race but whatever) he thought he totally bombed --- he says he was slow, completely f---ing  up 2 turns, so as he said he was done. He decided to head to the bar ---- AJ Kit wanders in and says, Hey man they're looking for you for your second run!! He respond's EFF that! I'm done, I was slow, late, blah blah blah ..... AJ Kit says, Dude you're in the lead!!!

He's 4 crown royals deep --- DNF his second run --- that story always cracks me up

I love people that are a little bit out there and on the edge! Good story.

skimore wrote

Seems like there should be more to this story where it abruptly stopped

Funny, the professor said the same thing. I guess I wasn't going for a real story just describing a moment in a place. I could exaggerate, add a little something to it and make a real story out of it. Maybe mash it with a few other nights?

I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to writing but I did manage to get an A! Sometimes ya gotta just fake it until ya make it! :)

Anyways......more! more! more!

raisingarizona wrote

skimore wrote

Seems like there should be more to this story where it abruptly stopped

Funny, the professor said the same thing. I guess I wasn't going for a real story just describing a moment in a place. I could exaggerate, add a little something to it and make a real story out of it. Maybe mash it with a few other nights?

I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to writing but I did manage to get an A! Sometimes ya gotta just fake it until ya make it! :)

Anyways......more! more! more!

Yeah, but I want to know what happened with the babe and the nice eyes

Fu....no, to heck with Tommy, I guess for the rest of the story we'll have to look up a 1980 something Penthouse Forum column?

I did missions like this from NJ in the early 90's for two years almost weekly during the winters. I was so amped I would drive for like 12 hours straight into white outs to get to MRG for powder days. Great memories.

JTG4eva! wrote

Fu....no, to heck with Tommy, I guess for the rest of the story we'll have to look up a 1980 something Penthouse Forum column?

 

HAHA! I would wait to the last minute to do these assignments and this one as many of the others I was often half cocked when I started it and a little more by the time I finished. The next day I reread the thing after submitting it the night before and I laughed at this one thinking how the professor was going to react to it. I was a little embarrassed but it's creative writing I figured and at least it was an online course. I have never met the teacher so f-it I figured.

I'm going to add one more to this thread. This is my favorite journal entry from this past semester. If you pay attention I think it really describes who I am and what type of life events put me on the path that I just had to follow. It's a little dark but it's as real as I can get.

Here is a picture of the line described in the story.





     I remember standing there, looking down my line and feeling the fear creeping up my spine as I fought off the trembling in my hands. Below me is a ten foot cornice drop to a hanging snowfield that sits over a seventy foot cliff drop. I'm going to be the first one skiing for the morning and it's the first time that we have seen the sun after a week of heavy snow. I felt good about the stability but it's always scary going first not to mention the initial move is a drop that's going to stress the snowpack but there isn't any other way to get onto the slope. I tell myself that if  this thing rips there aren't any terrain traps below, it's a clear open slope to the flats so I won't get cheese gratered at least like that lost dead tourist I saw getting airlifted out of Rock Springs Canyon the year before. I get on the radio and let Darrell know that I'll be dropping in, in fifteen seconds. I'm committed now and we are eager to get the shot, the anticipation burns like holding in your pee for hours. I back off the edge and focus on my breathing. I close my eyes and envision the line, every move, turn and air I'm about to execute. I take a deep breath. Looking past the edge there is nothing but space, it looks like the edge of the earth and I'm so scared, I exhale and turn my gaze to the sky, I watch the floating hoar crystals catch the suns light shining tiny twinkling little rainbows against the deep baby blue sky. I take another breath, this one is deeper, I can feel the cold brilliant Teton mountain air fill my lungs and I exhale it back into space. I imagine my fear riding on that escaping breath and exiting my body. It's been seven seconds now but it seems like a lifetime. I yell out loudly so my friends can hear me and are ready to capture the shot, “Three, Two, One, Dropping!” and I push off over the edge into the blue and white abyss.
     
     I'm remembering this from my bed after being woken by a nightmare. I stare at the stark grey ceiling, the mornings sunlight is unsuccessfully trying to creep around the edges of the blinds, my girlfriend is still deeply sleeping by my side. The dream was of me and my father. In that dream frothy mint toothpaste oozed out from the corners of my mouth, I looked up at the mirror as I brushed my teeth and see my younger twelve year old self. Then, from my right I suddenly feel the violent jolting clutch of my fathers powerful hands. My tooth brush flies from my mouth splattering mint paste against my Grandmothers shower curtain. I can see my feet to my side at nearly the same height as my head and above the bathroom sink. I feel what I imagine it feels like to be an astronaut floating about the spacecraft and giggling at these new weightless sensations. I see the bedroom window go by, the brilliant sunlight slowly splashing my face feels so comforting and warm.  I even notice the break in that sunlight from the shadow of the connecting window pane. I'm now looking up at the ceiling, I think I can count every textured popcorn feature and I form pictures connecting the dots like star constellations. My fathers hands are still clenching my shirt, he then releases me and I'm now watching my Grandmothers giant king sized bed below me as I soar through the air. For this brief moment I imagine myself as a super hero, my cape loudly flapping around in the sky, I reach my right arm out like a diving high speed flight reminiscent of Clark Kent, this will help to break my impact against the wall I tell myself.  I roll into a ball imitating a armadillidiidae bug spreading the force of the impact throughout my body. I feel nothing until my father has his hands on me again, but I'm now my forty year old self and I'm smashing his face in with a heavy square blunt object. My eyes abruptly opened and there I was, staring at that stark grey ceiling reminding myself that it was just a dream. Within seconds I some how process my dream and my thoughts seamlessly move into recalling that morning in the Tetons, preparing to drop and barely being able to contain and control my fear.
     
