"I think this was my best one ever..."
- Whistler local Max Horner, 16
It's 6 a.m. and already we're standing in line. As usual, the full crew is in attendance - you know, Vinny and Peppy and Swilly and Farg and Double and Rude Boy - a token gang of middle-century guys (and one gal) stuck in a swirling, seething, celebrating sea of twentysomethings. Talk about a foreign environment. My silver moustache and beard almost look like a leftover prop from Halloween. At least, that's the way I read the curious glances surreptitiously cast our way. "What are these old guys doing here?" I can see the kids asking each other. "And why are they smiling so much?"
I can't help but laugh. The smiles are earned, I wanna tell them. Some serious downhill miles have been logged by this crew, I wanna say; some impressive Opening Day streaks too. Three decades worth for most of the gang, over four for the rest of us. And my own smile stretches even further. For all their present fervour, the young kids here are babes in the woods when it comes to celebrating this most honoured of Snoweater high holidays.
Don't get me wrong. It's great to share this moment with the youngsters. Wouldn't have it any other way. I mean, for anyone who is serious about playing in the snow in wintertime, Opening Day is like a sacred ritual. Nothing else even comes close. Whether good weather or bad, total coverage or bare minimum, that first run of the season when you point your feet down the hill and start to glide on that crazy carpet of white is the moment you fall in love with snowsliding all over again. Know what I mean?
And it has its unique challenges too. Whether jumping water bars at mach speed or grinding blowdowns on less-than-covered forest runs, laying down first tracks on a classic line and discovering hidden reefs or tasting early powder in an ass-over-tea-kettle fall - the first day of the ski season is fraught with potential misadventures. Which makes it even more compelling...
It's still quite dark when we arrive in the village. At least two more hours of waiting before the lift starts doing its thing. The mood in the lineup is totally positive though. The kid behind me, a former ski racer from Huntsville, Ontario, is so amped about the day that he's nearly choking on his own adrenaline. But he's doing a commendable job given his story. "I blew both my knees out just before coming out here last season," he explains. "So I've been waiting a long time for my first Whistler run. Do you think it will be good today?" I pat him on the shoulder reassuringly. It's always good, I say.
For me, this year's Opening Day celebrations bring mixed blessings. Hard to keep things in perspective when the last time I skied here was the moment the Fates decided to steal away my life partner. So it goes. And I know I have to move on. Need to get on with things as they say in the grief business. But I'm not so sure it's that easy. I mean, I just can't predict how I'm going to feel about being on the mountain without Wendy...
Which is why, I suppose, I finally decide to join Vinny and the boys for our annual early-morning ritual despite the fact that I have every possible excuse not to. I want to live again. Want to honour Wendy's life too. The consensus is that a six o'clock start will put us in good front-of-the-pack position for that all-crucial first run of the year. And as it turns out, we're not in a bad spot when we finally get there. Still, we're a long way from the front of the line...
That particular position is held down by 16-year-old Max Horner and his posse of local ski-cross hounds. Opening Day connoisseurs, and first-car gondola riders for the past four years, Horner and his Whistler High buddies have been making a night of it, showing up at W-B's doors a full 14 hours ahead of opening.
"He's quite the guy," says Max's mum, Cathy Jewett. "All summer long he's like 'yeah skiing, it's okay, but I'd rather be cycling.'" She pauses. Her smile stretches from ear-to-ear. "But as soon as the snow hits the valley, you know, he gets the fever..."
No question. Horner and his gang have certainly raised the bar when it comes to Opening Day commitment. And it makes middle-aged keeners like us look like slackers. But it also comes at a price. "It was a pretty long night," Max admits to me later. "I wasn't sure I was going to stay awake there for a while. But things got a lot better around 2 a.m. when some friends arrived. That's when the party really got going."
Party? But let's not linger on that. Given Max's antics earlier in the evening, best to leave some subjects undeveloped...
"Yeah," says momma Cathy, "we had quite the start." And laughs. Turns out Max somehow "misplaced" a ski boot in the off-season and didn't realize it until it was almost too late. You can imagine the frenzy that erupted in the Jewett/Horner house when it suddenly came time to leave on Friday night. "It looked at first," Cathy recounts, "like he was going to be skiing on old boots and crappy skis." At the last minute, a neighbour scrounged some decent footwear for the kid. Game on! But Max still wasn't satisfied.
"We're already on our way to the village," recounts Cathy, "when Max suddenly gets it into his head that he wants to ski on his Hellbents." The skis - K2's highly hyped rockers - are new. Mom, a pro patrol at WB for decades, knows exactly what Opening Day conditions are like. No way is she going to allow her son to trash his new boards on the very first day of the season. So she continues driving. But Max is adamant. By this point, he's dragging his foot on the road trying to convince his mother to stop the car.
I'll let Cathy continue the story. "I slow down for a speed bump and Max rolls out onto the road. By the time I look into the rear-view mirror to see if he's okay he's halfway home. So I decide to keep going." Another burst of laughter. "I mean, if he's hell bent for the Hellbents, who am I to stop him? The other kids in the car are kind of shocked by what's gone down. One of them asks me: 'Aren't you going to stop and wait for Max?' I tell him that if my son wants to ride on his new skis so badly then he can bloody well take the bus to the village. And I keep driving..."
I can't help myself. The question hangs over my head all day long. Were the Hellbents worth the bus ride?
"Dude, the skis were awesome," Max answers when I finally get around to asking him about it. "It was totally worth it." The day is already behind us. We're both exhausted - Max is barely awake after his lift-line marathon. But the happiness in his voice is unmistakable. "They were way better than I even imagined them to be. As for the conditions on the mountain, I think they were the best ever!"
And he recounts a day of huge lines and deep snow. "The high point," he says, "was dropping into the VD Chutes and following right behind my ski cross coach Drew Hetherington and skiing faster than I've ever skied in there before." He stops speaking. "Man, it was like I could do no wrong. I was just flying. And then, there's the run we took down the old Blue Chair liftline - we dropped into that at full speed too, no hesitation at all. Really charging it. That was cool too."
He makes sure, however, that I know his decision to use the new Hellbents were based on a thorough understanding of the mountain conditions. "I'd already talked to some of the guys who were up the mountain for a photo shoot on Wednesday," he explains. "And they were like, the cover is epic. So I knew that wearing new skis today would be okay."
Max wasn't the only one to have a memorable '09 Opening Day. Everyone I came across on Saturday was in a good mood. Okay - so I didn't check in with the unfortunates who joined the record-long queue that had spontaneously formed in the village, amoeba-like, by the time the gondola started ferrying folks up the mountain at 8. But then, they should have known better than to arrive at the last minute like that. Shouldn't they?
As for me, the event was thoroughly therapeutic. To spend a full day on the mountain with my best buddies - to share powder turns with guys I've been playing with for over 30 years - well, all I can say is that this was the happiest I've felt in over seventh months.
More importantly, I realized once again just how powerful a hold the mountain environment has on my soul. Getting on my skis was like getting in touch with a part of me that I thought had disappeared. For minutes at a time I forgot about my "tragic situation." Forgot about being a single dad with a raft of issues and a job-jar list that never seems to get shorter. Forgot about all the decisions I had to make this week. Or the business calls I had to return. Or even what the heck I was going to do with my life.
All that mattered when I was sliding through that new snow on Saturday was that my ski tips were up, my goggles were clear and I was looking at the spaces between the trees not at the trees themselves. The rest, I knew, would take care of itself.
Note: Cathy Jewett is still looking for a single Head Comp boot for her son, size 27.5.
