A Lifetime on the Snow

It’s ski season! And, already, I’m both excited and disappointed. Excited because after missing the last two years due to a failing right knee replacement, I can finally ski again. After nine major knee injuries, six major surgeries and three knee replacements, I feel fortunate to be able to ski. Certainly, it won’t be the high speed, balls out, mogul field mania or non-stop, top-to-bottom runs from my younger days. But you know, I’ll be perfectly content to be carving corduroy turns on mostly sunny days that aren’t bitterly cold. Sounds euphoric. There’s a six-week vacation to eight areas through BC, Alberta, Montana, Idaho and Oregon just waiting for Janice and me. I can’t wait. But I’m also wondering if I will still have the stamina to keep going. More work in the gym to do.

Now for my disappointment. I am greatly saddened by Mikeala Shiffrin’s latest injury that may prevent her from skiing the rest of the FIS Alpine World Cup season. I not only am awed by her skiing but totally impressed by her personality, her demeanor, her integrity and humility. She seems completely immersed in a quest to ski as perfectly as possible, and appears to want only to continue experiencing the adrenalin, the high of skiing exquisitely done. I am so rooting for her to keep winning and to go out on top with a minimum of injuries. She’s at the age now where injuries start to pile up, where they begin to affect performance. I hope the end of her skiing career doesn’t come prematurely.

Mikeala is sitting on 99 career World Cup wins, more than any other skier, male or female. Granted, there are more races now than ever, but her win percentage of nearly 36% is still higher than any racer in history. There’s no doubt she will break the mythical 100 victory plateau, one most thought could never be achieved. But she’s 29 now and engaged to Norwegian World Cup racer Aleksander Kilde. This is where the rest of life starts to sneak in, like the complete life the rest of us look to live. You know, family, children, long term goals and ambitions. Things outside skiing.

Those are distractions to the purity of skiing. And her age is approaching the area where most elite athletes get increasingly injured, where ligaments and tendons aren’t as pliable, as flexible, as resilient as they once were. She’s where the toll of all that skiing, all those years of physical punishment starts to show.

I want her to go out in a flame of glory, to time her exit so perfectly she knows she left it all out on the slopes. Where no one told her it was over, where people feel sorry for her for seeing her as the shadow of what she once was. I want her to become mythical. To me, she is already. And not just for her records, but also for the kind of person she is.

As for me, I’m just excited to get back on the snow. It’s been a lifetime of skiing. My first day on skis, a Saturday in early November 1965, consisted of straight runs down a small slope on Chinook Pass. My aunt and uncle, both ski instructors, had followed our family up the pass. We found an open slope near the road, packed the run while learning to side-step, and made our maiden trips down the little hill. I skied every weekend in an effort to pass friends who had learned to ski as toddlers. Thanks to my uncle, by the end of that season I was skiing the most difficult runs like a pro.

This year will mark 60 years. A lot has changed over that time. Wooden skis, cable bindings, lace-up double leather boots, leather gloves, aluminum poles with large baskets, wool sweaters and hats, stretch ski pants, Duofold wool/cotton long johns; none of that exists anymore. Howard Head had only invented his revolutionary aluminum metal skis a few years before; very few people had them. Step-in bindings came next, followed quickly by fiberglass skis.

In my time on ski patrol I got to know the owners of both the K2 Ski and Sportscaster ski clothing companies. Touring their factories (and getting great deals on equipment) were fun, educational experiences. K2 was started back in the early ’60s by the Kirschner brothers who built fiberglass splints and veterinary cages on Vashon Island. They liked skiing and figured they might be able to make a go of making a lightweight fiberglass snow ski.

Their first ski, the ‘Holiday’, débuted in 1964 with a simple white-topped, black-lettered finish. It was viewed locally as mostly a lightweight woman’s ski. More prototypes followed and could be seen around Crystal Mtn and Hyak ski areas as ugly, unmarked, unfinished black epoxy skis. Further development, both locally and with the US Ski Team, led to the blue and yellow ‘Elite’ in 1968. I skied on some of the first pairs of the Elite from ’67 through ’69. One year I broke seven pairs; K2 was still on a learning curve. Named both for the iconic mountain, K2, and brothers Bill and Don, the little venture ended up working out exceedingly well.

Along with Pacific Northwest brands like AT&T, Filson, Roffe, White Stag, and Jansport, Sno-Seal, Scott, Eddie Bauer, REI, Pacific Trail, and Early Winters, K2 and Sportscaster cast a large shadow across the international world of snow skiing. Seattle was a mecca for ski equipment. Those were great years.

Until now, those sixty years of northwest skiing were never a history I thought much about. But let’s put all that reminiscing aside; I’m looking forward to the next season and the seasons after that. Like most things, none of us want to ski on memories; it’s skiing in the now that captivates, that motivates. I’m ready! As my youngest son says, “Let’s Go!”