“Chinese Downhill… It is the Only Way”

For rules… there are none.  First man to cross the finish line and chug a beer wins.

This past weekend, Parkites gathered with their freshly waxed skis, finest neon spandex, and a chilled PBR at the base of Park City Mountain Resort.  The Corner Store, an après-ski bar (and my place of employment) held the 9th Annual Chinese Downhill.  For those who haven’t seen the movie Hot Dog (shame on you), Chinese Downhill is a ski race at its truest, rowdiest, and barbaric form.

The race starts at Jupiter Peak!  A twenty minute hike up a ridge that leads you to incredible views, steep lines, and adrenalin-hungry mongrels (or homies).

This was my first year competing and all I can say is I’m stoked to have survived.  Fifty skiers and boarders start at the same time, charging downhill… letting gravity, speed and luck take them to the midway station.   There, they have to chug a beer and then continue down the hill.  Once they arrive at the bottom, they sprint to the corner store (yes, ski school and tourists may be jeopardized) to chug a beer.  First one done, wins!  And the rest… are losers.

My start to the race wasn’t stellar.  I immediately entered a white room and realized the snow was moving faster than my skis.  After watching numerous bodies collide in front of me, I stopped to only be carried 30 feet in a ‘sluffalanche’.  I will admit, for a brief second the thought of ‘this is where I break every bone is my body’ occurred when I was headed toward rocks!   But alas, I caught my breath, gave a quick thank you to the mountain deities, and sent it down the rest of the peak…with no poles.  Yes… my sweet soul poles were buried, perhaps sacrificed.

I got to the bottom where beer, friends, and a mechanical bull awaited.  Then I had to throw on an apron, and serve the hooligans. 

Congratulations to my two friends, Kimmy Sharp and Harrison Holly for taking it down!

That’s me, in rare form, riding down the mountain on my buddy Eric’s back, sans skis! An unusual way down the mountain, perhaps? Indeed. But that’s what happens when you double eject after shattering two heel pieces. What a day…

Rewind six hours back.

I had freshly waxed skis, an egg & cheese burrito in my belly and a new banger playlist.  Work was covered, or rather they accepted that I wasn’t coming in on a powder day, and I awaited Harrison and Kyra to pick me up at the crack of dawn.  Between little sleep and jonesing for fresh pow, I was having a slight panic attack during the car ride, hoping that I had made the right resort choice.  When it comes to a powder day falling on a Saturday, there is more than snow to be accounted for…there are crowds full of pow-starved fiending local weekend-warriors.  Solitude is one of the few resorts I had never had the chance to explore, and the buddies I was meeting up with were Solitude gurus.  I jumped on the opportunity to go shred a resort with homies that knew the stashes.  When we arrived to the parking lot, I knew I had made the right decision as the mountain was peaceful, untracked, and pristine.

I had been conditioning in the gym all week for this day and felt strong.  I tuned into the ‘NOW’ and let adrenaline guide my actions.  Our first run was deep and plentiful!  By the time I got to the chair, I thought I was going to combust with stokeness.  It’s days like these I show my true colors! I have little to no composure on powder days.  Singing, laughing, screaming, dancing, smiling so fucking hard my face muscles start to cramp.  Solitude holds true to its name, there isn’t really such thing as waiting in line there.  The trees were stellar, perfectly spaced, with cliffs and features to jump-off galore!  Sending was encouraged, tomahawks frequent, and yard sales prevalent.

Everyone was pushing their limits, skiing harder and harder every run.  Harrison was throwing back-flips and boosting off cliff bands.  It always turns out that when you’re sending, your GoPro always seems to die, the memory card is full, or you have it positioned wrong!  Nevertheless, our buddies captured some good moments that day.

