Short Stories

It was a sunny afternoon in Trysil skiresort, Norway. The last snowfall was 4 days ago but lots of snow had blowed from the northern face to my favourite offpist spot. I had skiied the place earlier in the week and jumping down a pretty small "snowhang"(dont know the word in english) this time I was skiing alone. It was the final ride of the day. I steered my skis through the stones in the beginnig of the trail. The sun shined right into my eyes, I didn't se very well. The snow was good. I skiied fast and tried to do big cutting turns. As I came closer to the hang I slowed down a bit. With the sun in my eyes I wanted to take it a little easier, make shure I don't landed on a rock. I skiied slowly forward to the edge, looked down on the landing, decided a landing spot and started to walk uppside the trail again. I took a little less speed than usual heading for the hang. Half a meter from the edge I hear a loudly sound: Knaaaaak! The snow around me splits into pieces and slides down the mountain. I am so scared I dont know how to explain it. It is only steep in 30 meters and then it gets flater and flater. In the beginnig I can feel the snow under my knees but soon it slowes down and I accelerates faster than the snow. I am so scared I don't know what to do. I just stands there looking at the avalanche cookies. The avalanche was very short but pretty wide. Avalanche cookies lies in a 50 meter wide line. When I calmes down I'm pretty shure that someone in the resortstaff has heared the noise and that they are on their way. But no one comes and after a while I skis home. Afterwards I know that I should tell an employee what happened. I also know that I will be more carefully skiing offpist in the future.

It was my last day at loon in the 2000-01 season. Eight thirty was when I strapped on my boots and got into the gondola to the top. My Dad and I were going to do a warm up run down Flying Fox and then head over to the North Peak. When we finally got up to the top I put on my skies and started down. I went through the glades to come out where Crosscut was. We turned the other way and headed toward Rolling Bear the way to get to the North Peak. We raced down Flying Fox and I felt so free I wasnt paying attention to anything...I nailed a slow sign. My mind blanked out and I was laying in the snow face first. A few minutes passed and I started to get up. I looked back at the sign. Wood was everywere and the meatle posts were bent and twisted. Then I relized I was in pain. My sholder and knees took the hardest hits (besides the sign)and were bleeding. My left foot was also in pain and I relized I could bearly move it. Finally I ignored the pain and skied off to the North Peak Triple. I no it could have been worse especailly at the speed I was going but I made it through the day to have a great last ski trip.

About two years ago, I moved to a small town on the ocean in Massachusetts. Now everybody in my town is a pretty good skier, or at least they have skiied once or twice. I had moved from ohio,(ski country USA) so everybody wasnt expecting much from me on the slopes. Once our school ski trip rolled around there preceptions changed. I started hearing things like, "How the hell did the kid from Ohio learn to ski like that." I guess my mad skills blew them away....Anyway, when we moved to Mass, one of the first things we did was go up to New Hampshire and look for ski houses. We found a great one, right on a lake, and about 20 min. away from 3 local ski areas. One of these, Attitash Bear Peak. I got on the freestyle ski team there as soon as I could. Soon I was throwing tricks that I never thoguht possible. It was a great experience. Now my friends (especially one individual) and I are heading up to NH every weekend in the winter. Getting more and more experience as we ski with other kids at our skill level. So in the end, allthough to move was tough, it was well worth it, for one reason...the skiing.

Sking to me is a way of life, its not something I just go out and do a few times a year. This is serious stuff to me, I go about 10-12 times a year and thats not that many. I do as much as I can in that amount of time. Its a good chance to get to get out in the mountains and realize how lucky we are to have these things. I am not the best skier out there. I just got some new teneightys for a unbelievable price and coming from snoblades I recently got some "heat." Now I realize that it is easier to snoblade then ski and easier to do tricks. I went with my friend in NH and he his on a ski team which I could have been as well, and I was landing decent 5's and some ok grabs and cuz I was on snoblades it was like I lost respect as it was easy to do that stuff. I wont even go into percentages but how many people in this world ski? And out of them how many are good? Then out of them how many will go of jumps? What im trying to say here is give people respect for no matter what they do. I mean we all just wanna have some fun in the park and get the damn boarders out as well. But this year for me is going to be different, new skis and biggers tricks to come. More powder as well, but either way our level of skill is friggen amazing and I love it I can not wait till i get my first clean grab of a jump with my new skis, thats all I think bout in school, I love being part of anything that has to do with sking and I just love the fact that its october and there is a full year of sking for me.

