I finally found out around 3.30 why no patrollers would stop and give me a pee break. I'd peed in a Gatorade bottle behind the partition a few times, hoping no snowboarders piled up on the ramp. (It's always snowboarders. Except when it's not.) Day three of a 100" cycle, at this point just getting scary. It doesn't always take that much snow to get wild, but that much snow will always get wild. That's three water years' worth of snow for, say, Minneapolis, all falling between Thursday afternoon and Sunday afternoon in a random March week. To be honest, I don't even know for sure it was March. And while I'm fairly confident it was 2004, it could have been '003.
I've been scared in snow, been spooked. Bogus Basin, January of '017, skiing with Amy and Ryan (the owner), the snow just felt wrong. Empty. A drum, but not tuned properly. Ryan had already crashed and gotten slid by a slope that almost never moves. Bogus doesn't even do control work, last I checked. They might ski check a little on these spooky days, but they don't exactly have the experience of a joint like Palisades or Baker.
We were a little ways down skiers' right of Lucky Friday, kinda gettin rhythm, when Amy got the blues and stuffed her Kikus right into something. Not sure what, but she was upside-down in no time. Panicked. Me too, for that matter. When I got to her, she'd already gotten her head free, but she was skis-up and stuck. With me digging and pulling skis, she freed herself fairly quickly and got back on her feet, but the day was over before it began.
Or, out North, winter of '006. The first lap through Flush Gap was deep, those old Karhus buried under who knows how much day-of snow. I could feel the snow hitting my chest, my arms, my face, the sort of turns where while it's happening, you think "this is why." This is why we ski. The second run, it was different. Maybe the stratosphere was descending, I don't know, but even though the turns were deeper, and fluffier, and more magazine-worthy, there was another mystical layer.
I'd been running North pretty hard, tryna lap in around an hour, Mountain Top to Mountain Top. Long skate out to Morning Glory, a left-footed sweeper out into what CM now calls "Glory Days", staying skiers' right of the Gap until my choice was cliff or Flush. I am terrified of leaving the ground now, at 45, but at 25, I was even more scared. I involve my brain a lot more than I used to, and that helps. Not that a four-footer doesn't push more adrenaline than getting in a fight with Jake "3Paq" Paquette in 4th grade, but at least I can do it. Then, it was snow or hike out.
Flush Gap was even deeper this lap, feeling like more than the additional four inches added would account for. Some spots just collect more snow, I suppose. I couldn't see my tracks from the previous hour. Cascade snow rarely settles like that, choosing instead to form dense banks and potholes where skiers and riders have been. That day, February of '006, it got colder as the snow fell, and it settled laterally instead of clumping, and folks from Colorado would have been proud.
I could feel the snow move with me, feel it settle down that steep rollover. Ghosts. Spirits, I don't know. I wasn't alone, but I was by myself. I don't think they were benevolent. Or maybe they were and it's just that we're all unfamiliar. Something spiritually deeper, not just the snow, and not like some vortex in Shasta or some 80s ski film. I stopped for a breath down along the creek, away from big exposure--although you can ask Paul Baugher and Chris Morin about just how small big exposure can actually be by that creek in the wrong conditions--and then pointed it for the bottom. Turning For Directional Purposes Only ™. *
There was at least four full inches on top of what had been clean dirt in the shuttle turnaround the last lap an hour before. If I hadn't seen the grader before the bus came through, I wouldn't have even known. Chet Mowbray pulled up next to me, looking as shaken as I was. He said "I'm scared." Keyed his mic. "Mountaintop, Chet. Close all Northback gates. Stability is waning quickly." He then turned to me, and said "You work tomorrow?" I did, 9 am sharp. He said, "You should call in sick. It's gonna blow clear this evening and stay cold. Snow will settle. South'll be open. Warming on Saturday." Shivers, not from the cold. Sometimes it pays to buy your second car from the Snow Safety Director. Sometimes it pays to buy your assistant manager beer in trade for showing up late.
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When I was 20, I got my EMT-B from TCC in, well, T. It was the only class I'd taken where I actually had to try. Not just trying, mental weightlifting. It was rewarding, even if at the time I only considered it for getting a pro patrol job somewhere, something that I'm still frustrated I never did. Frustrated even more having met some of the incompetent ass kissers who do get hired all over the place. State Exam day, Eli and I skied Crystal, one of those impossible-to-describe Cascady transition days. Good snow, actually, even though it was warm and windy. To the north, up at Baker, it was warm and windy as well, but not good snow. I talked to J-O before heading to Tacoma and he said it'd rained to the top of 8. Early December of '002. I missed PPE on the scene leader portion of the exam, which was a technical fail, but whoever was the proctor let me run a second scene and I passed. (Brent at Crystal signed my EMT card a week later, but it didn't matter to Baugher. I wasn't cool enough. Or something.)
