Quote Originally Posted by SkiOrDie View Post
It wasn't at a ski hill, but I just parked and left my car after a very similar encounter. Feeling a little odd, I asked my three friends to join me in returning to the car and "having a look". The guys we'd left behind were just about to "mess with" my car, when my friend Bob walked up behind them and scared the living shit out of 'em. Bob is gigantic - 6'7" and 320lbs and NO FAT.

Well, Bob just says to them something like: "I don't think you want to do that. You mess with my friend's car, I mess with you!"

They split and after hanging around for a few minutes we left too. Bob left the restaurant we were eating at after about 20 minutes to "check on things" and when he got back he had a big grin on his face. He'd taken my car keys with him. It seems that he found two of the guys getting ready to do something, he never told me what, to my car, and he made them take all the valve stems out of their tires on their car. Then, he drove away in my car and parked in a long way away, leaving them to figure out how to re-fill their tires. I loved it that he made them take the valve stems out and give them to him.

Anyway, folks can really fuck up your car/truck, especially when you're gone all day skiing. It's probably not worth the trouble unless you've got a "Bob" who'll "check on things" for you.
Bob reminds me of my friend Karl. I was cross country skiing with him back in Michigan, back in the day. Some snowmobilers spot us and turn to come after us to beat us up--that's what they liked to do to us treehugging hippies back then. Except the closer they get the slower they go, until they finally turn around and leave in a hurry. Carl was 6'6 280 or so. High school teacher who cut down dying elms on the weekends swinging around up in trees with a saw with a 6 foot bar. Before that he was Marine underwater demolition (the same as Seals) and a turnkey at the Camp Lejune brig. I've always been sad those guys turned around--would have been a sight. Karl got chopped in Tuckerman's right after that-fell over a cliff in a white out climbing down.