Kendall Card 2.0

The title of this post may throw some of you off, but for those that know me you’ll know that I’m a part of an online ski community known as the “Maggots”. It’s a long story which I’ll save for another post but I was reading the other day an essay I wrote over there (TetonGravity.com) this past winter and wanted to post it here to give you and insight into how online communities both impact as well as transition from online to real time.

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This past Friday I headed up Big Cottonwood Canyon for a dawn patrol with some buddies of mine (non mags). It was a peaceful morning, and a great skin up through a storm that was delivering double the snow that was predicted. After a great run down meadow chutes and a click of the poles bidding good-bye to my buddies, I headed up to Solitude for an early meeting.

As I walked through the village the snow was falling lightly and it caused me to reflect upon the last time I was here. It was New Years Eve 2 years ago when in the PNW they were suffering a most heinous dry winter and I was to meet up with Squirrel, GirlSki and others from the PNW who had driven all night in search of snow.

I remember meeting Splat for the first time that day, right there in the village center, and coincidentally riding the lift with Yeti who just weeks before I had been in a slight flame war with and how during that ride and the couple of runs that followed the flame was extinguished somewhere amidst the powder and the trees.

I thought about sharing those few sweet runs with MD9 and phUnk as we upped the ante each time through a cliff zone and on the last run through, me scoping out a landing zone the size of an elevator after which MD launched blindly 40 feet to a perfect landing followed by P Phunk himself. They trusted me, they trusted themselves.

As I walked past the Inn I sorely wished that Woodsy was still “keeping shop” so that I could stop in and enjoy a conversation or two. But not so, here on this Friday morning in November before the lifts were even turning it was silent in the village, mine one of only a few footsteps in the freshly fallen snow. What had previously been an unorganized meeting of maggots on my last visit to Solitude was now a lonely locale.

While hanging out in the ticket office near the rental and repair shot, waiting for the other half of my meeting to arrive I noticed a guy on the other end of the shop looking out the window, intensely watching the snow and the sky, studying the weather. He’d steal a glance back at me as I was enjoying some idle chit chat with the ticket guy. A few moments later I heard “Are you powstash?” and turning noticed the guy from the shop had made his way over to greet me.

Sure enough, a maggot. Skifishbum to be precise and with the shake of hands we’d become friends. As he tuned skis we chatted about my tour that morning and he told me of his day’s plans – a tour to Twin Lakes Pass and beyond. The sticker laden and well-used Bro’s in the ski rack told the story that he was a fellow maggot.

“Hey man, do your skis need a tune? Got any core shots I can fix for ya?”

Sure enough my Havocs were in serious need of a tune. After grabbing my skis from the car and handing them off my meeting was starting. A few minutes later I was back in the repair shop as SFB was just finishing up the tune and headed out the door. “Don’t worry about it, great to meet you man” he said as I shouldered my skis and headed back to the car, another meeting to make.

Walking back through the still mostly deserted village I couldn’t help but think about all the random “change for a nickel” stories there must be out there and how in the world of skiing, which is pretty small in itself, that there is a brotherhood of maggots to which I proudly belong.

Thanks Dave for that reminder.