I headed out from Tacoma well into the evening, maybe nine o'clock, not sure. It didn't matter. By the time I got to Mt Vernon, there was thunder, sideways rain, and wind, like you'd want to see in a murder mystery set in the PNW but which rarely actually occurs. Hydroplaning on the Interstate, that kinda night. I can't remember if I snuck up Highway 9 from Sedro or if I took 542 from Sunset, but by the DOT, it was puking legendarily. It was dark as a coal mine below, two inches in 24 hours kinda rain, but once I hit the snowline, the world got brighter. Orange light from the sand shed.
The road was easy from the North Fork up to White Salmon, but when I passed the Razorhone bridge, it quickly got ugly. I love driving in snow. I love the disco-ball-and-bedsheet effect of the headlights, the heavy Tsuga boughs out the side windows, the crunch of compacting snow on the pavement. This night, though? Fuck. Driving by Jolyan's Jaunt, that boulder-strewn sidehill viewpoint between sections of highway where he tumbled with some other lifties way back in the day, I know what was to my right but couldn't see it. Just a white veil. I could only hope whoever's tracks had locked me in never left the road. I tried to keep momentum going, but even with studs, the tyres just spun. It took me probably 20, 25 minutes to get through the three miles between White Salmon and the E Lodge, and I had the GL down in 4-Low, the tyres maxed out at 35 MPH while the car couldn't have been going more 5. I crashed into my bunk at 1.30, and by 6.30 when I woke up for work, my car was already buried.
I was eating breakfast, either an bacon, cheese, and tomato omelette or Darigold Raspberry with Life cereal, when Denny walked in. He and I got along well, not something common at Bik Snow Mt Baker. Most folks are closed off, grumpy, arrogant. They exemplify the Mossback ethos, but in a way that makes you wonder if they even like living there. They take pride in persisting in a place most people can't handle, and think it means they are better than you. Denny was different, but he still fired me in the end. I still don't know why. He asked why I was there, cos I wasn't scheduled until Saturday. I don't know where we crossed wires, but I've been simultaneously wrong and utterly certain many times over. Since I was awake, I booted up. Bumblebee T1s, those powerful slippers. 32 since closing, heavy, dank, thick Baker goods. I could barely ski it. Went in, changed to alpine gear, and still, I could barely ski it.
February is often a big month in the Cascades. The airmass is still cold, still juiced, but there's a hint of Spring and the instability it can bring. The right conditions, and it can really hammer. Enumclaw SD started doing a midwinter break in 1994, and Crystal got what I remember to be between 96 and 99 inches in two days. The 64 that fell on Thursday the 24th held the 24 hour record for about a decade before Bridger stole it around Christmas in 2003. It followed a colder (a theme in the Cascades, unfortunately) 32-35" on Wednesday the 23rd. The whole cycle was wild, 16" at my parents' house in town, enough that we could climb the blackberries and sled. If you haven't seen the blackberry brambles of the Wet Side, just know that they don't mess around. Falling into one (from experience) is akin to gettin hosed through the Dog Leg above Bear Pits. It sucks.
I've told this story before, I know. It sticks with me, for obvious reasons. J-O and I were up on Wednesday the 23rd. We'd grabbed the employee shuttle from Enumclaw. Upper Mountain was closed, the wind and high precip rate just too much to safely put customers on. For whatever reason, they weren't spinning Chair 1, though that may be because it was a light Riblet double and was above the heavier trees, exposed to the wind. Or maybe Upper Bull and Upper E were threatening. I was too young to really clock all the details.
I skated shuffled over from the top of Midway to Lower Bull, first run. It was what you'd expect, deep, challenging for a 12 year old kid who only weighed a buck fifty. I found a rhythm, but couldn't breathe cos I was choking on the snow. (I learned later that you can just chew on it like it was a big dip o' snus and spit and it'll go away.) One run beat me up. I took a break in the lodge, then headed back out. I skied the line on Midway cos I was tired and it was closer than Lower Bull, but I couldn't stay upright. I buried my head in a pile of snow directly under the heavy side and panicked. Somebody yelled at me to lift my head. I did, and I was free, but I was done for the day. One imagined near-death experience was enough. It warmed by Friday, patrol was controlling Upper Mountain from a helicopter, everyone who could drive a loader or cat was out in the lots pushing snow, trying not to hit cars, and Aram and I couldn't get enough speed to move through the damn-near 100" even if we straightlined.
