Skiing the Skinny Boards : A Day on the Slopes, Where the Pinheads Meet the Yo -Yos

Dawn light wakes me as always up here, a hot flash of color radiating into the loft window off the upper snowfields of Pointless Peak. The cold seeping off the glass sends me burrowing back under the down quilt, but just for a moment. Today I’m headed for the downhill slopes at Mammoth, but there will be plenty of skiing just to get there from this cabin, snowed in five miles from Rock Creek Road. Halfway down the loft ladder, my breath goes visible. I drop straight into moon boots, grab a down jacket off its peg and hurry to lay a fire in the wood stove. Just minutes old and still far short of coffee, this morning already echoes many of the feelings that made ski trips special back when I was a kid and commuting for them from the city.

I hadn’t even heard of cross-country skiing then; now it is the only life. Living back here for a good part of the winter, the best part of the year, I’m rewarded with direct access to the wildest season in the mountains. Most days I turn out the cabin door to go up-canyon and ski in the lonely, high bowls tucked under the crest of the Sierra. But today it’s submit to gravity and the allure of Mammoth Mountain, 20 miles to the north. The downhill skiers call us pinheads after our flimsy-looking “three-pin” Nordic bindings; we joke back about their realm being yo-yo skiing, their slopes mere practice hills for a wilderness of mountains. But we go to Mammoth anyway, for the sheer joy of vertical mileage on perfectly groomed runs, free of avalanches. And we seem to go back nearly every week, commuting on skis to ski.

By the time coffee is ready, my leather ski boots have warmed enough on the stove door for a coat of Sno-Seal. They look a lot like the old square-toed lace-ups that I began skiing in 30 years ago. The best of today’s boots for skiing downhill on cross-country skis sport a little extra stiffness here and there, or perhaps a buckle over the instep. And some manufacturers are flirting with plastic. All of which leads to jokes about the reinvention of downhill skiing. That’s fair; yet the gear remains an odd mixture of traditional and high tech, leather boots and fiberglass skis.

Outside, it’s still quite brisk at 10,000 feet: 20 degrees Fahrenheit. I skate across Rock Creek Lake and lock skis into the twin grooves that form the Nordic track heading down the snowed-over road. For the novice, the track is like being on rails; for the racer it’s a license to speed. The hardest fall I took last winter was blowing out of these tracks on the last sweeping curve before Rock Creek Road.

Halfway down, I break my tuck, throw out a snowplow and bank over the bridge to pull up panting in front of Rock Creek Winter Lodge. The staff there enjoys being snowbound as much as their guests from the city, who ride a Sno-Cat up from the highway. They are cross-country ski bums--a new breed.

“Anybody want to go ski Mammoth?”

Marty Hornick does. Marty has worked at the lodge six winters, splitting firewood and setting ski tracks. Summers he ranges the backcountry for the Forest Service or captains a trail crew. He is incredibly fit and is the local master of a new game that is emerging up here--a cross between Nordic racing and ski mountaineering. It is 21 miles from here to Mammoth Mountain as the crow flies. But no crow would choose that line, which crisscrosses Sierra ridges and weaves among 13,000-foot peaks. On the ground, it is easily more than 40 miles; I have spent several days skiing it and snow-camping along the way. Three years ago, Marty surprised everyone by skiing it with his friend, Rich May, in 13 hours. Last spring, he lowered that to 8:37, alone. Today will be easier; we’ll ski two more miles to the highway and drive. But Marty’s presence guarantees a challenging time of diving off the corniced summit of Mammoth on metal-edged cross-country skis.

At Toms Place, Rock Creek Road comes abruptly onto the four lanes of U.S. 395, easing out into the mainstream of skiers headed for Mammoth. There’s an expectant air among those robot-walking across the parking lot in plastic boots. Even the lift operators seem to share it, asking, “How’s the snow?” We’ll soon see.

