From Clark Winter’s latest edition of “The View” titled…
Calling for Clarity
“Confusion reigns in the realm” said a European friend of mine the other day and I think we all know what he means. On the other hand, there’s Steve Jobs legacy of clarity and we all understand that too.
Hopefully, we are on the eve of resolution in Europe which in turn will be a catalyst for intelligent investors to channel money back to work.
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For over fifty years, before the invention of instant communications except by telephone or telegraph I made a lot of long distance phone calls in the fall and winter trying to find where the snow had fallen deep enough to start on my next ski movie. Even back in the days before the invention of snow compaction and snow making machines the ski resorts slowly learned to cut the trees right down at the ground when they were cutting a new trail so it could be skied with less than a foot of snow.
Big Bromely, for example, offered free lift tickets to anyone who wanted to join their rock gathering weekends in the fall. People from ski clubs would organize a weekend of cleaning rocks over half an inch in any dimension from the grassy, not very steep ski runs so that eventually they could operate on frozen grass and the first two inches of snow that fell. In exchange for x hours of rock picking, the rock pickers would earn credit toward their lift tickets when it snowed that first two inches.
Then when the Tucker snow cat was invented resorts all bought at least one to try and pack down the snow before it got all skied down to dirt which would force them to close down until the next snowstorm.
The classic case of dirt on a ski run was at Vail in the first few years. At the bottom of the mountain there is a run now called Pepsi’s Face (used to be called the Slide for Life!). Today that part of the mountain has become covered with fourteen million dollar, ski-in, and ski-out, condominiums and is no longer skiable for that reason. Back in those early days when Vail did not even have a parking lot the snow would quickly get skied off of the face. People would pull off of I-70 and that run seemed to indicate that the skiing was not very good or the dirt would not be showing up like that. The carloads of people who would have bought four dollar a day lift tickets pulled back onto the highway and continued on to Aspen without ever seeing or skiing the Back Bowls. They missed so much.
Where they built those condominiums used to be the final steep pitch of the World Championship downhill. Now that they no longer have a finish area at Vail they have had to move the race course from Vail to Beaver Creek. Even though the races are advertised as World Championships at Vail, the parties will be held at Vail and the races will be held at Beaver Creek with all of the attended problems of access to the bottom of the chairlifts from Avon which is several miles away.
Anyway, the snow is still white but a slightly different shade of white to the bottom of your skis cannot detect the difference. As long as you have your wax Guru somewhere who can coat the bottom of your skis properly.
Laurie and I were really lucky when we lived on a dead end street in Vail where we could walk about 150 feet and put on our skis and coast down to the Lionshead gondola. On some days when the powder was good and everyone was racing to get one run in the back bowls and then spend a half an hour or more in the lift line we would just make endless runs in Lionshead in the untracked powder with almost no other people on the runs. We usually managed to get untracked powder snow runs until we were so tired we had to coast back to our house and take a nap long about three o’clock in the afternoon. Just one of the many secrets Laurie and I have shared with a few closed mouth friends who we phoned to rendezvous in our driveway but hurry because it is already eight fifteen and the lift opens at nine. Unfortunately for all of us the Vail ski school got to cut up the snow for an hour before we could get a whack at it but they couldn’t wreck it all because we had a secret monopoly on a lot of stashes.
After all it is about searching for freedom. I was lucky I had it that first winter Vail was open and some days when we were the only people making tracks in the back bowls, myself, my camera and my skiers. I know Vail went out on a limb a couple of times for me and said there was too much avalanche danger in the back bowls so we really had it to ourselves.
Somewhere buried in a film vault unlabeled are all of the great shots of Pete Siebert, Christie Hill, Dick Hauserman, Pepi Gramshammer, Dave Gorsuch and Bob Smith. Bob invented the ski goggles that let us all ski regardless of the weather.
Now good weather or bad when the Pisten Bullies roll out of the Vail garage for another eight hour shift of grooming ski runs there are almost forty of them that cost over $300,000 each to buy and cost about a hundred dollars an hour to operate so that you folks who complain about the cost of a chair lift ticket can have yet another day of total freedom. Try and educate people to spend their discretionary time later in the spring instead of early in the fall. Corn snow is still one of my favorites!
Some of the California resorts have closed even though there is still thirty feet of snow on their hills and it is superb. An inch of corn snow on top of that twenty nine feet eleven inch snow pack. What is not to like about that?
