We wake up with the sun creeping in the window of Jeff’s hotel room; it naturally illuminates the space and pries open our eyes. The first thing we do is squint against the cold glass and debate whether the lights on my car are still futilely shining. We couldn’t get them to turn off last night despite flipping every switch in the thing. After some back and forth we decide that yes, miraculously, my car battery is not dead. With buoyed spirits, we hurry our few belongings back out of the room we entered less than twelve hours ago. It finally feels like we’ve arrived in Colorado.
The car starts without an issue. We give a short goodbye and thanks to Jeff with promises of returning soon. He’s moving into his new apartment today, alone, in downtown Denver. After graduating early from Western State College in December, he landed a job at a local accounting firm and is the first of my close friends to step out into the world. I’m still at least partially under my parents’ financial wings; without them I wouldn’t be able to make this journey. It all seemed a little far-fetched that Jeff would be working a nine to five though he looks comfortably ready for professionalism in his button down and neatly cropped hair.
He can be a little terse, and is often closed – so much that I often forget the dedicated artist and guitar player behind the mathematical mind. Later in the trip I would stumble on his sketchbook that holds nearly a hundred pieces of work. His friends have requested the tattoos for their own body, mostly from the array of tribal looking images that are Jeff’s favorite. It’s strange seeing him out of the backdrop of his home and his parents and his dog Raider, who I’d watched pass an entire lifetime.
In a couple of days, on January 2nd, Jeff begins what people around me keep calling real life. He says he’ll probably be too busy to snowboard, since the crunch on accounting starts now and extends through April; he’ll be working six day weeks until then. I cringe at the thought and pull out of the parking lot with my own youthful dreams of carefree skiing intact.
It feels like Ashley and I are escaping Denver. The grocery store was ransacked last night with the threat of another storm bearing down on the area. Reports suggested the weather would worsen throughout the day. As we start our drive into the mountains I imagine a snowstorm nipping at our heels, but just into the foothills I stop having to conjure up an image as snow begins dotting the windshield. It’s the first of our trip. By the time we pass Idaho Springs, about halfway between Denver and Dillon, we’re slowed to half the speed limit. Trucks start to stall on the stop-and-go climb.
After coming to a halt on an incline, we stare at the back of a semi like it’s the cart in front of us on a roller coaster. I wonder what’s inside as its tires spin vainly. It inches backwards towards the nose of my car and Ashley squirms when I whip just past the back corner. Not long after, a car coming in the opposite direction fishtails once before plowing into the median packed with snow. We ponder how the young woman inside is going to escape her car with drifts piled up against the edges of her windows. Heavier traffic in our direction might have been a blessing, forcing people into a little more caution on the tightly packed two-lane road.
There are still cars lodged in the shoulder, like bricks lain by a mortar of snow, from the past storm with orange ties around their antennas. The Eisenhower Tunnel is a welcome beacon of hope because the weather isn’t improving. It’s a sign that at least we’re not far from Summit County, home to several of the countries most vaunted ski resorts. The mouth of the tunnel splits Loveland Ski Area in half. As we burrow through our last physical barrier, I’m less worried about my white knuckles wrapped around the steering wheel than whether we can get on the slopes today.
We arrive at Copper Mountain too late. Most people are off the slopes by three in the afternoon, ignoring the temptation offered by another hour of turns. Everyone makes an effort to beat traffic but no one really succeeds. Ashley and I have a different, but equally frustrating issue. We’re stuck in the homeowner’s office of Mountain Plaza, the site of Natrisha’s condo at Copper’s base, trying to get the attention of distracted employees who are ruing their desks and wistfully peering out the window at the falling snow.
We’re slowly explaining to them that we’d like to move into Natrisha’s condo, although she won’t arrive until tomorrow. After a brief attempt at accommodation, they apologize for being full and send us away before returning to their cubicles where skis are propped against the wall instead of playfully sliding across nature’s playground. I don’t feel bad for them because we’re homeless again.
