Editor’s Note: The following is the first part in a winter-long series chronicling the life of a newly arrived ski bum in Salt Lake City, UT. In an attempt to remain anonymous (from “parents, ex-girlfriend, and police”) he’s asked we refer to him simply as, The Professor. It may be one the strangest requests we have received, but we felt compelled to oblige.
Also, from what we’ve seen of him in the past, he’s typically not this depressed — we’re blaming it on the post-Thanksgiving blues. You’d be well served to grab a Paxil and bottle of wine before continuing.
I Wanna Be Sedated
I’m beginning to learn that putting every ounce of anticipation and hope into something before it actually happens can be a dangerous thing. When that thing is slow to take off or is delayed for whatever reason one finds himself waiting in a sort of blank space, a space that offers no relief from the maddening boredom that comes from such unplanned blankness.
I find myself in this situation following two years of readying myself for the move out west to live my own ski bum fantasy. Now I’m here, after the fleeting excitement of opening day, and during the second week of lift operation, waiting.
I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have a great time during those five consecutive days I skied during the first week in Little Cottonwood Canyon, but after a week of skiing the same groomed trail, under the constant shower of manmade snow, by myself, I realized that in its current state, the mountains offer me nothing, especially not those lofty dreams of powder every day on uncrowded mountains.
On the contrary. Rocks, ice, cold feet. The same experience every early season has ever produced whether it was in Maine, Quebec, Austria, New Zealand or the Canadian Rockies. If this has historically been my fate during the early days of the season, why this year was I so convinced things would be different?
It must come from that extended period of anticipation coupled with the media-fueled mythology surrounding this supposed Utopia. So, here I am, sitting in my new ski-bum-flea-bag apartment in sweatpants I’ve worn every day for the last month, waiting. Still waiting. While my friends find themselves in pre-season mode still, I foolishly jumped the gun and now find myself in no-man’s land. Nothing to do, nowhere to go. Waiting.
If only I could close my eyes and wake up in February, skipping the boredom, the anticipation, the frustration. Could I go out and get a job? Sure. Could I go work out and get in shape for the season? Of course. But I can’t. I’ve fucked myself up so badly that all I can do is ski or mope around wishing I could ski. And with the conditions as they are, the latter seems more compelling.
The moral of the story, I suppose, is make sure your life is sufficiently filled with activities and well-rounded interests. When you are singularly focused on one thing — as I have become with skiing — which doesn’t go as planned, you end up with nothing. If only I could follow my own advice.
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A bit of background: Too smart for his own good, and one of the best skiers we know — he retired early from his racing career because, as he said, “I was afraid of going too fast” — The Prof has spent the past two winters in a combination of North Atlantic deep-freeze and semi-isolation. After more than two decades of shredding the mountains of northern New England, he’s honed his skills and somewhere along the line picked up an affinity for cowboy hats and denim-on-denim fashion statements. His ski bum odyssey technically began years ago when he first decided to move west after graduation. After two years of waiting and fantasizing about getting the goods, he has, at long last, arrived. The city of Salt Lake, Church of Latter Day Saints, and locals of Alta and Snowbird are potentially in for a rude (very rude) awakening.
