Can anyone really be a ski bum anymore?

[schindlerpiste]

I have been called "Einstein", "Doc Brown", the white "Don King", and the radio DJ in for "The Little RascalsInternational Silver Screen Submarine Band", but never a Brooklyn Jew (although, I have been nominated as an Honorary member of the tribe)

[Mofro261]

Woke up
Got out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head

[El Chupacabra]

That's a pretty rad fro. I was sporting a fro, until a couple of weeks ago. Then, I went skiing and it kinda got in my way (helmet didn't fit; hair in the goggles). It increased my paranoia...like looking in the mirror and seeing a police car....
Attachment 253792

It's not too early to get ready for next Halloween....

[willywhit]

Cut THAT HAIR !!! Gotta love the Marker hat on Yauch. I wore that hat OUT

[XXX-er]

Of course its still possible to just ski and not work, I know a lot of mostly younger folk doing forest tech/fighting fires/planting trees all of which pay off differently year to year due to market forces

the question is how much harder/easier is it to not work/ski bum at any given point in history

[GeezerSteve]

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[Best Mexican Skier from Da South]

Of course its still possible to just ski and not work, I know a lot of mostly younger folk doing forest tech/fighting fires/planting trees all of which pay off differently year to year due to market forces

the question is how much harder/easier is it to not work/ski bum at any given point in history

That’s a very subjective question as to what constitutes “easier.” One could argue that it was harder back in the day due to social norms of getting married early and having offspring.

The question is “Can anyone be a skibum anymore?” That answer is a definitive, “Yes.”

[DRZmaui]

If anyone wants to meet authentic ski bums, come to the party I am throwing in Big Sky next Saturday. Djongo will be the Guest of Honor.

I remember in the late 70's, Mike Laney [name?] and the crew from the Boseman Hilton (A.K.A ski bum flop house). Those guys were HARD CORE! The Animal House of the ski world.

[grskier]

Lots of good introspection and insight in this one. Who knew a bunch of bums could be so philosophical?

I'm seeing the path of the skier in this thread as three lines working their way down the mountain of life. One line zigs early and spends a bunch of time living skiing pretty well full time at the expense of nearly everything else. This line often zags into a reasonably comfortable place that incorporates as much skiing as possible following some sort of reality check that revealed the not-so glamorous side of the ski bum life. Skiers on this line are typically happy and have no regrets.

The line down the middle of the mountain is the line that never wavered. 100% committed to the fall line and balls to the wall. These skiers likely didn't have much choice. The pull of gravity was so strong for them they couldn't zig or zag, they just pointed it, kept skiing and knew that it would all work out if they were willing to keep going for it. These skiers are more rare, but the ones who have stuck with it and applied themselves are happy and have no regrets.

The other line on the face traverses in a little lower and brings a lifetime of experience to being a skier. These are the skiers who evolved into skiers a little later in life. These skiers know how to set priorities, work within a budget and usually have surprisingly nice things. These skiers are also happy and have no regrets.

The common threads between these three approaches to being a skier are of course skiing as much as you can and having a life that makes you happy. Which line you happen to be skiing doesn't matter - they're all good!

I'm not sure how or where being a ski bum and whether or not that's even possible these days fits into this analogy, but I'm pretty sure that for most skiers it's a surprisingly brief moment in time which illuminates the line they ultimately want to drop in on.

I ski, see and hang with plenty of ski bums young and old here. It's probably not nearly as concentrated as it once was.

[Djongo Unchained]

Seems readily apparent then, that yes, one can become a ski bum today.

Plenty of 'em right here.

Wanna experience it In Real Life?

Then plan on meeting some at BBI19@ Alpental and/or this season's Franchise /satellite event is in the greater Salt Lake city-Wasatch Metropolis; the BBI19UT.

And you know both of those areas are gonna deliver some really hardcore ski bums this year.

[Best Mexican Skier from Da South]

I remember in the late 70's, Mike Laney [name?] and the crew from the Boseman Hilton (A.K.A ski bum flop house). Those guys were HARD CORE! The Animal House of the ski world.

I imagine life in general in the 70’s was tits. No social media B.S. Great music. Robust winters. The list goes on.

