be a ski bum

Best decision I’ve ever made. Came for the season and haven’t left yet. It’s August. Can’t wait for next season. Wanted to move to the mountains and ski for as long as I can remember and I did it and I’d recommend it to anybody who’s really passionate about skiing or snowboarding.

Well I’m finally doing it, in three weeks I leave for four months of skiing in Colorado. I first decided to do this 20 years ago. Hopefully at 37 I won’t be the oldest skibum around.

so, this seems like a strange ‘goal’ to me since it is kind of contradictory…however, the plan is to live out west, in denver maybe or northern california or maybe wyoming just for a season or two…and hopefully while i still have my corps health insurance…haha, i just like that i contradict myself by planning these things, i’m never going to grow up..

A travel writer friend of mine claims that the fun you have when traveling is inversely proportional to what you spend. It is true, money insulates you from the experience.

Although I never did it full time, I used to take high school vactions and be a ski bum at Mammoth Mountain in Calfornia. I would usually build an igloo about 500’ from warming hut #2 where I would spend the nights. I would sneak into the hot tub at the condo next door for a morning warm up, make some breakfast and cross country ski for a few hours up at Mammoth lakes.

After noon, all the people who had to get back to LA would leave with their still valid lift tickets. I would ask if I could clip their tickets as they were leaving. It is possible to loosen lift ticket glue by using ether-based cold-start fluid. After seperating the ticket, the ether quickly evaporates, you insert a new wire bail and you are in business.

In the evening, it was back to the hot tub. I would keep all my valuables in a locker in the warming hut. I would guess that it cost me about $15/week in grocery store food and I would meet som fun people while doing it. At the time, the chicks were uninterested in guys that didn’t look like they were dripping money. Maybe now that has changed with the grunge aesthetic around snowboarding.