How ski runs get named

The early 70s followed the late 60s. I was working in the Bierstube and skiing the often foggy Big Mountain. Some may say that those coincidences make these recollections suspect.

Old Chair 1 ended where Chair 5 now ends. Where the Summit House stands, a prominence marked the north end of the ridge that separates Hellroaring Basin (West Bowl) and Haskill Basin (North Bowl). East and west of the ridge, the North and West Bowls were out of bounds.

Some savvy skiers could duck a string line and dip into either bowl and, staying aware of their elevation, contour back through woods “thicker than dog hair” to the ski areas boundary and south-facing runs.

The most adventurous of these forays went through the faults to awesome Haskill Slide, truly a signature skiing experience; a steep, seldom-skied powder run.

Critical to such outings was to never drop too low and to be willing to side-step and herringbone back up to an elevation that would lead back to “a jeep trail.” That trail ran above today’s Expressway and would contour you west around the area fringes back to ski area boundaries.

However, lost skiers in the West Bowl could flounder down first to the Beaver Ponds and then, following what they could of the creek, eventually end up a sorry, wet, tired bundle of mountain experience praying to see headlights on the seldom-driven East Lakeshore Drive.

If lost in North Bowl, down below the elevation of the Chalet (Hellroaring Saloon), one’s luck was no better.  A maze of skid roads would tucker you to a frazzle and well into the evening deliver you maybe to the Blue Moon Bar. There were precious few buildings or busy roads down either of those two drainages off Big Mountain. South was good, east and west were not so good.

Now, having established that adventuring out of the confines of the ski area into either of the two flanking drainages could be fraught with misery, only a fool would ski north 180 degrees away from anything that made sense, i.e. south was good, east and west were not so good, and going north was just plain nuts.

In 1984, Winter Sports Inc. and Caterpillar re-arranged that northern prominence and the ridge itself. The prominence disappeared; the fill slope appeared along with a flat spot to build a Summit House. The ridge linked the ski areas expansion to the north.

Today Chair 7 unloads skiers and the ski area’s north side runs begin there. But not so in the early 1970s. A six-pack of fools would leave old Chair 1, negotiate north along a nasty, wind-blown ridge to its end and, catching the ski patrol unaware, on 215 cm wood Madshus or Bonna skis, they slid off into a no-man’s land north of Big Mountain seeking the promised land.

The Telemark turn in an alpine setting had not been done in over a generation and mostly forgotten. Plastic and fiberglass boots and skis had only recently been introduced to alpine skiing. Just what were these characters doing dropping off the north side of Big Mountain on skinny wood skis with three-pin bindings attaching a light leather boot to the ski with a flimsy bale?

We were playing tennis with pingpong paddles; our yo-yos had no strings; crashes escaped being horrific only because the snow was so deep. Wearing wool knickers and pursuing a lust for powder skiing, we imagined back to life the Telemark turn.

Pictures seen in old ski books merged with fertile, foggy, early 70s minds and, shazaam, those darn skis indeed turned. At times, no one was more surprised than ourselves with this success. Wondering what the long skinny wooden skis were doing under the snow, gravity and inertia often conspired with the free heel attachment of the boot to drive heads briskly into the snow for a peek.

Covered in snow, Bob Conat smiled, “I even styled myself that time.” First, two or three turns were linked before a crash. Then, four or six more turns were linked before another crash punctuated the effort. Crashes decreased. A slope was skied. Skis broke and bindings sprang apart. Extra bindings (light and flimsy) and spare tips that slid over the broken skis were in the rucksack to insure save passage home.

We were having the time of their lives. We explored the cold north slopes. We reached back into time and somehow breathed life into one of skiings’ most eloquent turns. With snow-caked wool clothes and goofy smiles we roamed. They had no climbing skins. Our grip for climbing came from “kick waxes” on double-cambered, hickory-laminated skis. We roamed vast powder fields with the “incredible lightness of being.” We wondered and we roamed and we roamed and we wondered.

In that foggy world, landmarks were needed. North was great skiing, but south was home. A pond exists in the woods east of Whitetail and north of Easy Street. We made up a word and called it Loady Pond. The peak above it became Loady’ Peak. Further east on a blue bird minus-14 day, a slope was skied and christened Window Pane.

Many of that six-pack of fools were ex-Big Mountain Ski Patrol men. Gene Evans had even been the Ski Patrol chief. He was more of a mountaineer than the rest of us skiers. Bold, canny, rebellious and raucous, he maybe wasn’t what Big Mountain was looking for when they put him in charge. But he could ski.

From Franconia Notch, N.H., born on blue-ice slopes, he traveled west and found Big Mountain, fog and powder. As patrol chief, he explored and skied many slopes that the ski area today encompasses. With his two Norwegian elk hounds, Torga and Hikik, named for the Norse Gods of rotten fish, he skied the west bowl and what is today called Picture Chutes.

I skied Banana Chutes with him before it had a name. We both skied Half Moon Slide before its name was hi-jacked to Pickled Egg. Through the fog, we often circled our own tracks. We conferenced and confabbed, confused and confounded, we searched for Loady Pond. From there we could gathered our wits and get our bearings to look for slopes heading south.

Through a near saddle, Gene reconnoitered a route. It offered a steep, scary, convoluted run toward home. We called it Evans’ Heaven.

Today, Whitefish Mountain Resort surrounds most of these areas. That’s not a bad thing. Back in the early 1970s, it seemed we were always trying to get back to Heaven before the fog closed the door.

Pat Muri lives in Whitefish.