- Warren Miller
For great gifts for skiing friends and family plus further info about Warren’s wanderings go to warrenmiller.net or visit him on his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/warrenmiller. To learn about the works of his Foundation, please visit the Warren Miller Freedom Foundation, www.warrenmiller.org. Copyright 2011
As you get older there are a couple of days every year when your entire body cries out in pain. One is the day after your first day of skiing, especially your thighs. The other day is when that same body cries out in pain is after your first day of whatever summer sport is your favorite. Golf or windsurfing comes to mind.
I am about to end that pain forever with a simple, non-medical method of getting rid of all of those pains in approximately thirty minutes. Yes, pain free in thirty minutes. Always have Rolaids handy for the day after muscle exercise. That’s right, just chew up four Rolaids if you weigh 200 pounds and three is enough if you weigh 150 pounds or less.
How and why something this works I have no idea except a doctor friend of mine told me about it roughly thirty years ago. I could barely walk I was so sore but since he could not explain why it works I didn’t try it. But a few years later when I was narrating my show live in the Opera House at Sun Valley. After almost sixty days on the road and in different hotel every night, and the first day of skiing newly under my belt, I could barely climb up the steps to the stage. During a lull in my movie when I didn’t have anything to say I tried some Rolaids. Bingo, thirty minutes later I was pain free. I have no idea why it works anymore than I know where the white goes when the snow melts.
I won’t offer you a money back guarantee if it does not work for you but many people I’ve told about it, have had the same experience as did I.
Let’s talk about more serious pain and take a lesson from elderly trainers who take care of race horses worth millions of dollars each.
They use a clear liquid called DMSO, used when joints or cartilage are really sore. The first time I used it, I had some foot surgery and my left ski boot was extremely painful – I got some DMSO from a local vet in Hailey, Idaho, and applied it to my sore foot. It has what is called an osmotic property which translates to a liquid that will pass from one cellular structure into another one by osmosis. When you apply DMSO it passes from the outside of your flesh through your flesh and into your bloodstream. On the way if there is any swelling or dirt between the skin and a vein or artery DMSO will take it along with it on its journey through your body. (Some of those old time trainers have pretty tobacco-stained fingers and that poison goes right into their systems as well as the horses. Probably not good so be sure your hands are very clean.) Within a minute or two after you apply the DMSO you will get a garlic taste in your mouth and know that it is working. I am not a doctor and I have to stress the importance of talking to a doctor before you use DMSO. But I figure no veterinarian is going to risk a million dollar horse and what is my body worth?
There is a substitute for DMSO that has the same osmotic molecule in its composition. Definitely do not use this one but I can only say it worked like a champ and let me ski for a whole week on a Mike Wiegle helicopter trip in Canada.
I had a new pair of boots and by the end of the first day my feet hurt beyond usage. There was no vet in Blue River and so I took a chance and substituted DMSO with WD 40. That’s right WD 40 has the same osmotic molecule in it that DMSO does. I bought a can of it at the local gas station and sprayed my feet after almost every helicopter ride. The only difference was that instead of the garlic taste in my mouth it tasted like fuel oil. Again I caution you not to do this except in an emergency such as I was having.
The second afternoon one of the ladies was so sore she could not even get out of a chair to go to dinner. Her husband sprayed her thighs with WD 40 and forty-five minutes later she was in the dining room dancing with her ski guide.
When I got back home in Manhattan Beach, I was telling the local hardware store owner about my discovery and he said, “Miller, get with the program. I coach a little league football team and the first thing I do every fall is give each one of my players a can of WD 40 so whenever they hurt they just spray the soreness and they can play in the next game.” I have to again emphasize that I am not trained in ANYTHING medical and therefore DON’T recommend this medical mythology but all I can say is that it saved my helicopter ski vacation. Without it I would have had to sit in a very expensive lodge for a week without skiing. In 20 years, the owner of the hardware store/coach has never had a problem with a bruised little league football player and the kids have saved a lot on medical bills.
A lot of them however do have bad breath from the diesel fuel taste in their mouth after a WD 40 spray job on a bruise.
- Warren Miller
For great gifts for skiing friends and family plus further info about Warren’s wanderings go to warrenmiller.net or visit him on his Facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/warrenmiller. To learn about the works of his Foundation, please visit the Warren Miller Freedom Foundation, www.warrenmiller.org. Copyright 2011
From Clark Winter’s latest edition of “The View” titled…
East, West, and the King’s View
There’s been so much news about events in the Middle East and the velocity of change that our heads spinning with awareness. In January, we listened to the 50th anniversary commemorations of JFK’s inaugural speech, “Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”. Now we see that lesson implementing itself at warp speed worldwide. It seems what has been happening in North Africa is a result of that question – citizens heretofore frustrated and now demanding a new set of opportunities.
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