The Ski Journal • Volume 13, Issue 2 • BASH TILL YOU CRASH

It’s Memorial Day weekend at Whistler Blackcomb, BC and dozens of skiers are vying for space on the Saddle, an intermediate run that’s rapidly turning to slush under a hot May sun. Every turn adds another pile of mush to a messy mogul field that’s forming by the minute.

Oh great, moguls. We have some history. One that seems to—at age 62—have come full circle for me.

It was spring break in ’68 at Ontario’s Talisman Resort, a 600-vertical-foot monster carved out of the Niagara Escarpment. My pal George said, “See those bumps up on that face? Those are called moguls. They form on crowded slopes where the trail gets a bit steep.”

We skied over and looked. I had maybe skied a dozen times and graduated from wooden department-store skis to a pair of 205cm Kastles. “I think you’re supposed to keep your skis in the trough and ride ’em through the turn,” George added.

The run began—and ended—in humiliation. I completed maybe a turn and a half and recall spearing the crest with one tip just before it crossed with the other and sent me into a somersault. It was my first experience eating shit on a mogul run. I might or might not have walked down the slope, but, mercifully, it flattened and the cursed moguls were behind us. It was, as David Foster Wallace once wrote, “a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again.”

During the hotdog years, resort skiing was a meritocracy and, like ancient India, the “Moghuls of the moguls” ruled the mountain. Sure, there was powder, but more commonly there were bumps. Living in a van for a few weeks in the late ’70s, I gravitated to runs made famous in movies like Dick Barrymore’s The Performers and the annual Warren Miller bump-fest—almost always filmed exclusively at glamorous, hedonistic Sun Valley. There was KT-22 at Squaw. Expo at Tod Mountain. Outhouse at Mary Jane. Chunky’s at Whistler. And damn near anywhere at Jackson Hole and Snowbird.

My college buddy Billy developed a non-style called “bash till you crash”—turn as quickly as humanly possible, always keep your hands in front and stay out of the dreaded back seat. While the halcyon days of freestyling championed weighting the tails of the skis, by the time I became semi-proficient the style was more refined. Besides, you needed to be on top of ’em in order to throw in the odd daffy or spread eagle.

Over time, Billy didn’t bash. He became a very smooth, compact, mogul-devouring machine. I got pretty good at it, too. But bump skiing was a young guy’s game, requiring rhythm, balance, reflexes and a go-for-it attitude. And it had its price. Torqued backs, blown knees, burning quads and separated shoulders—over the course of a dozen years of ’70s-era mogul skiing, an expert skier might suffer any or all these injuries; some that might be serious enough to knock him or her out of the game at any level.

Back in the Saddle, I previsualize a route through the bumps and wait for the magic to reignite. After a half-dozen panicky turns sliding my 104mm all-mountain boards over the mushy mounts, I ski to the side of the run and think, “Wow, that sucked.” Like a Foghat reunion tour or buying that Norton Commando you lusted after back in high school, skiing moguls is best relegated to “back in the day.” At age 62, I guess it is, indeed, a supposedly fun thing I’ll never do again.

Photo Caption: “Dean Cummings on Mach Schnell at Snowbird, UT. I Always thought it would be cool to get a shot of someone ripping these bumps all alone from up on the road. One day with Dean it came to mind and we knocked it off, finally.” Photo: Lee Cohen

The Ski Journal - Volume 13, Issue 2

BASH TILL YOU CRASH

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