The 1930s-era Mountaineers Ski Team posing at a race in Mt. Baker, WA. Pictured left to right are Scott Osborn, Wolf Bauer, Don Blair (kneeling), Bill Miller and Tim Hill. Photo: Washington State Ski & Snowboard Museum It’s an anomaly not lost on its constituents, a patchwork of skiers and snowboarders that stumbled upon this antidote to corporate ski culture and never left. WE ARRIVED AT Meany cloaked in darkness. Escaping the diesel fumes and sledneck engine revving of the Crystal Springs Snopark lot at the base of Stampede Pass, photogra-pher Cirque Gammelin, Josh Malczyk, Nick Langelotti and I had loaded a built-out Bombardier snow tractor named “Tomcat.” The beast resembled a snow-tank mixed with an old black box truck, laden with luggage and about 30 passengers as it rumbled through the forest. When the train stopped serving Stampede in 1960, Tomcat shuttles from the snopark became the main mode of lodge transportation, save for the few souls willing to ski behind snowmobiles or skin nearly three miles into camp. Wilder greeted our band at the door. A retired army ser-geant now in his 70s, the white-haired Wilder playfully barked orders at familiar faces, unloading bags and skis while crack-ing jokes. He’s been coming to the lodge since the early ’70s, and though he doesn’t ski as much anymore, he still functions as Meany’s Lodge Chair, making sure the volunteer operation runs smoothly. Because the ski hill and lodge are only open on weekends, that means firing up the 1938 Sears Roebuck coal-burning stove and checking to see if pipes are clear (the lodge does have electricity, but relies on generators when trees take down the lines). As we stashed our ski gear in basement cubbies, the rest of the world got to work, setting up tables, organizing skis and prepping the kitchen. “Everyone knows they have to contribute,” explained Wilder. “Everything [at Meany] is held together with duct tape and love.” The scene was a jolting departure from parking lot res-ervations, fast-pass lift lines and automated ticket kiosks—a community buzzing on an almost-Boy Scout honor system. While The Mountaineers do allow guests at Meany (hence our February field trip), there were few unknown faces under these cozy wooden beams. “It’s just people who know each other,” said Lowell Skoog, a renowned Northwest ski historian who has spent time at the lodge and competed in several Patrol Races. “It’s not just folks who run into each other in the chairlift line off and on. They are regulars who go [to Meany] every weekend.” Teenagers picked up board games from where they’d left them the week before. Parents cobbled together a cheese board. We made our way around an outer perimeter of old photos and lodge-inspired artwork by famous cartoonist Bob Cram, an avid Meany skier. Nearby, on a wood panel wall, hung an ode to Walter Little, one of the creators of Crystal Mountain and another esteemed Mountaineer. Wilder met us at Meany’s framed trail map. Hand drawn, the map has several iterations according to the Lodge Chair, each trail named after an infamous (and often humorous) folly. There is Martin’s Creek, Lucy’s Lagoon, and Ferguson’s Pond, all named after Mountaineers that didn’t make the turn on Psychopath, an aptly named traverse, ending up soggy for their efforts. Walt’s Woods is actually a clear-cut meadow that skis well on a powder day. Its namesake, it turns out, was completely bald. Meany Lodge 061
The Ski Journal Volume 17, Issue 3: Page 61
