 |
| October snow along the Frying Pan River in Basalt, Colorado |
I’m in search of something, some place in particular. My search is partly experiential but mostly existential. The search forms an integral part of my skiing life, and it’s triggered by olfactory memory. Pretty much every ski town in which I’ve spent time as a skier, athlete, coach, instructor, and trainer has a place that fits the bill, and at this time of year it’s at the forefront of my thinking.
I can see it clearly. Pull into a parking lot alongside
vehicles that include trucks in use by tradespeople, expensive suburban SUV’s,
beat up old Honda sedans, and a greater than average number of Subarus. Open
the equipment manufacturer sticker-decorated front door and the old fashioned
tinkling of a bell on the threshold barely can be heard over the din of power
tools and the distant hum of exhaust fans mostly doing their job. And then the
smells hit me: p-tex and wax being melted, polyurethane being ground, and something
vaguely wooly in the humid autumn air. It’s a ski shop, of course, and I can
feel the warmth as I write.
At the boot tech benches, a fitter is working with a race
coach discussing an athlete’s tibia length and cuff height - the boot fitter is
a faster ski racer than the coach and they both know and are totally comfortable
with that. A guest is sitting on a bench with their jeans rolled up to their
knees in hope of enjoying their ski days more and longer in comfort, happy to
be taking their time to do so while looking at glossy powder photos and soaking
in the atmosphere. Downstairs, binding plates are being drilled into place
using age old jigs that hang on the wall when not in use and that form part of
the decor. Somehow shoe-horned into the back-shop are shiny, modern,
computerized, water-cooled ski tuning machines that amazingly have not displaced
the numerous devices that seem non-technical and ancient but still current and
effective in a way that shows the arc of time for all of us who ski. Magazine
back issues and the occasional leather ski boot sit on any available surface,
and there is definitely an empty pizza box somewhere. A jar of Dermatone tins sits on
the counter. The FedEx driver drops off a
few boxes with a simple wave and a ‘see ya’ to nobody in particular. Long after
my walking in and poking around, the large old dog finally acknowledges my
presence and then goes back to sleep in the corner, making me feel validated as
a ski pro to have gotten her approval. It’s OK, the big dog thinks as she
settles in at her slow winter speed, he’s one of us.
On the road through my career in
the Northeastern USA, I know the manifestation of this shop in pretty much
every mountain town I’ve visited. And if I don’t, I certainly can find it
quickly in a pinch and there is tremendous comfort in that. One of the vexing
issues of having relocated to a fancy-schmancy Rocky Mountain resort is that I
haven’t really found a place where I can just walk in to say hello and pick the
brain of an expert with an encyclopedic memory of the bones in my particular
feet while discussing the evolution of sidewall construction and whether the
wasp nests were high or low in the woods this year. It’s just a matter of time
until I do – in Aspen, they may just be hidden behind the razzle dazzle, but
they’re here.
At this time of year more than any other, after spinning my
wheels all summer and dealing with big picture industry issues and concerns
with my colleagues, it’s a really wonderful thing to get operational with ‘getting
my new setup dialed’ and geeking it up with current equipment offerings. Did
you see the boots being tested in Hintertux? How much slow rise does the new
powder ski have? Doesn’t this remind you of that funny boutique Swiss ski from
the ‘80’s? Did you see that CB Sports is back in business?! My thoughts turn to
my friends and family at The Boot Pro in Ludlow, Vermont, whose hashtag
#biggestlittleskishop says it all - I miss them. Funny though it sounds, the olfactory memories
of the shop and all the shops like it get me daydreaming, bringing to mind the
sensations of skiing, the images of my equally devoted friends grinning, and they warm my heart and reinvigorate my true love of skiing and ski people.
There’s snow on the hills. I am very ready for winter. And I’m
very curious to see if my off-season fitness will have changed my alignment for
my super sweet just-arrived new Nordicas. I’ll just have to find the shop that I
can imagine in order to find out!
