SST Chronicles: An Unexpected Learning Opportunity On An Ajax Powder Day

December 15th, 2008 at 12:54pm Mitch Mulhall 171

Aspen Mountain, Sunday, 14 December, 2008—Eating a plate of corned beef hash and wheat toast this morning settled my jitters. Barely an inch of snow on my walks this morning left me disappointed in the weather guessers, but as we headed up valley, it became increasingly clear they weren’t all wrong. Winter’s here. As I drove by Catherine’s Store, a down-valley-bound Subaru’s Thule carrier sported a good foot-and-a-half of snow, and after Basalt, it was clear that Subaru could have come from any place south of El Jebel.

Snowmass Canyon would have been a nightmare on a work-day: rough, ice packed roads with thick snow—over twelve inches—on badly-plowed medians and untouched shoulders, deceptive conditions in which an errant drift of a front tire into the deep stuff can send you into a spin. Hence, most up-valley travelers were straddling lanes.

While road conditions limited speed, we nevertheless made it to the Silver Queen Gondola with plenty of time to spare. The boys buckled their boots in the locker room hallway while the lift line breached the top of the stairs and began spilling back onto the bricks of gondola square. Epic powder day. And pretty much anyone with boards to slide on was standing in line to get some.

In preparation for the Valley Series Giant Slalom, we brought Liam’s rock skis and his GS skis, so it was a coin-flip as to which pair to shoulder. Liam opted for his rock skis. When the coach asked the team to grab their rock skis, it was clear he was going to turn the kids loose on the freshly blanketed slopes of Ajax.

This pleased me, not because it saved me a trip to the truck, but because this is further evidence that Coach John doesn’t embrace the all-work-no-play approach to coaching. That can turn kids off, no matter what the sport. At the end of the day, it’s all about having fun. For our racers, powder days like this one come around once or twice a season; besides, it would be futile to train for GS in these conditions.

After seeing the kids off, I dropped a half dozen boot bags in the back of the truck and walked down the covered sidewalk to Poppycocks. I’d seen the sign for their corned beef hash special a few weeks back, and the impression of it had lingered like a good idea ever since. I was not disappointed. After finishing my coffee and paying the tab, I grabbed my computer and headed back to the square. There, I took a seat in the corner Starbucks and plugged into their free internet to get some work done.

Sure, I’d rather be skiing, but lift ticket prices eclipsed my willingness to pay long ago. There will be plenty of ski days for me at Sunlight, and not skiing gives me much-needed time to work my second job, a necessity whether my son were ski racing or not. Besides, if I have to work, it could be a lot worse than writing at the base of Aspen Mountain.

~

Skiing is a young person’s sport. By that I mean it’s a sport for children, as opposed to “young adults” or the “young at heart,” though surely youth in any portion helps.

In the center of gondola square stands a bronze statue of a youthful-looking Friedl Pfeifer. My son leaned his skis on a rack not three feet from this statue this morning without so much as realizing it was there. Pfeifer died a year before my son was born, so who would expect him to know the first thing about this important skiing icon?

Born in St. Anton, Austria, Pfeifer came to Colorado to join the 10th Mountain Division during World War II. Weekend furloughs from Camp Hale first brought Pfeifer to Aspen, and he quickly recognized the surrounding mountains as ideal terrain for world class skiing. Upon his military discharge in 1945, Pfeifer returned to Aspen, opened a ski school, and convinced locals that building a chair lift would be a profitable venture. Arguably, every kid who has learned to ski in this valley should know about Friedl Pfeifer.

At the end of the day, Liam and his teammates reconvened at the square. While Coach John accompanied two team members back to the top to retrieve backpacks, I watched our racers spend roughly a half hour being kids—knocking snow off tree branches onto unwitting teammates, throwing snowballs, and demonstrating just how bottomless the well of childhood energy is, all under the bronze gaze of Friedl Pfeifer’s likeness. I never met Pfeifer, so I have no way of knowing for sure, but I have to think the idea of kids playing in the shadow of his statue after a day of skiing on Aspen Mountain is one that would have pleased him.

Entry Filed under: Skiing, Glenwood Springs, Aspen