12/26/09

Day 10

Conditions: Packed powder, groomed snow, rocks

Location: Canyons, UT

After spending two days sitting in the car, we woke up this morning ready to get moving. We met Craig and Breanne at The Canyons for a day at the locals’ playground. We let them show us the mountain, which included some nice tree skiing off Peak 5 and a ton of great bumps. The snow was nice, but they definitely need more. We were hitting rocks everywhere, some of the worst trails being groomed ones near the bottom of the hill.

We took a few exploratory runs into areas that Dirk thought looked tasty. This led to stumps, rocks, tight trees, and crusty patches. But at least we were trying to find some new snow.

Highlight:

The best run of the day was in an area that was roped off in the morning for avalanche risk and then opened on our last run. It was rocky, but full of fluffy fresh snow. The only own side was the altercation (see Lowlights).

Lowlights:

No day is complete without some comment by some idiot. Today, it happened on our powder run. Four skiers were blocking the only path to the run and waiting around for no apparent reason.

Dirk rode by and joked “Why is everyone standing here…is someone hurt?”

Promptly, an overweight, middle-aged man barked back, “I’ll stand here if I want to stand here…got a problem with that?” It was aggressive, but we laughed and started down the hill. It was such a weird experience that I almost took out Breanne in an attempt to get away from the guy.

We stopped half way down the run and the four-pack caught up to us and skied by. (I noticed that the guy in question really sucked at skiing.) At that point, Breanne related the incident to Craig. Having been plagued by jerks lately, Craig was immediately moved to defend the honor of his snowboarding friend, Dirk. He yelled, “Where is that fucker?” and took off down the run.

The “fucker” was only about 20 yards away, and had heard Breanne’s description of the story and Craig’s battle cry. He was preparing for a confrontation.

Below is a summary of things I’m pretty sure were said during this incident. I do not remember all of them, but I did my best.

Craig: What the heck? Why do you have to harass people?

Fucker: I’m skiing with four people! I can do what I want.

(Lots of dialogue…things getting heated. Dirk enters and exits the scene.)

Craig: I’m just saying,  you don’t need to make a comment about someone.

(Breanne skis over)

Breanne: Let’s just calm down.

Fucker: Tell him to calm down. He’s the one who skied over here. (To Craig) You want to fight?

Breanne: Okay, let’s just stop.

Craig: I don’t want to fight you.

Fucker: I want to fight you. Get down here. I’ll shove this ski pole up your ass.

Craig: I’m not going to fight you.

Fucker: Fuck you, get down here.

Craig: Fuck you!

Breanne: Fuck you!

Fucker: I’m not trying to fight with you, just stop!

Breanne: You are starting a fight. You just told my husband you were going to shove a ski pole up his ass!

(More arguing…guy skis away)

Breanne: ASSHOLE!

The guy attempted to ski down the hill while we waited with heads shaking. Craig and I discussed The Constant But Not Inclusive Asshole Dilemma: There are assholes in every aspect of life, representing every race, religion, gender, hobby, etc. However, not all people in any category are assholes – and assuming anyone from a group is an asshole solely based on the fact that they are in a particular group is wrong.

As we continued down the run, a funny thing happened. The guy had wiped out, lost a ski, and was frantically searching for it in a huge mound of powder. Many people would have taken this opportunity to heckle him, spray snow on him or just run right into him. Did we? No. We calmly rode by, having a great run. See, karma brought him down…and if we participated further we would have fallen because karma would have turned on us.

Après Ski:

We went grocery shopping and spent the night relaxing. USC beat Boston college. Boo. 

Days to go: 40