The lake is glistening. The snow has fully crystalized from the snowfall early this morning. It's 3pm, and we have 1 more hour to make this beautfiful day worthwhile. A snowboarder charges down the hill at a speed which would make the batmobile jealous. We just got here. Heavenly Valley, CA. Wait, no, it's Heavenly, Nevada. Okay, so let's get the facts straight: Heavenly Valley is in both California AND Nevada? That's right. As wierd as it may sound, Heavenly Valley in South Lake Tahoe spans both California, and Nevada. In 1987, snowboarders were finally allowed on the slopes. They were allowed on the Nevada side ONLY. If a snowboarder was caught shredding Waterfall, or the Face, or Gunbarrel, hell was the only thing to pay. Cali. Skiers were happy. Snowboarders were not. They had to charge up Kingsbury Trail, a windy, slippery, headache of a road to get to the trialhead. Snowboarding lasted, and came out screaming after the first snowboarding movie was released on the South Shore. It started out innocently enough, but soon gave birth to a wild, and wreckless phenomenon. Skateboarders, and surfers soon found themselves adapting to the cold climate, and the snow. They were ripping lines down like they had been raised on snow and snow alone. Maybe that's because they had. Most of these early snow-creatures were raised on a pair of skis. They learned the basics at a young age, and were already comfortable on the snow. It was an easy transition from four edges to only two. The only problem was having to lace up the bindings at the end of each and every chairlift ride up the moutain. I guess it was a small price to pay for such an entertaining ride down the mountain. The questions soon came. First it was, "What the heck is that?" Then it was, "Where can I get one of those?" The fact is, more skiers tried snowboarding the first year, than any other year in snow sports history. Hard to believe considering the amount of snowboarders frequenting the resorts these days. Skiers love to snowboard, some just never have. Especially skiers who love big air. Skiing is rad, don't get me wrong. I'm not a skier hater. In fact I hated snowboarders back in '87 when the infiltration started occuring. Just give it a try. Rent a plank, and just let your creative juices flow. Just one warning though: you may never go back to skiing again.

TSunzeri

Definition
Grom: 1. adj. A young, aggressive, athletic male.
Groms can be seen at most ski resorts in the country,
hucking themselves
off jumps with skis attached to their feet. Most groms
live in wooded areas, and drink hot cocoa with
marshmallows
to stay warm. 2. syn. grommy grom, gremmy, gremlin
out of control, grease monkey, grommy gromulinski,
tom the grom
3. gromette (female grom).

Imagine it, you're riding up the chairlift on a sunny
afternoon at local resorttown, USA, and a tiny person
with turned up ski tips flies off a kicker and throws a
huge backflip, he twists, and lands backward. He
calmly glides down the slope fakie and rides atop what
looks like a vandalized hand-rail with grace and ease,
as if he was doin it for years. Then he stops, and
peeps out instructions to his friends at the top. You
instantly realize (thanks to his high pitch adolescnet
voice) that the only thing he's been doing for years is
taking the bus to school, and playing little league in
the summer. Groms are spearheading the new
revolution of the freeskiing sport. They go big, and
crash big. At any local resort, you can see at least one
skiing phenomenon known as "the grom" with a
sparkling new helmet, and hot-waxed twin-tips skis
ripping up a half-pipe, bump run, or table-top. If you
see a grom on the hill, please understand whence they
came from, and where they should be going. I love this
website because it is the voice of a new generation of
skiiers who need to be heard. It's really rad to see
skiing get popular again. Thanks Jonny Moseley, you
mogul rippin', misty flippin' stud. Thanks Shane
McConkey, you Valdez chargin', cliff huckin, FIS suckin,
guru/ambassador. The athleticism of most ski racers
translates well to a good solid foundation for future
groms and gromettes. Do research. Like, did you know
skiing was invented in B.C. 4000 in Zimbabwe (okay I
made that up, just another reason to look it up in an
encyclopedia). Get involved. Ask if your High School or
college (or middle school) has a freestyle team, if not,
invent one. Ask your local church if they are planning
any ski trips, and go with them to Whistler, or Squaw
Valley. Read, read, and read somemore about the
subject (thousands of websites to the sport can be
found on the web). Go at it, have fun, and don't forget
to stretch. The truth is out there, and will set you free.

