1999 - THE PAST CONTINUES

1999 

The Curse of Ricardo and

Never underestimate the value of the ski patrol.

(Ski patrol at the top of the Bridger Lift.  Bridger Bowl)

1999 was a special year for me. 

A while back, I mentioned that I have been forced to believe in "suggestive coincidence" by a really lame past experience.

That lame past experience...

 (Ricardo - Undated dumpster photo)

My good pal Ricardo and I were chugging up the Snow Ghost chairlift on the backside of Schweitzer, a northern Idaho ski resort. 

It was February 13th, and I had just turned 21 years old.  The big TWO-ONE! I was a man.

Finally being 21 was only made better by the fact that I was a part-time student at Montana State University and was working a part-time, nighttime dish washing job.  "Why does any of this matter?" you might ask...  It matters because I was 21 years old, worked 20 hours a week, went to school 6 hours a week and had 7 days a week to ski.  My dream of all dreams had come true.  I could ski everyday and still work towards my future.  I was a ski bum with direction...

 (1999 - Doug, Brian, Keith - Lone Peak Summit.)

(1999 - Ian Klepatar airs into the top of Z-Chute. The Ridge, Bridger Bowl) 

So anyway...Back on the Schweitzer chairlift, Ricardo and I were talking "chair-talk,"  mumbling through our ski jackets about conditions and weather...the standard things two people converse about on a bumpy 15 minute ride up a mountain.

Somehow, the conversation veered into more dicey territory...we started talking about injuries and crashing and other negative, bad ju-ju chair talk.  I remember not being especially happy with this...but perhaps only in retrospect.

So Ricardo turns to me and says, "Do you think you could break a knee?" 

I didn't know.

We unloaded the chair, met up with the rest of our friends and skied the ridge over to a steep little forest, appropriately called "Siberia." 

The five of us skied down the tight trees.  The snow was good but a little sticky and wet, as it usually was at Schweitzer.  

Halfway down, we lined up above a little roller, which is just a mound of snow that rolls smoothly over.  Sometimes, these rollers make great natural jumps.  One after the other, my friends shot down and jumped the roller and disappeared into the trees.  Ricardo hit it and then stopped to watch me.  I went last and that's where it happened....

10 minutes after Ricky asked if I could break a knee, I was lying in the snow... with a broken knee.

Coincidence or evil, black magic curse? Depends on who you ask.

When I landed, my skiis sunk in deep and stopped dead in the cement-like snow.  I fell forward but my bindings didn't release and my leg snapped.

I was immediately pissed, not because I was hurt, but because I knew the moment it happened that my ski season was over.

I spent the next 40 minutes waiting for the ski patrol to find us, cursing and throwing my equipment around, trying to stand-up as if nothing was wrong.  When the patrol did finally get to us, I spent another 40 minutes tied to a stretcher and dragged behind a snowmobile,  engulfed in exhaust fumes, up and around to the main lodge.

Can you break a knee?  Yes.  Very easily, in fact. 

Surgery cost around $15,000 and I was faced with the possibility that I would limp for the rest of my life.  This turned my magical 21st year on the planet on it's head. Now, I could ski ZERO days a week, had to quit my job, couldn't go to the bar, and had to stumble around an icy campus on crutches.

Thanks Ricardo...for carrying the blame all these years.

 

I was broken and couch-ridden, playing hundreds of hours of Cool Boarders 3 (the finest snowboarding game ever made, btw) to pass the time, while my friends came home with ear to ear grins, covered in snow and exuding the kind of glee that comes from an epic pow day on the mountain.

Poor me.

What else happened in 1999?

 

Stu skied the Headwall.

Coldsmoke played the Filling Station.

Forrest jumped the big gap at Raidersberg.

 

Doug shot the Keithalope.

My little bro joined the USMC.

A gallon o f gas was 98 cents.

 

1997 - 1998 - MT - THE PAST DOESN'T SEEM REAL...SOMETIMES

When I look back on life, it's easy to create a new story of how things really happened.  The mountains were bigger, the snow was deeper, the friends were always there, when you needed them most.  Every now and then, I feel a longing for those lost, golden years, when everything was perfect and new and exciting, when I was stronger and smarter, and was ready for anything.

Just a few days...

1

Sometime in the winter of 1997, Doug Lucas, Andrew Sheppard, Matt McCune, Tim Ohlson and I decided to make a not-so-well planned technical climb to the top of an unknown peak, deep in the Crazy Mountains.
  I remember this trip as being my first very real, very life threatening, frozen alpine experience. We never made it to the top.  Our naive experience was squashed by the sub-zero temperature and the flaky, ice covered rock wall that was supposed to hold our ice axes.






2

On the first day of summer, July 21st 1997, Doug Lucas and I made a trip to Grand Targhee Ski resort.  The ski area was long closed, but the snow was still deep above 7000 feet.  We hiked the 2 miles to the top of the ridge. 

It was the deepest bluebird day with crystal clear views of the Grand Tetons. We skied the backcountry for two days, camping just below the summit. 

The skiing was buttery perfection.


3

Sometime during the frosty fall of 1997, Keith (Turfmonger) Mortensen and I hiked to the rim of the Frazier Lake Bowl, just north of Sacajewa peak, in the Bridger Mountains.

 

In Montana, the late afternoon colors of November are simply fantastic.

On our way back down the mountian, the sun was setting behind Sacajewa peak.  To date, this is still one of the most magical displays of natural color I have ever seen.

4

Thanksgiving 1997.  Winter had began early by dumping 15 inches of the famed Montana Cold Smoke on top of an already solid base layer.  Bridger Bowl ski resort was not open yet, but that only worked to our youthful advantage. It was cold and snowing heavily at 5am when Ian Klepetar, Ben Ramsbottom, a few others and I started the slow hike from the resort parking lot.  

 
We hiked to the top of the "fingers", a terrain feature near the old south boundary.  The snow was waist deep.  Ian dug a avalanche pit and I believe we found the avalanche risk to be very high.  We made chest deep face shot powder turns for hours.

5


Oh...give me a home...

Where the buffalo roam!


6

In the late 90's, Bozeman, Montana was still a just a cow town without a Home Depot.  It didn't have a super Walmart or Starbucks.  19th avenue was still mostly bordered by farmland.  4-Corners was still just a bar and a gas station.  That was already a lifetime ago, just before the madness of the boom time.

The summers were slow and endless. With nothing but time, my comrades and I would find simple things to do.

 

The Green Bridge, up stream from "Brad Pitt" rock, on the Gallatin River.

Working on our game.

401 College - The easy years.

7

For Spring Break in 1998, 7 dudes loaded 7 mountain bikes into my 1986 dodge ram van and headed for Moab, Utah.  7 days to recreate, rock climb and ride the beautiful slick rock.
 
Matt McCune, performing what I like to call, the "Impossible."

 

Doug Lucas on a 5.13-14ish...Along Moab Kane Creek Blvd.

While out riding on our 4th or 5th day, someone came into our campsite, went through every tent and every bag, stealing every last piece of climbing gear.  Something like $10,000 worth.  They left everything else.  They even went into my tent, climbed over my $500 Marmot Dryloft sleeping bag and took the Carabiner that hung my candle lantern from the tent ceiling. Dedication.

There were also chocolate chip cookies involved.

A couple more...

8

9

 

10

Montana dreamin'