Lo-Fidelity: Skiing — The waiting is the hardest part

A neighbor recently asked me, “Hey, man, you psyched for ski season?” My blunt reply, abruptly before they’d finished the question, “Nope. Not even close.” The look on his face broadcast a regret he’d shown interest. Later that day, an acquaintance said, “You look good, fit … “

“It’s an illusion.” I replied. “You should see me underneath a fluorescent light.”

Mentally, I always circle the drain this transitional time of year. In town, I heard the unmistakable snakelike hiss of snowmaking guns and trained my gaze upon Ajax like that of a scorned lover. My breathing became shallow. I forgot where I was parked. I thought I was about to have a panic attack. 

Truth is, the older I get, the colder and more fragile I become. These days, I’m looking Colorado but feeling more Siberia. My ski dreams have been replaced by ski nightmares. The remorseless days of winter have taken their toll on my mind, body, and spirit. I’m now officially paying the piper an obscure, cruel type of currency for years upon years of high alpine captivity, ski-abuse, and all the related by-products. My body feels like a Lego character haphazardly assembled from broken pieces scrounged in the alley behind the Thrift Shop.

Let’s face it: Skiing is a huge nuisance, and Aspen is a known stress factory. My mental state of pre-season anxiety is layer-bundled in the ski fashion drama of my winter business: renting Obermeyer, Boulder Gear, and Helly Hansen ski outfits for the last 30 years or so. I’ve been doing it so long I’ve honestly lost count. There’s a part of me that’s beyond the point of caring anymore, but I know deep-down, I’m good at what I do. 

To be able to make a living in the ski industry in arguably the best ski town in America is a really big deal to me. I live to shatter negative stereotypes of Aspen while bringing joy to my wide-eyed customers. At the end of the day, the intangible — not the money — keeps me going. 

You wanna know why so many people come here to ski, have their minds blown, and keep coming back? Because it’s more than just the mountains. It’s the people here. Those of us ensconced in the local ski industry are the pros. From the grizzled veterans to the wide-eyed and bushy-tailed eager new hires, we make the charade of living here in a cryogenic pressure cooker look borderline relaxing. There’s not an unfathomably ridiculous situation we haven’t seen or can’t handle. The proof’s in the lines we still ski and the lines on our faces. 

Sometimes, a curious tourist will ask me about the ” … cost of living in Aspen?” It’s two-fold, I tell them. There’s the obvious monetary cost of housing, food, gas, grass, and a ski pass — no one skis for free  — then the tacit price you pay living in Aspen, a veritable dirty laundry list of expensive pitfalls and single-socks with nary a pairing in sight. 

Here are the real costs of living here, in no particular order, including but no means limited to: sagging body parts; knee or shoulder surgery; joint replacement; opioid addiction; falling in love with your physical therapist; always skiing injured; frostbite scars on your face (aka the “bowl-star” on the right cheek of many a Highland Bowl’s “rats”); skin cancer; liver spots; blackened toenails; damaged feet; permanent limp; broken thumbs; goggles or sunglasses smashed over your face; road and dirt-rash; unhealthy relationships with brown liquor, beer, and drugs; seeing a psychologist, marriage, or couples counselor, then a hopefully amicable divorce. Put that in your “cost of living in Aspen” calculator, and smoke it. 

You’ll know you’ve hit rock bottom when you’ve done something you can’t pay your way out-of: crashing underneath the hallowed 1A chairlift on the high-stakes 1A Liftline run while the chair is loaded with all of your friends. Entire reputations, carefully curated over generations, have been wiped-out with a single crash. Crossed tips sink ships. 

The inevitable demise of a skier starts innocently enough with your introductory ACL surgery. Your knee’s not a virgin anymore. First it’s one leg, then the other. Next thing you know, you can’t tell the difference between your “good” and “bad” leg. Finally, one day you wake to the harsh realization: You have two bad legs. 

You know what I am stoked to see? The new two-person T-Bar on the Cirque, thereby doubling the crash capacity of the previous platter-pull. The loading zone perched right at timberline is like an episode of “Candid Camera.” Can you imagine being an enthusiastic, first-year lift operator stationed at the bottom of the new T-bar, watching people fall, then ungracefully perform the “drag-and-drop” all day long?

I’ll tell you what got me amped to ski the other day: seeing a young grade-school kid awkwardly carrying his new skis through Wagner Park on a Sunday afternoon like he was the coolest dude on earth. For a split second, I longed for that old, familiar sensation of flying down the mountain, free as a bird, the sun on my face, and wind in my arms again.

Maybe I’ll go get my ski pass today. That might help.

Contact Lorenzo via email at suityourself@sopris.net.