     I drop ten feet to the hanging snowfield below, the snow is silky smooth and buttery, skiing this kind of powder is like floating amongst the clouds and I can feel those surface hoar crystals exploding up around my knees, sizzling like baking soda and vinegar. I'm gaining momentum now and on my third turn the snow blows up like a crashing wave over my head. Just like the popcorn texture on my Grandmas ceiling, I'm so hyper focused I can see each individual stellar shaped snow flake slowly floating past my face. They look just like the snowflakes we created in kindergarden by cutting out folded over white paper during the holiday season. Again, I distinctively see the prisms of the crystals catching the suns light just right to create those tiny little micro rainbows.  I exhale as I watch the ground disappear from below my feet, I point my left ski pole directly at my landing, it's at least seventy feet underneath me. For this brief moment the silence takes everything away, time stands still and there is nothing but beauty. There is no anxiety, there is no pain, and there is no suffering. There is no thought, only this moment and I am euphorically drunk on my adrenalin. All is right in the universe for that split second, or at least it seems that way.
     
     The air against my body falling through the sky begins to whistle like the sound of a jet liner taking off from an airstrip as I approach terminal velocity. I see the landing getting closer and think about my injured right shoulder. It's just a minor dislocation I tell myself but it's better to be safe than sorry so I favor my left side for the impact to keep that injury out of harms way. WHAM! I slam into the snow like a giant rock getting dropped of a bridge into the river below. Making another three turns I finish my line and I can hear the hoots and hollers from my friends across the ridge.
     
     All of a sudden, as I'm staring at my bedroom ceiling, my whole life instantly makes so much more sense. I let out a laugh, throw off the covers, stand up out of bed and stagger into the kitchen to make the coffee.

Mad river snow report today

deep story RA!  thx for sharing.

Wow, that was some leap, and a terrifying story of abuse.

I've often thought that we love this sport so much because it allows us to escape who we are.

2000yearoldskier wrote

Wow, that was some leap, and a terrifying story of abuse.

I've often thought that we love this sport so much because it allows us to escape who we are.

 
It doesn't even scratch the surface. But the beauty of it all is that it shaped me into who I am today. I think we are all products of our own situational experiences and personal circumstances. I also don't like to think that our experiences define us but what does is how we react and grow from it all. If it wasn't for my parents fucked up-ness I might have not been compelled to leave New Jersey, move out west, and have the incredible adventures that I did. The idea of going from high school to college to a real job scares the hell out of me. I wasn't ready for the school thing until just a few years ago.

Skiing was like a vehicle for me to become a man and heal wounds but it didn't get me there solely. The ski bum lifestyle was a way for me to have control as well as a way to take back something that I felt was stolen from me, my youth. People like to say that you have to let go and move on but truthfully some wounds will never heal. Right when you think you are ok the nightmares come back to let you know what and who you really are. Some shit you just have to roll with and do the best you can.

I guess this is why when people judge and chalk up every persons situations as good vs. bad decisions I get irritated. Only if they knew what it's actually like to walk in another persons shoes. Nothing in life is so black and white, I think it's ridiculous to see things that way but apparently it's a common human flaw.

Ok, enough of that. Sorry for the buzzkill and on with the party! Maybe someone else can add to the thread to lighten the mood! :)

OK,  lets jump back into hot tub time machine.

March 1978  Stratton hosts World Cup Men's Slalom and GS.
The roommates and I  make a dawn start down rt. 100 excited about seeing the worlds skiers.
We arrive early,  and park in the front row next to a station wagon with a young fella  unloading
5 snowbotards "his term".One looked like the 1960's toy snurfer , the others showed e design
curve towards what we see today. He was super excited to meet us and introduced himself as
Jake Carpenter.We explained that we were there to watch the races and declined his invitation
to" ride " his " boards ". The newest board had the word BURTON  on it,  when I asked he said
that's  his grandfathers name, and his new company as well.

The GS was incredable,Stenmark led after one run, until Phil Mare smoked the field on the second
run to win.The  next day's slalom it was Steve Mahre's turn for victory,with Stenmark finishing
second.What a weekend,the Mahre's breakthrough double  wins led them to more confidence
against Stenmark.

On the dark drive north roommate # 1 broke the quiet. "How about the guy with the boards...
...What a nut!

Roommate # 2 piped in "He's delutional "

Roommate # 3   "He just might be a revolutionary genius ".