Our legs were noodles when we decided to call last run down to the car.  Eager to get down to the car and tend to my smashed toes, I was ready to bomb Homerun.  Then things went wrong. On my second turn into the run, I literally exploded for no reason, while yard-sale-ing and not so gracefully plummeting into a slick and bumpy run. There were many, many tomahawks as I skipped like a ragdoll over the mogul-filled minefield.  After gravity had its way with me and I finally came to a stop, I was shocked to be alive. It took a few minutes for the ringing to stop and realize I still had all my limbs. I looked up the hill to find my friends picking up my equipment across the entire run.  When they skied up, I saw that my skis didn’t look quite right.  Both skis had the heel piece of each binding missing! One of them had completely ripped out and the other had snapped in the middle.  Utterly confused on how this happened, and more shocked that I still had all my body-parts and ligaments attached, all I could do was laugh, shrug, and hitch a piggy-back ride down the mountain. Note to self: must buy burlier bindings.

My friends divided up the equipment to ski down with and Eric was volunteered as a human toboggan.  I told Eric to think of me as a big back-pack full of beer and we slowly plowed the rest of the way down.  Thanks Eric!

I got to the car where a PBR and bottle of Advil awaited me!  The day was a success, and I was more than ready for a hot tub!

No joke, I think we’ve had almost 2 straight weeks of pure sunshine, cloudless skies, and lots of spring skiing conditions. Considering our low snow pack this year, we’re looking pretty damn good compared to most resorts West of Utah, so I’ve got no complaints. Putting the severe yearning for soft snow aside, the weather is truly beautiful and the last few days have been a blast. I’m slightly behind my 100 day goal for the season (hit day #30 yesterday), but confident that with lots of spring skiing, I’ll get there.

Yesterday Kevin, Matt, Tori and I cruised to Snowbird to meet up with some friends and spread some stoke in the lower gad parking lot. Before the party started, we warmed up with some groomer/bump skiing in Mineral Basin and then made our way to Baldy to check out what Kev calls “The Gauntlet”. I was planning to take it easy as I had tweaked my knee (possible sprained MCL?) the day before makin’ tele turns at PCMR, but shit happens and I didn’t want to be left out!

The Gauntlet’s official name is Center of Gravity which is located  near the Alta/Bird border and is a steepish couloir with shade protected snow. The last time I was in this area was a few years ago with much more snow, so getting into the couloir this year was a tad more difficult, but with enough poking around, we made it in. Safe to say, most of Baldy is sun-baked crust at this point, and certainly not the easiest to ski. But with good friends and sunshine-galore, it’s definitely worth the hike. The views from Baldy are insanely gorgeous on a clear day, displaying a perfect view of the SLC valley and the lower Little Cottonwood canyon.

After we worked our way down The Gauntlet (jump turning on a bum knee was probably not the best idea), we then met up with the rest of our crew and did a few mineral and gad laps prior to getting the Sunday parking lot party started. The day was a perfect combo of good friends, good turns, and lots of beer!

I’ll be taking a few days off to rest the knee and am hoping/wishing/praying/dancing that we get some more snow this week. Keep those digits crossed!!! And in the meantime, enjoy all this super fabulous sunshine and go get out there and ride!

Everything so far with regards to planning for this trip has gone absolutely seamlessly. It’s almost as if Joel and I are waiting for something to go absolutely HORRIBLY wrong.

It’s a good thing, we had a great trip over from Sydney right through to San Francisco where we met the couple that we have leased the apartment off for the season. Two super nice people who have done a lot to make this apartment so comfortable to live in. They’re the same people who have let us use their truck for the season, which has proved to be such a help, especially on a day like today. Our trip to Reno.

Before we left I’d arranged a supply of beer from PBR. Today, we went to pick it up. 20 cartons of 24 16oz (473ml) cans.

480 cans of beer.  227 Litres.

We drove out to Reno in our truck, a 2001 Ford Ranger XLT. Aptly named ‘Ranger Stacey’. The drives around here are absolutely stunning. The mountains drop off on the North Eastern side of Lake Tahoe and the decline opens up to the dry desert area of Carson City, Nevada. A perfect day for a great road trip.

This was also the first time I had properly been able to give my filter set a good go and see some results I’m reasonably happy with. I’ve got more coming and really looking forward to having those for this trip.

I’d also like to thank everyone for the birthday love from back home. They’re a day ahead and the flood of messages and well wishes from friends and family was really nice to come home to see. None more so, than the message I received from my girlfriend.

So cheers to free beers!

G