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A Twelve-Step program for Spring Break

By G.D. Maxwell Okay seekers, the most important thing to remember is this: You came to Whistler on your Spring Break to have Fun! Sure, you may have thought you came to ski or board, but you’re confusing tactics with strategy.

By G.D. Maxwell

Okay seekers, the most important thing to remember is this: You came to Whistler on your Spring Break to have Fun!

Sure, you may have thought you came to ski or board, but you’re confusing tactics with strategy. It’s fun you’re after and it’s fun you shall have… as long as you don’t get too hung up on what we’ve come to call challenging ski conditions, challenging being a PR stand-in word for grotesque beyond description, historically without parallel and cue-up-the-four-horsemen Armageddonlike.

The first thing you may have noticed is our new decorating theme – Earth Tones. Nice, in that organic, crunchie granola kind of way, don’t you think?

The second thing you may have noticed is diehard skiers moping around humming Commander Cody’s classic, Stems and Seeds Again Blues . Pay them no heed; they’re overly focused on their own One True Path. Kind of like a Lab waiting to see if you drop your hamburger, pathetic.

But you came all the way from Onterrible or the far-flung corners of B.C. for Spring Break Fun. Let’s get started. If you’re a family, this’ll be a grand opportunity for some Quality Family Time. Granted, it might extend to several more hours each day than you’d planned, but think of all the fun things you can do together. Better think fast; you’ve got lots of fun hours to fill.

And if you’re young, single and, momentarily, still sober, you didn’t really come to ski at all. You came to score. Without wasting your time mindlessly pursuing powder lines, think of how much greater your chances of success – not to mention your bar bill – will be!

But if you’re a diehard yourself, if your concept of a ski vacation is so narrow it doesn’t include driving up to Pemberton to play a round of golf or going fishing in one of our ice-free lakes, if you can’t embrace renting a bike and riding some single-track instead of renting skis and snorkeling pow – whatever that is – fear not. I feel your pain. Your concerns are my concerns. This probably isn’t a good time to mention I’m leaving town today to ski powder in Taos, is it? Heh, heh, heh….

For you, the few who just can’t let go of the dream, I’ve got the answer. No, it’s not swapping in your tickets and hotel and squandering your money on a quickie heliskiing trip, tempting though that may be. It’s the Skiers and Boarders Twelve-Step Program.

The first step is simple. You have to admit you are powerless over the intoxicating allure of skiing and boarding. That should be simple. You’re here! If your jones for skiing didn’t have complete control over your pathetic lives, you’d be down on some beach in Florida or Mexico poisoning yourselves on tequila and unfiltered ultraviolet rays. But you’re not. You’re here, fat skis and powder boards in tow, staring up at the mountains like a junkie searching an empty street corner for a dealer. Admit it; you’re hooked.

That was the easy step. It gets harder from here on out. Step Two: You’ve got to believe a Power greater than yourself can restore you to sanity. Sanity, eh? I don’t want to quibble with something as successful as the 12-Step method, but if I were insane, wouldn’t that call into question any belief I might manage to conjure about a greater Power? Am I being too analytical about this?

Okay, greater Power. Just accept it. The only greater Powers I know around this town all work for Ski School. Many of them have god complexes and come to think of it, many of them believe they can teach anybody to ski/board any conditions. I’m pretty sure linking up with a twink isn’t going to cure you of your addiction. But what can it hurt? You might even get good enough to ski whatever it is that’s on the hills right now.

Step Three: Turn our lives over to the care of God as we understand Him. Whistler, in case you don’t know, is a town where, until just a few years ago, there weren’t any churches. Hard to believe, isn’t it? Even now, many religious services are held in mixed-use buildings where, for example, you might catch the Short-Skirt Revue on Saturday night and pray for salvation Sunday morning.

Fact is, the only constant God, as we understand him, who has stood the test of time in this town is Ullr, Norse god of snow. Sacrifices are made late each fall to Ullr. But like all gods, Ullr has a sense of humour and this year, he must be laughing his ass off over what he’s done to us. But whatever, Ullr it is.

Step Four: Make a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. As if! I’m afraid that would require both a considerable attention span, a moral compass and a suspension of inflated self-esteem, all of which would be flying in the face of the Organizing Pedagogical Truths around which public education has been built for the past couple of generations. Dream on.

Step Five: Admit to Ullr, ourselves and another person the exact nature of our wrongs. Simple. I came expecting to ski powder. There ain’t any. I’ll settle for groomers. Not many of those either. Not something I can be blamed for.

Six: Be entirely ready for Ullr to remove all those defects of character. Okay, let’s cut a deal here. It’ll be a whole lot easier for Ullr to just MAKE IT SNOW!!!!! than it will be for him to cure all my character defects. If that sounds like a good deal to you, Ullr, you don’t need to say anything… just get on with it, dude.

Step Seven: Humbly ask Ullr to remove our shortcomings. Hmmm… isn’t that what the Ski School guy’s for? See step six, Ullr. You do your job; I’ll do mine.

Eight: Make a list of all persons we’ve harmed and become willing to make amends with them. C’mon. This is only a one-week vacation. How about if I just say "Sorry" to the loser I ran into on the hill?

Nine: Make direct amends to those people. Obviously I can’t do that until the list is complete. I think we’re splitting hairs here.

Ten: Continue personal inventory and admit when I’m wrong. Well, now that I think about it, maybe I shouldn’t have dismissed the idea of going to Mammoth so quickly.

Eleven: Pray and meditate and improve my conscious contact with Ullr, know His will and carry that out. Hell, that’s why I came skiing in the first place. Ullr’s the one who hasn’t kept his part of the bargain.

And Twelve: Having had a spiritual awakening as a result of these steps, we carry this message to other ski junkies and practice these principles in all our affairs. Affairs, aschmairs; we’re just here to ski and get laid. Maybe a human sacrifice would work.