Sorry, but nothing in Aspen impresses me anymore. It’s embarrassing to admit and even harder to write. After growing up here and witnessing all of the unavoidable change slowly sweeping over the valley like the remorseless wrecking-ball minute-hand of a clock, I feel hopelessly jaded, beaten-up, numbed and dumbed down by the process of it all.
Whether it’s the insane price of a house in my old neighborhood, the exorbitant cost of a tomahawk rib-eye, the nonstop slither of commuter traffic, how many bowl laps a ski mountaineer with ultra-light equipment and a gear vest laden with goos can do in one day or how fast someone wearing a spandex unitard can run up Aspen Mountain, I am not easily wowed these days.
That creeping malaise shifted abruptly last week when something came skidding across my radar at high speed, leaving a giant plume of snow. Skier’s Chalet denizen J.F. Bruegger accomplished an intriguing feat. He skied a total of 38 laps on Lift 1A. Think about that. Bell to buzzer, only skiing mogul runs — no groomers — on 1A, in one day. I’ve written repeatedly of 1A, how it’s analogous to “Fight Club,” and that the secret to skiing the area is to stay at 1A and not get sucked into following people over to Ruthie’s lift or the gondola. J.F. put the notion of what’s really possible to the test on an old-school, slow-speed, fixed-grip lift.
But he didn’t stop there. A week later, Bruegger and his wingman, wild Willy Volckhausen, shrewdly identified the Sam’s Knob quad at Snowmass as the lift out of all four mountains with the fastest foot-per-minute climb ratio, and both completed a thigh-burning 68 laps in one day. This feat to me is even more impressive, because it sent shockwaves through the die-hard, somewhat narrow-minded, self-limiting “Ajax only” ski community, to whom the very concept of skiing Snowmass is not only unutterable, but entirely unfathomable. To get the gory details, go to his Instagram haunt @skineon.
Not surprisingly, the feat instantly spurred a copycat accomplishment; two local Aspen High School kids went up and did 40 laps on 1A days later. This affirms and reaffirms to me something I’ve always known. The spirit of skiing is alive and well in Aspen. I ran into J.F. the other day at 1A of all places — it was like skiing with a celebrity. At the bottom of the gondola I saw another local icon, Prentiss Boyd Billings, who mentioned a “ski marathon’ idea he formulated, and skied some 66 odd laps on the old center pole FIS Lift 6 in one day, many moons ago.
The recent feats J.F and Willie accomplished — everyone in town is talking about them — reminded me of an event along the same vein I did with the Marolt brothers in March 1996 called the “Black Diamond Challenge.” Keep in mind this was kind of pre-internet and no one really had cellphones. The only existent tracking device was an Avocet wrist-worn altimeter that all the cool guys had. The objective was to tackle the daunting task of skiing every single black-diamond run on Aspen Mountain in one day. Was it even possible?
The accountants called and invited me to participate in the event they had concocted, and I gladly obliged. The Friday before the affair, I nervously ascended the alley stairs to their offices above the old Sabatini ski shop, and Steve handed me an Excel print-out of the list of runs to ski, in which order, serviced by specific lifts. To the Marolts, skiing is numbers. Our day was approximately seven hours long with roughly 46,000 feet of vertical. In contrast, J.F.’s 1A exploit was roughly seven hours with 55,000 feet of vertical.
Surprisingly, we only needed the gondola four times that grueling day and predominantly rode chairlifts. I showed up toting a plastic City Market bag filled with Gatorade, beef jerky and PowerBars and hesitantly left it at the gondola building, not to see my rations again until that afternoon.
The day was brutal. I bonked, then rebonked. The three Marolt brothers took off with such blistering speed it caught me by surprise. By the end of the day, we’d lost some competitors. The only ones left were them, me, and one other person. At the bottom of corkscrew, they took off to get one final gondy lap. “Screw that!” I said and went straight home. I remember drinking glass after glass of water at the sushi bar in front of Osada at Takah Sushi that night. The next morning I was literally sick with a fever and couldn’t even ski.
When I heard of J.F.’s accomplishment the first thing I did was call Roger Marolt and have him email me the list of the Black Diamond Challenge. Some of the runs I remember — like skiing Christmas Tree, the traverse to Keith Glen, then hiking back up the top section of Ridge of Bell to get to the Shoulder ... or skiing Silver Queen then hiking up the Goat Road to get to the top of Super 8 Gulley. I could barely keep the Marolt brothers in my sights on that unusual climb. The rest I’ve conveniently blacked out. Those guys aren’t known for waiting for people.
Keep in mind this was kind of pre-internet and no one really had cellphones. Then picture this: We did this event on a busy Saturday in March. It was dangerous to ski in such a hurried fashion all day, and we didn’t make any friends doing it. A stunt like that is an excellent way to get hurt and also to receive a proper-ass chewing from ski patrol. I even had to pee off the Bell Chair at one point.
There’s been some dialogue recently within the ski community that the ski bum of old is dying or croaked in their sleep and no one even noticed until the sheriff did a wellness check. Hogwash, I say! Don’t insult us. The ski bum has adapted, morphed, shape-shifted, evolved into a higher-functioning beast out of necessity, in order to survive an ever-changing landscape of skyrocketing rents and super-gentrification.
Ski bums are still out there. You just have to look more closely. What you’ll find is that the spirit of skiing is alive and kicking doors down in Aspen.
Contact Lorenzo at
suityourself@sopris.net or via instagram.com/lorenzosemple3/