[ill-advised strategy]

This is a tough thread to respond to, because I feel like I owe it Stories, real stories, not some little #metoo. I've tried twice to start in, and failed to get it down.

First, thanks to all of you who brought your stories, keepers of the faith. Sometimes I have a tough time with this forum, because I want it to be some kind of remnant of a connection to a core....and one wonders if that perceived core is gone, or ever was; but also if this forum is or would even be a connection to it. It's elusive and fucking complicated, but this thread gives me faith that you all are out there and that we're all one thing and we have some kind of tiny, weird bond; which is reassuring out here in The Vast Wilderness of aging in post-ski life.

I went for it.
Skiing meant a lot to me, it was my refuge as an awkward tween, it was the only thing I was good at as a high schooler. I knew I was going for it at about age 15. I studied, literally....there was a huge archive of Ski and Skiing at the college library in town. There was an archive of Powder at the US Ski Hall of Fame 20 miles from home. I recorded every ski event I could find on TV, ESPN had world cup events, there was the Bud Pro Mogul Tour and pro racing still existed. Every ski movie at the video store....I slept in a sleeping bag so I could get used to camping, I put ski pictures and Steve Casimiro Intros around my bed space and I had a ski dream almost every night for months. I set up a tuning bench in our basement. Nobody else in my family skied, I learned from my friends and from books and from a Swix tuning manual I bought at a ski shop in town. I made mistakes. I tried to ski on waxed skis I hadn't scraped. I set DINs wrong and had horrific prerelease wrecks...buddy and I caused a huge landslide sand skiing at the pictured rocks national lakeshore, we were super lucky neither of us got crushed or buried or swept into the lake. We banged around on 200cm straight skis skiing tight trees in the woods. I got a pair of 218 Fischers and started skiing moguls with them because that's what Plake did.

So I was going for it, there wasn't really any question.

Real life calls, space reserved for the rest.

continued:

There were so many weird living situations.
Tiny one-room vacation cabins for a couple of winters, one with a roommate I got site unseen. Making $700 a month and paying $300/month in rent. Hitchhiking back and forth to work. Little travel trailers. Tenting it, stealthy tenting, luxury tarp-compound tenting it. I dragged a big couch out into the wilds for a summer woodsy bed. On a cot up a ladder in the attic at my forestry job. The back of a few different pickups. Rooms....I rented a room in an old-school hispano Taoseno house, I rented a room in a farmhouse with a farming widow, with the horses and chickens and all that stuff. Ski bum houses, 4 of us had a single wide trailer for awhile...7 guys in a 1 bedroom apartment that was almost like a hotel room, I had a cot in an actual closet and thought I had it dialed because 5 dudes were on the floor in the room and I had my own space.
Another place we piled into the bunkhouse upstairs of another small cabin, like a box full of puppies. I had my very own spot at the top of huge 3-story A-frame in Taos ski valley with 4 other guys. I rented a room with non-skiing strangers in Sandy, right on the football field for Alta High....my bedroom window was even with the press box on the other side of the field. It was like living in a stadium.
I lived with a home-owner girlfriend with all my stuff in a storage unit for years.
I almost bought a house a long drive from Taos Ski Valley for $50,000 (I thought it was so much money because I had looked at a place in Tres Piedras for $25,000.....good God), and lived in it with a buddy during the time we were trying to work the deal out.
Apartments....I rented a partition off the side of an aging gangster's house in a compound in Ranchitos near Taos. I had a tiny apartment that was sectioned off a different house across town, paper wall away from young active gangsters. One late night the police came through my door guns drawn, looking for the guys next door.
Finally, I took advantage of that time when they were just giving out loans to pretty much anybody and I bought a little house in an iffy neighborhood in Salt Lake and immediately rented a room to another skier. Ski bums living next door to a meth dealer, then there was an actual pimp and 2 hookers.

again, it's all gone. Literally this moment is me leaving to assist my wife with a clogged toilet and walk the dog. I'll be back.

