Leslie Anthony - White Planet: A Mad Dash through Modern Global Ski Culture

WHITE PLANET

leslie anthony

white

planet

A MAD

DASH THROUGH

MODERN

GLOBAL SKI

CULTURE

D&M PUBLISHERS INC.

Vancouver/Toronto/Berkeley

Copyright 2010 by Leslie Anthony
First U.S. edition 2011

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Greystone Books
An imprint of D&M Publishers Inc.
2323 Quebec Street, Suite 201
Vancouver BC Canada V5T 4S7
www.greystonebooks.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada
ISBN 978-1-55365-479-7 (pbk.)
ISBN 978-1-55365-646-3 (ebook)

Editing by Lucy Kenward
Copyediting by Lara Kordic
Cover and text design by Jessica Sullivan
Cover photograph Chase Jarvis/Getty Images
Printed and bound in Canada by Friesens
Text printed on acid-free, 100% post-consumer paper
Distributed in the U.S. by Publishers Group West

We gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Canada Council
for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British
Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government
of Canada through the Canada Book Fund for our publishing activities.

For Myles,
who has the keys to the kingdom.

CONTENTS

There is nothing ordinary about the mountains, nor
about the people who seek meaning and beauty in them.
THE MOE BROTHERS, co-founders of POWDER magazine

T HANKING everyone I should be thanking is a daunting prospect. After twenty-plus years of trekking the globe with dozens of ski freaks, meeting hundreds more wherever Ive touched down, and being helped daily in this ever-more-fractious quest by everyone from ski areas to tourist bureaus to people apologetically pointing guns in my face because, well, they were just doing their jobs, the task is clearly impossible. So Ill just do what I can.

My mother, as you will read, sentOK, forcedme to go skiing for the first time. The experience I had that day could have turned into a lifetime of resentment. Fortunately, it went the other way.

Merl, Rat, Cleary, Skihoe, DeCaen, Kalisz, Altec, and Motz were my high school ski buddies, meaning they most frequently formed the phalanx of frozen jeans, wine, and weed that was my alpine baptism. I met Mary Eberle, my first love, on a ski trip, and my best memories of our times togetherwhether the posh trappings of Aspen or sleeping in the snow at Tuckerman Ravine on Mt. Washingtonrevolve around skiing. My biology teacher, Roman Fedorowicz, ski-trip organizer and delinquent ski-team coach (tasks taken on, in true ski-bum fashion, solely to afford more skiing), influenced the course of my life in more ways than, in retrospect, even I am shocked to recall. Stephen Merl Connolly was the good friend and co-conspirator in pretty much everything of consequencefrom art to music, rock-climbing, streaking, and various other forms of subversionthat I launched into the ski abyss with. In Waterloo, Christopher J. Hart, who otherwise supervised my lab work in an aquatic entomology course, opened the doors of perception when he introduced me to telemarking.

Stuck knee-deep now, Ill cover the rest in categories. These are people Ive benefited from knowing or traveling with, or who have delivered me of something important whether insight, influence, understanding, admiration, or a simple laugh in the snow. There will be many oversights for which I pre-beg forgiveness.