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These storms, the really big ones, they can seem fun, and can be fun sometimes. They don't always telegraph their intentions, though. March '004, Thursday afternoon was fun. A little surprising; I didn't yet know how to find good forecasts and I didn't know that we were in for a Classic Crystal Zonal Flow. It stayed cold the whole time, something that doesn't happen often. I was working Top of 6, brought my skinny skis cos I didn't think it would snow much, and could barely stay afloat on what was the start of a three day binge. Double Aught Chutes were what the kids (all kids, all generations since at least Gen X, I don't know why) call epic. Deep, sloughy, slashy, you name it. I couldn't keep up, so on Friday I brought Jaks out. Better. Saturday, too. Sunday, fuck. It just felt different. Most patrollers just looked tired. Some even looked scared. I couldn't read them well. They all had their heads tucked into their jackets, hoods up, looking at the ground. Before helmets really caught on. I was working the top of 9, a good storm day post if there are enough lifties. By 2 o'clock I was getting testy, the snow about done and the world a wash of white, bladder full.
I called around looking for a supervisor, and only got Jon, the jackass liftie at the bottom of 10. We had a spat, I hung up, and he called back just to yell at me, hung up on me, and I sat there a bit shaken. I get that low-blood-sugar rush when I'm really angry. Nobody knew anything. I drank the last of my Gatorade and ran behind the big wooden wall in the shack, hoping nobody walked in or crashed on the ramp. Did it again an hour later. (Once the dam is broken, y'know.)
Around close, I finally caught a patroller who would actually make eye contact. I asked what had happened, why I'd been forgotten up there, and she said "the whole mountain has been looking for a guy who got separated from his buddies. We finally found him by the powder cache." She skied off, and it finally hit me. They found his body, unfortunately. I never got details, don't need them. It's another immersion death, as sad and as frustrating as they all always are. Another life just gone. I felt like a supreme jackass, operating ignorantly and selfishly all day. I never heard what time he'd stumbled into the flat trees next to Queen's, maybe lunchtime or so. I doubt I ever got the chance to apologise to all the patrollers I'd yelled at. I doubt any remember.
There isn't a conclusion to be made, no real insight. We do what we can, try to stay out of treewells, but like the mythical drowning in an inch of water, it doesn't really take all that much. Life is akin to a hurricane, much violence and seeming monstrosity and yet if you dry out the midlayer or introduce a little shear or, heck, stay in one place too long--that one hits home--all that madness just winks out.
I wasn't at Baker in 1999, I was still in school. I was a senior and skipping my share of Running Start days at GRCC to ski. I remember the snowbanks at the top of 6, head high and rising. I remember Cory Meador digging one particularly snowy afternoon, laying on the snow and grabbing a scoop between chairs. J-O was there. Reports are that it was a mess. If you've heard the number, 1140", and think that you can fathom it, or that your local snowfall is comparable, you are flat wrong. In February alone, there was no sun. This isn't some northerly latitude with 24-hour darkness, although many visitors might describe it in such a manner. Baker is just south of the 49th. You can see Canada on a sunny day, should one actually happen. I was there in '002, an 800 inch year, and I can confirm that it really does break blue from time to time. 1999, especially February, it didn't.
The Arm went big in January. Late-season, ANFO big, but early and naturally. The Canyon didn't melt out over the summer. The top of the Canyon is around 4 grand, not high, plenty of rain, it always melts, but it didn't that year. We skied at Crystal until the middle of July. Lift access, legitimate grooming.
The Arm went even bigger on Valentine's day. Pa talks about seeing J-O fly by driving the sled, pulling two patrollers on a toboggan giving CPR. Whoever he was, he didn't make it off the mountain. His partner didn't make it out of the White Salmon Drainage. Neither had a skier back in January. My brother remembers seeing clothing first, two summers later. The going theory was coyotes or cats were dragging the finally melting-out pieces to save for later, obviously not knowing we humans hold onto the dead as long as we can.
Title from Paul Simon's You Can Call Me Al. When I write about skiing, I can be silly. I call out the hypocrisies and sometimes gleefully join in. I can, however, never ignore the cost. I can joke, darkness just outside the frame. Sometimes about the darkness itself. Skiing isn't important, isn't necessary, and yet, here we are. Parsing the past, reminiscing, wondering about the future. What we've lost, who we've lost, who we've met, married, loved, hated, sprayed with snow, thrown rocks at, joked with, cried with, skied with. It's all there. My joints are tired, I'm soft in the middle, I need a shot at redemption. I need a photo opportunity. Don't wanna end up a cartoon in a cartoon graveyard.
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Our periodic reminder about snow safety.
* With deference to Sam Lobet at Baker. Just this once.