The bummiest times were just after high school. I got kicked out of my childhood house after I graduated....my mom sold the house, married her boyfriend, and moved into his house. I stayed with friends, I stayed in tents, I had a lifeguarding job for awhile at a camp that came with a place to sleep. I had keys to a cabin 25 miles out of town. I ate fish I caught, I ate raspberries and blueberries and later I ate a lot of apples. I about drank myself to death at parties in town and slept on those couches. It was chaos. I headed out to Colorado in the fall.
In those days, all that really mattered was skiing. I was 18, and living that way was a pretty natural extension of high school. Whatever else was going on, if I could ski every day I was good. The rest of life was often really difficult. I wasn't eating much, I was living in a world of 25 year olds who had a lot of things sorted out....decent vehicles, reasonable places to live, hookups. I just found the best skiers I could find and tried to hang in there skiing in big ratpacks....learning the terrain. It was just a blur of wonder and humiliation and hunger and loneliness, punctuated by occasional glory on the mountain. I was 6'3" and 150 lbs at most, maybe at times down to 130. Once a month I would drive into Gunnison to do laundry and I'd eat at McDonald's. I remember those times, because it was just....like....holy shit, fucking food. Salt, fat, meat.... ahhhhhh. I was literally starving.

[ill-advised strategy]

space reserved for story time

I used to stalk the continental breakfast at the Grand Butte Hotel in Created Butte, wait till just the right moment and move through smoothly, efficiently...nothing crazy, filling pockets...and I’m gone!!!
Sometimes that’s all I had to eat, or that and noodles.
I ate condiments....you get the paper boat for a hot dog and just heap pickles and ketchup and onions....if The Gods are smiling the place will have a hot cheese dispenser. I ate taco bell hot sauce packets.
You know you’re hungry when you can just crunch through a dry uncooked package of ramen noodles. Diring my heyday they went from just chicken to creamy chicken...ooh la la. Then came the spicy beef. Living it up.
When I forst moved to Taos you could get self-serve chili at Wendy’s for 99¢...I think it may have only been one day of the week for the 99¢....but I would go in there and eat like a gallon of sketchy cheap taoseño fast food chili for a dollar.
Later, when we had mre’s and fire camp food on my first crews I would quickly gain like 30-30 lbs just eating normal meals, stoked while non skibums complained aboit the awful food...haha I was stoked!

When I finally got a job for $1300/mo salary and started eating macaroni and cheese and generic cereal I thought I was in food heaven.

That job let me trade shop work for food. The gorgeous cook at the lodge next door would come over in her tight thermal top with these plates of expensive ski resort restaurant food and her core shots...I’d make her skis perfect.
Somebody started bringing me bacon from the breakfast buffet at another lodge...his skis always looked pretty good too.

It was a solid couple of years after high school of living literally hungry, going hungry instead of working more so I could ski myself stupid.
I hadn’t really thought about the hunger in a long time...that’s probably why I’m like one of those pound dogs who overeats. There’s a deep part of my brain that's just like: eat it all! We’re starving!!! Lol

[willywhit]

I imagine life in general in the 70’s was tits. No social media B.S. Great music. Robust winters. The list goes on.

Yup....
Hot tubs and fondue what else ?

[SumJongGuy]

Ya, there are quite a few different definitions of "bum" and I don't think it really matters. A couple of the kids I skied USSA Freestyle against went all in and moved west going after the pro skier dream, either competing as adults or trying other gigs in the ski industry from working at resorts to product reps. That said, the best of the best came from VERY wealthy families, most notably the family who bankrolled most of USSA Central Division Freestyle and fielded two different world champions bearing their last name. Fantastic people, loved the opportunity to ski with them and stayed at their house for a week long camp. Their kids went on to be big time movie producers and other high roller jobs after skiing.

I retired from competitive skiing at age 18 because I knew those others who went all in were way better than I was. I had a great time but wasn't as good as they were. Hoping to retire in the mountains in about 15 years and be a REAL ski bum LOL..

[Djongo Unchained]

I imagine life in general in the 70’s was tits. No social media B.S. Great music. Robust winters. The list goes on.

No doubt.

Viet Nam
Watergate
4 fucking channels if ya count PBS
Disco
Gas lines...


at least we had Evel Knievel.


IAS - I cannot fucking wait to ski ya, dog. Bring the stories.

