Idiots

Idiots Sacrifice

Chapter 1

After the last low was pushed through, by a fast moving freight train of a high, the temperature dropped fifteen degrees and the wind blew out of the northwest with ice in its’ teeth. In Sacramento skiers following the weather forecasts were making plans for the next weekend and the ski areas of the Sierra Mountains were readying themselves for the weekend onslaught. On this day all of us around Lake Tahoe and along the Truckee River, all of us that lived along interstate eighty. Even those who lived west of Donner Summit climbed out of their warm beds and stared out of the frosted windows at a glorious morning of ice and snow. Outside, the freezing air attached itself to us and invaded our nostrils, eyes and ears. It numbed our feet and hands while it turned our breath into a vapor that flew off with the wind. The cold had been evaporating the moisture in the top layer of snow and by dawn it was light and fluffy, the kind of snow that, when groomed, squeaked under the skis. The local nucleus of skiers collected their gear and then converged on the numerous ski areas in and out of the basin. We were an ego rich group of hard- core skiers jumping further and higher, skiing steeper and faster. We lived anyway we could, some of us never knew where we would be sleeping but we knew where we would be skiing. The mid-week passes were our badges and symbolized our commitment to the sport. We were bums. Ski bums. For some it wasn’t a sport, it was a way of living. It was their life and they lived for days like this. The small mass of skiers were starving as they converged, hungry beyond words for light, cold powder. The sky was crystal clear and a brilliant blue that was a little darker than usual. The wind was a strong consistency that flapped the trailing ends of pack straps around our chests like small pennants. We wore tightly woven stocking caps that did little to protect our ears, and around our foreheads, like miners lanterns, we had fixed our goggles. Glove liners and gloves could not protect our hands and our feet froze in their tight, plastic ski boots. There was only one way to stay warm, constant motion; pole plants unweighting, carving, skating, bouncing down steep unpacked faces. Bounding and leaping off of projections covered in snow like logs, stumps, boulders and cornices helped pump the blood through our freezing bodies. On this cold winter day in January three friends met at their ski area of choice, Alpine Meadows. They skied south along the summit ridge, the highest point at Alpine, until they were above Round House. The bull wheel for Roundhouse was housed in a barn-like structure that rose eighty feet to the flat roof. The face of the ski run fell away from the eighty feet like a cliff. Above it, looking over the cornices, the four of them stood in silence, suffering the freezing wind and lost in their own thoughts as they gazed on the winding Alpine Meadows road as it worked its’ tortuous way to Highway eighty-nine and the Truckee River. While there, on the ridge, it was suggested that we should race down to the roof of Roundhouse, ski out the flat top of the roof and jump off. “I’ll do it,” said Mike, “but I won’t be first.”

Bruce said,”I’ll do it, but I’m always first.” Frank, who had suggested it said, “I’ll do it if someone else goes first.” was looking right at Allen while the others knowingly grinned the wicked expression of a set up. Feeling heady and confident, Allen thought about leaving the roof, out over the chairs, the surprise on the occupants’ faces, and how cool it would be to do a back scratcher. “OK.” he said as nonchalant as he could and hopped off the fifteen foot cornice into the unpacked, cold, fluffy snow feeling like the coolest skier in the world. The snow climbed to Allens’ waist and billowed out behind him as he left a series of esses in the deep powder. After every pole plant and turn his knees punched through the surface of the snow while he down unweighted, using a French technique invented for slalom racers in the late sixties. Soon he saw that the speed of the descent was not enough so he tucked into a cannon ball and barreled straight down the steep face as fast as the unpacked conditions would allow him. He still couldn’t get the speed he wanted and when he transitioned from the face to the flat of the roof the snow exploded and slowed him enough that he barely reach the edge. Allen stepped forward until his ski tips’ hung over, leaned out and looked down to the face of the hill as it fell away, steeply to the lodge which was a match-box, then outward, looking east to the Truckee River, over the top of the ridge line to a distant hazy mountain ridge in Nevada. Below, sheaves squeaked and chairs rattled while muffled voices floated up from skiers preparing to leave their chairs. All went unnoticed as, paralyzed with vertigo, Allen struggled to back up. A tail of his ski buried itself and he fell backward gratefully into the soft snow. Struggling, he pulled his skis into his body and bracing himself with the poles, wrestled his way onto his feet. He stood staring at his tracks where they disappeared off the edge and was very thankful that he had not been able to make the jump. Allen heard, distantly, a shouting and looked up to see Frank yelling down to him. He wanted to know if it was clear of obstacles. He meant to jump. Allen shook his head trying to tell him through ESP that he would die if he jumped. He still wanted to know if it was clear, so Ed waved him on and Frank, with a whoop, jumped from the cornice into Edward tracks and tucked into a bullet. “He doesn’t know”. Allen whispered out loud. “He doesn’t know how far it is to the snow.” The beautiful pristine day was turning into a terrible experience and Allen felt an icy grip tighten on his heart as he backed away from his tracks on top of Round House. Frank sped down Allen freshly packed tracks picking up speed far faster than Allen thought possible. Half way down, Allen knew that Frank was committed. There was no doubt that he would clear the roof and cables. He hit the transition without reducing speed and still in Allen’s tracks flew by Allen and left the roof of the shed. He soared out into the vivid blue atmosphere and threw his poles. Then his stocking cap mutinied with the goggles and left his flying head. The goggles, then, mutinied again and abandoned the stocking cap so that within seconds Frank had a trail of debris following his trajectory like a comet’s tail. He must have finally drawn some air into his lungs because, with his arms spread like the bones of a wing and his jacket flapping in the wind of the flight, he emitted a defiant, blood-curdling scream.

I felt an immense sympathy but was hugely glad it wasn’t me out there expierencing that , particular, huge slice of life. After a second and half that seemed minutes, Frank had diminished to a stick figure with his scream distantly removed from reality. I watched as he eventually came to grips with the snow pack, exploding into a mist of powder snow. His skis sailed out of the cloud, twisting and tumbling as they sought their own trajectory and every now and then I got a glimpse of his red jacket until he finally slid head down at the end of a plowed powdered trench. Behind and uphill his equipment spread pointing a desolate completion along side his man made trench. He picked up his head from the snow as a powdery film blew away into the wind and looked up past his scattered equipment, some of it still sliding down the steep run.

I looked behind me to the corniced summit. Our friends had disappeared and I laughed out loud. I doubt if they had ever intended to make the jump. But where could they have gone I wondered as I skied back off the roof and down to Frank. On the way down I picked up his scattered equipment as skiers raced down around us.

“You could have told me.” He accused, straightening a ski pole.

“You were magnificent.” I lied.

“I screamed.” He said.

“Whd wouldn’t have.” I countered.

He laughed a weak laugh. “Where are the others?”

“They ran away.” We both laughed spontainuosly and then harder. Soon we were cackling and then we were roaring collapsing to the snow as skiers avoided us.