TOP TO BOTTOM Two skiers, two styles. Telemark meets christie in the early days at Meany Lodge. Photo: Washington State Ski & Snowboard Museum The original Meany rope tow, pow-ered by a truck engine at the time. Photo: Washington State Ski & Snowboard Museum “It’s just people who know each other. It’s not just folks who run into each other in the chairlift line off and on.” — Lowell Skoog But the next day we find there is more than simply jest in those hills. After surviving the rope tow, we follow Amy Deyerie-Smith, a member of Meany’s Volunteer Commit-tee, through a small patch of evergreens into a zone called Henrietta’s Woods. Dropping fall line, we score sustained steeps through tightly spaced, but clearly cut tree lines, gathering speed over rollers and slicing quick slalom turns for 300 vertical feet. Ski lines might be short at Meany, but lift lines are shorter, if not non-existent. That’s part of what keeps Deyerle-Smith coming back each winter. The 28-year-old started skiing here when she was four and, despite venturing to other major hills around the Northwest, continues to call Meany home. “I had forgotten how long lift lines could be and how slow lifts were,” jokes Deyerie Smith. “I used to be impressed when people said they skied for eight hours, but then I real-ized they were just skiing one run every 20 to 30 minutes. I like that [here] we can just keep going.” She is right. In just over a few hours, we push our legs through tight glades, natural halfpipes and wooded chutes, scrambling back over spicy traverses and conveyor-belting ourselves to the top for more. Though we are on the colder eastern side of the Cascade Crest, a warm spell makes for stickier-than-normal conditions and the worked quads to prove it. In typical local fashion, Deyerle-Smith lets us know we should have been there a couple of weeks ago, when she practically had endless powder laps to herself. 062 The Ski Journal
The Ski Journal Volume 17, Issue 3: Page 62