Jackals, powderhounds, athletes: Mark Abma, J.P. Auclair, Jenn Berg, Micah Black, El Fucking Bobby, Rob Boyd, Darian Boyle, Wendy Brookbank, Sarah Burke, Greg Campbell, Sammy Carlson, Danny Caruso, Johnny Foon Chilton, Sergeant Jim Conway, Chris Davenport, Claudio y Orlando Dias, Vinnie Dorion, Mike Douglas, Simon Dumont, Chris Eby, John Falkiner, Wendy Fisher, Dana Flahr, Alison Gannet, Sebastian Garhammer, Shane Gould, Tanner Hall, Hugo Harrisson, Mike Hattrup, Drew Heatherington, Chad Hendron, Coloro Herman, Jeff Holden, J.T. Holmes, Per Huss, Troy Jungen, Craig Kelly, Lisa Korthals, Steve Kuijt, Joseph P. Lammers III, Jon Larsson, Pierre-Yves LeBlanc, Ricky Lewon, Kristen Lignel, Sverre Lillequist, Noel Lyons, Ian McIntosh, Charlotte Moats, Brant Moles, Steve Mooz, Ian Morrison, Seth Morrison, El Punto Negro, Shawn Smiley Nesbitt, Jeremy Nobis, Paul Parker, Lee Ann Patterson, Eric Pehota, Gordy Peifer, Dominique Perret, Kye Petersen, Bryce Philips, Les Trois Philippes, Kina Pickett, Glen Plake, Philou Poirier, Kasha Rigby, Carla Rizutto, Chris Rubens, Joe The Dog Sagona, Frank Salter, Chad Sayers, T.J. Schiller, Richie Schley, Scott Schmidt, John Smart, Ptor Spricenieks, Shane Szocs, Johnny Thrash, Dan Treadway, Kristen Ulmer, Rex Wehrman, Karin Wein-berger, Henrik Windstedt, Chris Winter, Saifon Woozley, Eduardo Chichero Xaffon, Kaj Zachrisson. Special nods to the departed: Alan Bard, Matt Brakel, Brett Carlson, Doug Coombs, C.R. Johnson, Shane McConkey, Trevor Petersen, Hans Sari, and Dave Sheets.

Prima donnas, photographers, cinematographers: Kevin Feet Banks, the late Dick Barrymore, Christian Begin, Eric Berger, Hide Chiyasu, Lee Cohen, Damian Cromwell, Hank deVre, Mattias Fredriksson, Scott Gaffney, Henry Georgi, Bill Heath, Dave Heath, Ilja Herb, Bryn Hughes, Blake Jorgenson, Ace Kvale, Dustin Lindgren, Therese Lundgren, Ace MacKay-Smith, Scott Markewitz, Wade McCoy, Flip McCririck, Paul Morrison, Pat Morrow, Ben Mullin, Nate Nash, Nolen Oayda, Steve Ogle, Christian Pondella, Bruce Rowles, Magali Roy, Mark Shapiro, the late Carl Skoog, Beat Steiner, Greg Stump, Travis Tetreault, Murray Wais.

Bullies, editors, writers: Mike Berard, Bruno Bertrand, Tom Bie, Fredrik Boberg, Jake Bogoch, John Bresee, Kevin Brooker, Keith Carlsen, Steve Casimiro, Robert Choquette, John Crawford-Currie, Bruce Edgerly, Colin Field, Porter Fox, David Goodman, Bill Kerig, Tove Lillequist, James Little, Ian Macmillan, G.D. Maxwell, Steve Metcalf, Sam Moulton, Jules Older, Hiroshi Owada, David Reddick, Lisa Richardson, Ben Sadavoy, Mitchell Scott, Rob Story, Derek Taylor, Steven Threndyle. Westwood Creative Artists and Nancy Flight at Greystone Books fastened wheels of one form or another to this chattering vehicle; my editor, Lucy Kenward, deserves huge thanks for engineering its currently sleeker lines and driving so adeptly.

Criminals, madmen, visionaries: Ken Achenbach, Christian Begin, Alan Bard and Tom Carter, Team Clambin, Giorgio Daidola, Marc Deschamps, Mike Douglas, Lhotse Hawk, Geny Hess, Jill and Pete, Carole and Brad Karafil, Dolores LaChapelle, Pelle Lang, Pete Swede Mattson, the late Shane McConkey, Dan McDonald, Dave and Jake Moe, Glenn Noel, Dave and Doug Perry, Trevor Petersen and Eric Pehota, Glen Plake, Greg Stump.

Crystal balls, blueprints, films: Ski the Outer Limits (Roger Brown and Barry Corbet, 1968), Winter Equinox (Bill Burks, 1974), Blizzard of Aahhhs (Greg Stump, 1988), Loco Motion (Christian Begin, 1995), and the collective works of Matchstick Productions (MSP), Teton Gravity Research (TGR), Poor Boyz Productions (PBP), and Free Radicals.

Tabloids, employers, magazines: bits, bites, and a few choking mouthfuls of dozens of articles, essays, and columns have been liberally sprinkled, repurposed, and undergone DNA-like recombination in the service of weaving this romp through modern global ski culture. These originally appeared, among other places, in