Summit County, Colorado, is not a good place to be without a reserved bed during the holidays. There’s simply nothing available. Flakes fall heavily as we bounce around from Frisco to Dillon and then to Silverthorne, from one no-vacancy sign to the next.
Teddy, a former soccer teammate at Ithaca, says he can give us a place in Winter Park, but that option just went from unappealing because of the weather, to impossible. Just an hour or so after we emerged from the tunnel, a rash of accidents forced police to close I-70 Eastbound. Even if we wanted to get to Winter Park, it would be hours before traffic moved.
A little more desperate, we continue our quest for a bed. We’ve resorted to asking places that claim unavailability and it finally it pays off. Ashley exits the lobby of the Luxury Inn with a look of unfortunate satisfaction. The room’s going to cost us $140, but at least we won’t have to sleep in the car, which is what a real ski bum might do. I hesitantly shell out the money.
The room isn’t luxurious, like the establishment’s name might suggest, and it reeks of smoke. We get our first encounter with the diversity of the area – the staff barely speaks English. We want to open the window to clear the rank smell, but it’s entirely too cold. Choking down the air, we dump our belongings into the room and quickly break for some food. We haven’t eaten at all today. My car lights still won’t turn off and we’re waiting for it to sputter instead of start.
A stagnant millipede of cars snakes down the hill from the direction of Copper and Vail and spills over into the streets of Dillon. People are asleep behind the wheel in parking lots. We see one man make a dead sprint for the liquor store, abandoning his Jeep in the standstill on the interstate about a mile away.
Famished, we choose a Chinese buffet more for the quantity than the quality. We watch a young girl argue as only a child can, convincing her embarrassed mother to scratch the child from the bill because she doesn’t like anything they offer. I feel bad for the waitress, a good-looking woman with an accent that I can’t particularly pinpoint, but drips Eastern European.
Most of the people eating are stranded by the closed road. The pair across from us kills time by piling so much food on their plate it looks like an eating competition. They’re locals, a character type I’ll confront often and will be conflicted by in the coming weeks when I’m mistaken for one. They’re such a distinct persona I could pick them almost perfectly out of a lineup by the end of my stay.
I know where to go now if I’m stranded without a room again. Ashley and I speak to another couple during happy hour at the Dillon Dam Brewery who, like us, are in limbo. Their flight for the next day has already been canceled. After our parting, they return a few minutes later.
Misunderstanding that we had actually found a room down the road, they offer: Here’s my cell phone number, and Matt’s too. If you can’t find someplace to stay, we’re staying at my parent’s house up the road near Keystone. There’s plenty of room, so give us a call later if you want, we really wouldn’t mind if you stayed with us.
I’m more than surprised with their hospitality and extension of friendship. It isn’t an empty offer – maybe even hopeful for a phone call. One traveler offering their place to another didn’t seem uncommon, but it was unexpected from strangers we had just met. Matt is a freelance writer and recently moved to Portland, Oregon where he is trying to break into several publications after abandoning scholarship halfway through his Ph.D. in history. We share dissatisfaction with the opportunities for writers, and an interest in taking up public relations to put some money in the bank.
Maybe it’s the small connection of writing that led them to invite us back to their home. Maybe they are serial killers. But more and more I think it’s just a unique understanding, and an interest in delving into unknown experience, into knowing people and uncovering beauty through the unseen. They moved to Oregon without direction, without jobs; they knew the place was where they wanted to be. Ashley and I came to Colorado because this is where we wanted to spend the New Year together. Place brought us all together at this moment in time.
Inexplicably, I couldn’t see this same gesture being extended in many places on the East Coast. In fact, I probably wouldn’t feel comfortable accepting the invitation there. But there was a sense of security in the mutual unknown. The two were warm to us, and if we could have gone to the hotel and taken back our money back, we would have.