Last Days At Loon


Today Pat Melvin and myself went to loon Mtn. New Hampshire. loon has a reputaion with good parks and pipes so we knew what to expect. It was a great day blue skies sixty degrees but no camera. Mine was broken and pat couldn't bring his. As it turns out there is no park but thre is a pipe. The pipe had no vert at all making it almost impossible to launch out. We didnt go home and cry like snowboarders we said hey lets do this. We built a nice booter on the backside of the pipe so you could clear the deck and land back in the "tranny". The left side wall was three times higher and longer than the right. The right side also didnt have any wall to it was just snow that was piled up. We decided to drop in on the right and hit left. There were to spots that were actually going to be nice with a little work. Sweating in the hot sun we worked on the pipe walls. We ended up with a nice transition that would launch you out and another wall on the left side that was perfect for setting alley-oop spins. Our run now was like this: Hit the booter and drop in the pipe get to the top of the right wall and then drop into our first good wall land and then get out. and stop on top of the deck. Drop in again and hit our spinning wall. We hiked for a while and met a guy with tenghties who was 32 years of age and we taugh him to spin in the pipe. It was so classic. No camera no boarders no ski school just your freinds the sun and a "homade" pipe. As the right wall started to soften up we built two more hits on that side so you could have a nice pipe session with 4 hits and a booter to start you off. Pat was spinning fives out and i was launching mutes. We threw alleyoop mutes and alley tails launched stalled japans and did a few nut grabs for some laughs. It was great time. like i siad classic, no camera no boarders no ski school just your freinds the sun and a "homade" pipe.

B-Lon and Pat

Today Pat Melvin and myself went to loon Mtn. New Hampshire. loon has a reputaion with good parks and pipes so we knew what to expect. It was a great day blue skies sixty degrees but no camera. Mine was broken and pat couldn't bring his. As it turns out there is no park but thre is a pipe. The pipe had no vert at all making it almost impossible to launch out. We didnt go home and cry like snowboarders we said hey lets do this. We built a nice booter on the backside of the pipe so you could clear the deck and land back in the "tranny". The left side wall was three times higher and longer than the right. The right side also didnt have any wall to it was just snow that was piled up. We decided to drop in on the right and hit left. There were to spots that were actually going to be nice with a little work. Sweating in the hot sun we worked on the pipe walls. We ended up with a nice transition that would launch you out and another wall on the left side that was perfect for setting alley-oop spins. Our run now was like this: Hit the booter and drop in the pipe get to the top of the right wall and then drop into our first good wall land and then get out. and stop on top of the deck. Drop in again and hit our spinning wall. We hiked for a while and met a guy with tenghties who was 32 years of age and we taugh him to spin in the pipe. It was so classic. No camera no boarders no ski school just your freinds the sun and a "homade" pipe. As the right wall started to soften up we built two more hits on that side so you could have a nice pipe session with 4 hits and a booter to start you off. Pat was spinning fives out and i was launching mutes. We threw alleyoop mutes and alley tails launched stalled japans and did a few nut grabs for some laughs. It was great time. like i siad classic, no camera no boarders no ski school just your freinds the sun and a "homade" pipe.

B-Lon and Pat