towns for years, worked on the ski patrol as well as ranch and land sales for 40 years, and pioneered the cutting of the tram line at Jackson Hole Wyoming, in the early 60s. Young people, couples and family constantly ask me to tell them the stories of what it was really like, living in these ski towns. The romantic notions of people all over the nation, what it must be like to actually live in Aspen or Telluride, overwhelm the imagination, and the endless tales and narratives make Mark Twain roll over in his grave and howl with laughter. I will be wandering through these myths, searching for reality, and revealing the survival skills necessary to live in these towns, duking it out with nature or living in harmony with nature. One of the myths of ski towns, discussed constantly, is the myth of powder skiing, like it was the final goal of a skier to reach Nirvana. They did not experience the life of an actual ski patrolman who left the patrol shack with a pack full of dynamite, in a 3 day blizzard that dropped 4 feet of snow, winds howled at 70 to 80 miles per hour, staggered up to a ridge to blow up a bowl for safety, his stocking cap blew up into a swirl of snow, hundreds of feet, his goggles fogged up, then froze, his feet were frozen, he couldn’t get the frozen pack open to use the dynamite, he skied down, went off a cliff and landed in the top of a dead tree, with luck the tree lowered him to the ground slowly, lost his glasses to be retrieved the next summer. How romantic is that? Two days after the storm, on a blue sky, sunny day, the powder can be magical, rhythmically floating through a cloud of champagne powder. Are there any women in ski towns? Stay tuned.
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