BIG MOGULS - WOOD SKIS - FINAL LUNCH

Something clicked, a memory stirred as I read Selur Nisaba's letter in MG 108. For reasons I can't explain, his whining about A-Basin changes stirred up 48 years of mental mud, flashed me back to our first big Sun Valley road trip. In 1956, five teenage veterans of the rope tow set out across the great Eastern Oregon desert. A vicious cold front covered that pre-global warming land. It was so cold that February only the defrost on high kept the windshield free of frost; the rest of Fred's father's 1952 Buick Straight 8 looked like the inside of Dr. Zhivago's dacha. You couldn't see a damn thing until you breathed real hot and fast on one spot and then glanced out before the refreeze. Fortunately, we are able to see the guy walking the Bend to Burns highway that bitter morning. With only a moment's hesitation, whoever was driving began trying to stop our three tons of metal, gear and people, not an easy task on that road of pure ice. We backed up as best we could and met the guy running to catch us. He had no luggage and only light clothes. After squeezing in, he told us that he'd been walking all night to keep from freezing.

I think we were all a bit nervous about our frozen hitchhiker. That road in 1956 was anything but busy. We counted the cars we saw on the 100 miles between Bend and Burns. There were two. So when our passenger began to hint rather heavily that we really should detour South to Jordan Valley so he could look up this woman he knew, that it really wasn't so far out of our way, I got worried about what might be coming down. But we were five normal sized high school seniors who had somehow squeezed a week's vacation out of a school that didn't let such vacations happen. I don't remember parting with the hitchhiker in Burns, nor do I remember much of the remaining trip across Southern Idaho to Sun Valley.

We rolled into the resort after dark and found our way to the multi-bunk chalets you could rent in those days. As I recall, a week's stay in our steam-heated super comfy chalet was $35 each. Haw, haw, right? But $35 in 1956 for high school kids was real money. Most starter jobs didn't pay much over a dollar an hour. The other big expense was the $65 for the week's lift ticket - for 7 days of skiing at what was then probably the finest ski resort in America!

We were up before dawn, vibrating with joy as we squeak-walked snowy paths to the cafeteria and a big breakfast. Rushing back to the chalet, we stopped dumbfounded as the growing light revealed Baldy Mountain. Never could we have dreamed of a ski area so huge! The excitement, the terror nearly paralyzed us. Soon we were stomping aboard the warm, inviting resort bus with the ski patrol. There were no other recreational skiers. It was 12 degrees below zero and we were headed for Baldy!

River Run chairlift in those days was a clattering single chair complete with a footrest you swung across your lap. Attached to the footrest was an insulated canvas cover that protected your legs and could be extended to cover your upper body. But that wasn't all! Sun Valley provided each skier with these stiff quilted capes you put on before squatting on the lift and flung off into a pile at the top. Overkill you might ask? Not at all. We were skiing before fleece, before goose down, protected only by cotton, wool and these really cool single layer White Stag nylon windbreakers. For a long, slow ride up the River Run lift in minus 12-degree cold, you couldn't get enough of anything around you.

As the lift slowly clanked us over the huge moguls covering the Exhibition run, I think I began to sweat beads of fear despite my near frozen state. Oh, Toto, we weren't in Kansas (or Willamette Pass) any more! The Big Time!

In retrospect, I realize that the skiing conditions that week weren't all that great. There hadn't been any new snow in a while and the cold held the icy spots. It didn't matter to us. We skittered over the hard snow on our wood skis, our leather boots straining to control chatter. In the spirit of our current Secretary of Defense, we went to ski with what we had. Which meant Marker toe pieces and Austrian leather wraps. We skied every day from 7:00 until the 4:00 last run. We wolfed down wonderful Roundhouse lunches to rush back out again.

And this may be where Selur Nisaba's words about A-Basin's Ramrod "bump" run stirred 50 years of memory. His complaints about grooming the moguls flashed me back to the "real" moguls of 1956 Sun Valley. There was no grooming then. No machines, not even a packing crew. The ski patrol marked danger spots and occasionally shoveled off really bad bumps but the terrain was skier sculpted. And the long, long skis of the day (I had a new pair of 7'3" Heads I purchased with my paper route money – so cool!) made for moguls that were huge compared to today's sharp little bumps. On steep runs like Exhibition, the moguls were hills unto themselves and you had to get your rhythm just right or you crashed and went sliding off, unable to stop until you hit flatter terrain. (We loved to watch each other slide down Exhibition – bump, bump, bump!) You couldn't see over those mogul tops, which created the real possibility of hitting someone below you. The downhill mogul edges were vertical and as much as 2-3 feet high! What can I say! Wooden skis and iron legs! (Okay, mine were metal Heads but they held ice like day-old noodles).

Then too, Selurs' complaints about bump run change rings hollow. A bump run is as artificial as an indoor climbing gym. Moguls are completely man-made. So what if the ski area sprays them with artificial snow! If he'd complained about a real terrain change I might have had some empathy. If he'd complained, for instance, about the Sun Valley lifts that ruined the great Baldy bowls, I would have wept with him.

Back in the olden days, the Baldy bowls were seldom open for skiing. When they were, you had to traverse a long way before turning down into some of the most effortless near flight that skiing can produce. Since few ever skied the bowls, there were NO moguls. That's right, nada. Before the term, those Baldy bowls were the super half-pipes of American skiing. All that was necessary it seemed, was to twist your head around to begin a rocketing traverse back down into the bowl and up the other side where another slight twist put you back the other way. It was effortless near-flight, pure skiing, and I've seldom done anything better. Even the slow, creaky Cold Springs lift out of the bowls was a treat. Nodding off in the warm March sun and falling off the lift was a real possibility, it was that lulling.

The last time I skied the pre-lift Baldy Bowls was in late March of 1961. I was on leave from the Army (drafted) and in need of some skiing flight. They opened up Christmas and Easter bowls (and others I don't remember) late each morning when the overnight crust turned to corn. After several bowl runs I was ecstatic and exhausted as I slid off the Cold Springs lift and headed over for a late Roundhouse lunch with the gang. Late in the day and late in the season, there were only a few other skiers. As we sat there in the slanting sunlight with all of Southern Idaho seeming to fan out before us, who should come in for lunch but Ernest and Mary Hemingway. Yes, the man himself. I was a real Hemingway fan in those days and wanted ever so much to go over and somehow articulate the importance of his writing. But the proper phrases eluded me and in the end, I didn't speak to him. He looked great, somehow filling the space around him. People knew who he was but no one bothered him. I remember that he was wearing a handsome leather vest probably made from something that he had shot. It also seems like he had huge piercing blue eyes, but I may have imagined that.

So we left, and struggled down Exhibition or maybe it was Canyon. I felt bad about not complimenting Hemingway, bad about being shy, bad about an opportunity missed. My leave time was over and I soon went back to keeping the Commies out of Kansas. Hemingway rode the lift down to Ketchum that afternoon, got up early a few days later, stuck his shotgun into his mouth and blew his brains out.

Author Info: Steve Bunnell grew bored with lift skiing some 30 years back. The nuances of telemarking now recall days of floppy skis and bendy boots. He lives in Seattle and races sailboats more than he skis.