The next morning we head back to Copper, making the fifteen minute drive west on I-70 that takes us around a bend and spits us out the last exit before the road winds up through Vail Pass. I already had my season pass, so I picked up a discounted day ticket for Ashley. Natrisha and company, who have entry to the condo, aren’t in yet and won’t arrive until later this afternoon. We suit up in the free parking lot for our first day of skiing, a pleasantly active reward after three days of driving and restlessly searching for a bed.
In our moment of triumph after parking the car, with the mountain in full view, I have a moment of dread. I realize that overnight I broke a rule in the code of skiing. I left my boots in the car. So here we are, excited to make our first turns and I’m having a battle of epic proportions in the parking lot trying to put on my right boot. After several minutes of noisy struggle, and only after I think I’m going to sever my foot off at the ankle with icy plastic, I hurl my boot against the ground with tears in my eyes. Disappointed, I pathetically resign that I won’t ski today. Only then do I think about turning the car back on and blasting the heat.
By the time my boots thaw enough for me to force my cringing feet into them, most of the parking lot is only abandoned cars. Most people have taken the shuttle over to the main lodge and started their day. I never want to listen to Oasis again. Between the arduous drive through the mountains that had us too focused to reach back and grab a new CD to the monumental struggle with the ski boot supplemented by whiny British voices, it was enough to consider snapping the CD in half.
Nobody ever, mentions the weather can make or break your day,
nobody ever, seems to remember, life is a game we play.
It’s the first day of skiing this year for both of us, so we take the morning pretty easy, cruising comfortably around familiar parts of the mountain. It’s like visiting a city you’ve been through so many times, but you still stop by some of the same sites, if not to show someone around, then just to get your bearings right before you explore the unknown. Ashley likes Oh No and I ski nearby and watch her yellow jacket steering confidently through the run’s winding turns and regular tilt without any moguls.
Not too long into the day we’re starving. After a few hours of skiing, our continental breakfast seems distant. Skiing only looks effortless. The famished feeling at four o'clock after a full day on the slopes is unmatched but staying hydrated is the biggest challenge. In the cold you hardly notice the pouring sweat and the loss of water underneath the layers keeping you warm. The effects set in at the après-ski, when two beers deep you decide it’s best to retire for a nap and stagger lightheaded back to bed.
The price of a lift ticket is disturbing until you wander into any of the mountain’s cafeterias. First, you’re blown into stunned gaping, and then you’re appalled. After picking my jaw up off the ground I weigh the consequences of eating hot dogs and Taco Bell for the rest of my trip in fear of not being able to pay my credit card bill at the end of the month. A slice of pizza for $4.50. A cheeseburger for almost $8. It makes an honest man want to steal as much as possible.
But out of options and sucked into the tourist trap, we close our eyes and hold out a ten dollar bill at the cashier, hoping for good news. All we get in return is a couple of coins. Solemnly we head out to the deck to slowly savor our fries and single slice of pizza under the warm gaze of the Colorado sun as it ebbs behind the ridge where the American Eagle lift disappears from sight.
We glance up at the screened in porch of Natrisha’s condo, visible from near the lifts and see some ski boots set outside. Friends have arrived and we decide to join them. While we’re cutting the day a little bit short, we’re satisfied with our efforts. Our legs are feeling a little shaky after not working them for weeks and then shocking them for a few intense hours. The lack of oxygen available at nine thousand feet is getting to us a little. Panting under the warmth of our winter clothes we tromp into the elevator. We both stare at the glowing number four in silent exhaustion.
I make wordless noise walking as fast as my stiff boots will allow. I get a return shout from inside the room. Pushing open the door that was already ajar, I find exactly what I expected. Two shirtless dudes lounging on separate couches, hat hair still shooting in all directions and long underwear exposed from the top of their unbuttoned ski pants. They’re the first of a party of six – some of us have been meeting annually at Copper in the same condo for five years.