[willywhit]

No doubt.

Viet Nam
Watergate
4 fucking channels if ya count PBS
Disco
Gas lines...


at least we had Evel Knievel.


IAS - I cannot fucking wait to ski ya, dog. Bring the stories.

no snowboards on the hill I didn't find snowboarding until like '83

[Best Mexican Skier from Da South]

No doubt.

Viet Nam
Watergate
4 fucking channels if ya count PBS
Disco
Gas lines...


at least we had Evel Knievel.


IAS - I cannot fucking wait to ski ya, dog. Bring the stories.

If I could roll some magic dice and trade the 70’s for now, I would.

I would simply for the babes! Most of the population these days is obese. At least y’all had a healthy pool of beautiful women! And the winters!

[Bunion 2020]

Not trying to hijack, more to add a little spice.

Every ski area has its Characters, got any.

At Park City we in 1986 we had several. Larry the Legend, John Haney, Carl Dollhausen (sp?), Brad Makeoff.... They were there when I moved there and AFAIK, some may still be there and keepin on.

When I moved to Big Sky it was a much smaller community but there wasn't a shortage of Characters and in fact there were even more of them.

Rick Danger and Rick Danger aka Sick Rick, Biff, Chaz the Paperboy, Stewart (TBI), Packy, Lonnie and Mary and Kelly and Mel (family act). There are still hard cores left around but it seems like for shorter reigns and then they are gone.

So it goes.

[Djongo Unchained]

If I could roll some magic dice and trade the 70’s for now, I would.

So would I Mex, so would I.

I'd trade ya 5 Kanye's for 1 Don Cornelius.

[SumJongGuy]

Also in the 70s, everybody smoked cigarettes EVERYWHERE!

[half-fast]

Disco might have sucked, but that's where the women were

[willywhit]

bump
just add Ramen noodles https://www.facebook.com/GrewUp70s80...2274011547360/

[Talisman]

Also in the 70s, everybody smoked cigarettes EVERYWHERE!

We could also drink about anywhere with 18 year olds mobbing the bars and DWI/DUI being loosely enforced. I remember my coaches in the late 60's and early 70's enjoying a smoke and beer in the rink or gym in the afternoon. Good times.

[easyrdr]

I never labeled myself as a ski bum though looking back now I definitely pulled it off here and there. Ill Advised did a nice job verbalizing it, I can picture myself in many of the scenarios he described. I worked my ass off in the summer so I could ski all winter. When I decided to scale back on the summer gig it evolved into typical winter ski jobs-night janitor, snowmaker, cat operator, sandwich artist, lift op, ski patrol. Yep did them all, all had their perks, all had their suck. Spent more seasons in more places then most. Nomadic for many many years, chase the snow all winter, head back to the water for the summer.

For me my bumming adventure began without me even realizing it at the time, and all you old timers around here got to be a part of it. Back in the Powmag days when I was just trying to survive the winter in my truck. Looking back on things the tranny going out in my truck that season was the best thing that could have happened. Sucked all my savings and led me to the forum for advice and help. Total group of strangers came together in a really fucking cool way. I got to ski the mountain west for 3 months straight with no money and no job.

The first month I connected with a dozen or so mags. strangers that housed/fed/ and took me skiing, never asking for anything in return. Some mags just up and sent me gas money, total strangers, to random post offices in randon towns, just to keep me moving along. All just happy to be a part of one man’s journey. Even while it was happening I realized it was special. Now nearly 20 years later I can say without a doubt it means more to me now then it did then. That season was the first Summit (or whatever you guys call them now), 50 or so mags showed up in SLC. Splat got a little blurb in that issue of Powder about us. (I still have a copy somewhere). You want to assemble a crew of ski bums, question if they still exist, or if it is even possible, then look no further then this board right here. I have skied with many of you, sublet houses from you, jumped of rocks with you, logged 100 day seasons with you, had beers, swapped stories, passed on gear to those in need, etc. We all got the ski bum in us, some are active, some retired. As for me, I have been taking a little break. Three kids does that to you, I am 5 years away from getting lost in the mountains permanently but I’m loving every minute of right now and wouldn’t trade it for the world. See you bums on the hill. EZ