Relocation to Steamboat Springs, Colorado wasn’t my idea. The plan came with duress and threats of abandonment. All joking aside, I couldn’t of had a better winter. I was uprooted from a comfortable life in another ski town, Bend, Oregon, but my partner’s family commitment to a ski jumping nephew was a chaperone job with a ski pass and a reasonable reason for leaving. Plus, Bend had become a California suburb, and was testing my patience and Oregon roots. As the rock and roll sage Joe Walsh said “Rocky Mountain way is better than way we had”.

I applied for a courtesy ski patrol position at Steamboat Resort and, to my amazement, was hired. Although I’ve spent a lifetime at ski hills, teaching alpine, nordic and telemark skiing, loading lifts, plowing snow, pouring beer and making burgers, sweeping floors, shoveling roofs and selling tickets, I’ve never ski patrolled. My father was a ski patroller. We had to get up every weekend morning in the dark, eat some oatmeal, clammer into the Jeep and park it in the plowed lot. It was a short, rope tow hill. It was still dark, in that Jeep and the stiff, leather ski boots were hard to get on my wool-shod feet. The nylon laces were even harder to entwine. But ski I did and who knew I’d be loading wrecked skiers and riders at my over-ripened age. But here I be and I was determined to make the best of it. I mean guys moved into the Yampa Valley to mine coal in Northwestern Colorado, 150 years ago, and some do today, so exactly how bad could my plight be?

My strength with the Steamboat Ski Patrol can be defined just as well, by the things I didn’t do: I didn’t roll a snow machine, lose an auger drill or my radio, call a guest an asshole or get injured on the job. Any of these missteps could have impacted my performance review. My supervisor is a good ‘ol boy, from Alabama, and is skilled at safety and entertainment. The patrol director could be a Zen Buddhist, but he is a longtime Steamboat mainstay having seen it all and, I’m guessing, done most of it too.

I can’t believe a father would trust me with his son’s well-being but he had to fetch the skis and poles and I was a safe bet. The little skier didn’t wake up because a tired skier boy is a good boy. But when you have this black and red suit on, people trust you and you help them out of a jam. Old concept, and it still works.

John “Pink” Floyd jumping the flaming toboggan, off the 100m hill, for the abbreviated Covid Winter Carnival.

The historic winter festival in Steamboat was dampened by the COVID-19 restrictions but one of my patrol supervisors did the jump with a flaming toboggan for a sized-down Winter Fest. The infamous firework display went skyward, without an audience at the base area but was entertaining from our perch across the valley.

From left Me, Otto Tschudi and Billy Kidd

I’m standing in the gondola employee line when a guy behind me asked “can we join you”? I said “that’s fine” as I looked at his name tag. It read Billy Kidd. So I rode the Gondy, not only with the Steamboat director of skiing, Olympic silver medalist and World Cup winner but also Otto Tschudi, the Norwegian amateur, collegiate and pro alpine ace and successful businessman. Both men were boyhood ski racing idols for me. We talked about the day Karl Schranz cheated at the 1968 Olympic slalom and other questions I had from childhood. They were gentlemen of the first order. I made a lap down Rudi’s Run with them and those fellas still make a smooth turn.

The skiing history in Steamboat, is like and unlike the skiing story in any Colorado mountain town. By like, I mean it is a town that supports a modern Colorado resort, with hotels and restaurants, similar to Aspen, Telluride or Vail. But unlike those towns, which were established after World War II, Steamboat Springs’ ski history goes back to the turn of the century. Howelsen Hill is the state's oldest continuously operating ski area, since 1915, and is a training ground for alpine, nordic and jumping competitions today.

Carl Howelsen jumping on Howelsen Hill, 1915

Max Nye jumping on the 100 meter jump on Howelsen Hill last winter