A ride up the lift gradually reveals scenery unrivaled this side of the Alps. To the west, the Minarets form a spiky skyline. To the north, a string of volcanic cones marches into Mono Lake, slowly drying up in the winter sunshine. The view of the White Mountains to the east will come into its own in the afternoon sun. Southward from the summit, the Sierra stretches away forever, a horizon littered with peaks. It amazes me that non-skiers so rarely take advantage of this view. Forget the sun deck; buy a gondola round trip to the summit, and bring a warm jacket. There isn’t a vista like that from the top of Aspen or Alta or Sun Valley or Squaw. Someday, this place will become the international resort that its setting and snow deserve.

“Look at them yo-yos--that’s the way you do it.” Marty grins, borrowing the line from Dire Straits, and tips over into Climax gully in perfect imitation of the downhill skiers. The regulars here ceased years ago to be amazed at telemarking, the traditional Norwegian ski turns revived by Americans during the ‘70s. As Marty winds his way rhythmically down this expert run off the top of Mammoth, anyone would think from a little distance that he was on downhill skis. His parallel technique is that smooth.

Back in the lift line, it’s quickly evident that we aren’t the only ones having a good time. People are warming up, shaking out; amid the stomp and shuffle, strangers occasionally lock eyes and smile, united in the Brotherhood of the Burning Thighs. We’re not that different from a gang of kids playing on plastic cafeteria trays, all anxious to get back up so they can slide down again.

All of a sudden, it seems, the light is drawing sideways and the snow is icing up. When half the afternoon can disappear unnoticed, you know you’ve been having fun. Time to blow off the last run and go in. If you’re skiing well, you don’t need it anyway. Racers, skiing the best of all, are often on the snow only three or four hours of the day. Pressing into each turn for a clean carve, that’s all the skiing they can take. Skis clatter down St. Anton’s to the lodge. We slip out of the parking lot ahead of the traffic.

It’s harder to pass on the cold margaritas and hot salsa at Las Montanas in town. At this weary end of the day, one could almost envy those with but a short trip across town into a steaming hot tub. Some days, I make it down to the freeway in time to watch the light slide from gold to rose on Boundary Peak in the White Mountains off to the east. Its spectacular, serrated face runs thousands of feet right up to the highest point in Nevada and has never been skied. It would require a full and stable snowpack in the spring to even consider it, and two days of bushwhacking to get to the top. And then the avalanche conditions might turn you away. That kind of ski mountaineering would require at least as much patience and caution as sheer skiing ability. Nonetheless, it makes a persistent twilight dream on the southern road.

Back at the Rock Creek Road head, it’s dark. Slot into those rails; they know the way home. Touring wax grips nicely as the temperature drops. After half a mile we’re unzipping jackets. Thighs that had complained at the lifts work out again, only now they get a stretch at the end of every stride; soon enough they have put away the two miles up to Rock Creek Winter Lodge, just in time for the second seating of dinner.

Platters of herb chicken are passed down the long wooden tables, followed by baskets of homemade rolls. Ski talk flows with the wine. One couple had skied all the way to Long Lake, not quite believing that they could make the 12-mile round trip their third day on skis. Others had taken a telemark lesson that morning and were surprised to find that they, too, could ski parallel on skinny skis. Their instructors, John Moynier and Dion Goldsworthy, had sneaked off for the afternoon into the steep woods, where they knew that powder would be lingering even 10 days after the last storm. They laugh about luring one another off cliffs in the forest--a sandbag game with the loser giving the evening slide show.

It seems like midnight as I crawl back onto the snow one last time, pacing uphill in the starlight to rattle in the cabin door and stoke up the fire. There won’t be any question of skiing like this again tomorrow, but one of the best things about such an exhausting day is that the next morning I’m really ready to sit still and write. As the stove crackles to life, I back my chair up to it and sink into the seat. Preferring not to light a lamp, I’d rather scan for a glimpse over the Sierra crest of that snowball in space, Halley’s comet, pulling away for another lap around the solar system.