I’ve known Brad since childhood but haven’t seen him since the summer. We’ve been in and out of each other’s lives since playing on our first soccer team at five years old. While he traveled the world with his family, who accepted foreign assignments for Exxon Mobil, I was jealously stuck in Fairfax, Virginia. He loves to travel more than anyone I know, falling prey to its seduction at a young age. He’s been to six continents now with his girlfriend who he’s dated for less than a year.
Last year, his curiosity got the best of him and he asked to meet us in Colorado despite limited skiing experience – just two days of my teaching at a little hill in Southern Pennsylvania. I geared him up at the ski shop where I worked and he hasn’t turned back since, or turned on the slope for that matter, preferring an approach reminiscent of a missile.
Mark, who’s situated on the other couch, was an acquaintance through high school and became a closer friend when the trips to Copper Mountain began. He’s not the first person brought into my life by skiing. He’s a member of the race team at the University of Virginia – yes, a ski race team south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Of our whole crew, he’s the one most likely to get drunk and do something stupid.
We get a surprise when a guy named Casey pushes through the open door. He introduces himself as a friend of Natrisha’s, but we don’t know who he is, or quite what to say. We don’t bar the door, but I’m sure our first impression wasn’t the best. It’s probably difficult to walk into a room of established friends by yourself and go for it cold, but if there’s ever a door you’d want to walk through, it’s probably the one that leads to our room. He promptly receives the title of “new guy” after disappearing to unpack. Within minutes, Ashley casually asks if she could borrow his shoes. After complying without much hesitation, he was in.
We recover all our belongings from the car, liberating it from the cold and making ourselves a temporary home base. We’ve slept in five different beds over the course of a week and I’m happy to familiarize with this one for a couple days. Ashley collapses her short frame onto the bed while the rest of the crew trickles into the condo, each greeted with the same round of smiles and hugs, like a separated family reuniting in their old home.
When Natrisha arrives, her first concern is that her missing purse that’s disappeared sometime between checking in down the street and getting to the room.
We scour the room and take turns assuring her it’s around; there was nothing that could have happened to it. No one would steal your purse here, everyone is already rich.
We agree there’s not much incentive for those that are wealthy enough to ski here; they’re in a position to return a purse to you. We soon find it hanging off the nose of a snowboard on our own porch.
We crack open the owner’s closet and extricate some bottles of liquor. The catch up is on but blurred by everybody’s travel weariness. Most of the house crashes early after talking up a big night of partying. About half the house is stuck without luggage, lost in movement from airport to airport because Denver is still in disarray from the effect of two monster storms. Sarah would wear borrowed clothes for the next couple days. There still weren’t eggs or bread in the grocery store, so our rations include mostly hot dogs, peanut butter and jelly and the little loaf of bread we have left.
In the morning, after a skimpy breakfast and a couple warm up runs, we discover some higher power has spited our naiveté from the day before. Both Brad and Mark’s skis were stolen overnight. We all feel a twinge of sympathy and share the misfortune that it had to happen to them and not someone else. I can’t even voice my thoughts: they were idiotic for leaving their skis outside and unlocked all night.
There are certain levels of trust that probably can’t be reached in a small area with a mostly transient population. As many honest people as there are, there are at least a few looking to abuse that honesty. It would take about three minutes for someone to get in and out of the base area where there are hundreds of skis. That’s how long it probably took for theirs to disappear. The silver lining for Mark was that they were his older pair, beat up and on their last legs – he had brought another set with him.
Brad didn’t have the same fortune. He was a newcomer to the sport and had just been outfitted last year. It was a fairly hefty investment that just vanished. He was disenchanted, his face twisted in a mixture of disbelief and anger. Skiing on rentals the rest of the week wasn’t as fun and it took a while before a smile would reappear on his scruffy, unshaved face. The adrenaline rush and the purity of skiing had lost its innocence. The free spirited nature of the mountain vanished in a flash.
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