"What the f is a Chinese downhill?"

Taking the fact that I have always lived in the midwest into consideration, I consider myself to be a bit of a downhill skiing enthusiast. My Dad is a very good skier, although he doesn’t really ski anymore. He used to ski on these really, really long Kastles and his form seemed to be impeccable. If you skied prior to 1994 you’ll know the style I’m talking about. Knees together, effortless turns, pole plants, etc. You still see these guys on the slopes every once in awhile; they’re like the classic cars of the skiing universe. My Dad put my brother and I on skis when we were 3. We primarily skied at the Otsego Ski Club until I was around 10. I remember thinking one of our first instructors (I was probably 5 at the time) looked a lot like Officer John Baker from CHiPs, which I thought was awesome. Otsego was a great place to learn, but the terrain isn’t all that challenging. It was also kind of snobby, and my brother and I didn’t exactly click with all of the jr. yuppies. We went back to Otsego when I was 16 with another family. At the time they had this crazy relay race, I don’t remember what it was called, that consisted of a 1 mile snowshoe, 100 laps ice skating on a pond, cross country skiing to the top of the ski mountain, a downhill race, and a run back to the lodge. I did the skating, my brother did the downhill, and my Dad, valiantly I might add, did the snowshoe, cross country skiing, and run. Needless to say, we dominated and posted the best time of the day. My dad won the snowshoe race outright and I did the same on the skating, by that point we had such a big lead that no one was going to catch us. We went to the awards ceremony that night expecting to receive our awards. We were the guests of another family and we were relishing the fact that the organizers would have to give the grand prize to an "outsider" team that dominated them with 3 people for a 5-event race. We quickly came to find out that they changed the rules after our victory. Our time was "handicapped" (like only using 3 people wasn’t enough of a handicap, when we signed up as a 3 man team the organizers laughed) because we didn’t have any women on our team and we ended up, conveniently for them, in 4th place. The top 3 teams all had 5 people, 4 men and one woman, and the women only did the downhill leg. If the organizers would have made the rules prior to the end of the race we could have put my mom on skis and pushed her down the hill for the downhill leg, gravity’s doing all the work anyway. Lame. Everyone knows who really won that race.

We started skiing at Nubs Nob in the mid 80’s. In my opinion, Nubs has some of the best skiing in the midwest. Nubs is all about skiing, they don’t have a hotel or a golf course, they have the best snowmaker in the business (very important in our neck of the woods), they have the best ski resort chili I’ve tasted, and they close down for an hour to groom the whole mountain every afternoon. Smokey, Scarface, and Chute are some of the best runs in the midwest, and Revelry was the first run that I ever wiped out bad enough for the ski patrol to offer the dreaded sled ride to the bottom. I’m sure it was a spectacular crash, I wish I had video. The Ski Patrol at Nubs could ski their proverbial aces off (the skill level of the ski patrol is a good measure of how serious a place is about skiing). We had a cottage in Indian River, MI and we would get up early for the drive to Nubs. My Dad had a strict policy that required us to be suited up and ready to ski when the lifts were cranked up for the day. We’d occasionally stop in Alanson for some breakfast at a local diner. The ride seemed to be about 45 minutes, but my Dad always insisted we were only "5 minutes away". Christopher Cross songs seemed to dominate the airwaves, broken up with American Pie or some Hall & Oates classics. Christopher Cross still seems to be big in Northern Michigan, it might be a side effect of the nearby Mystery Spot.

My Dad sold the Indian River cottage in 1989, and I’ve been a vagabond skier ever since. I loved skiing at the currently defunct Sugarloaf in the Leelanau Peninsula. Sugarloaf was very similar to Nubs, they were serious about skiing and had some great runs. The Loaf closed down about 5 years ago due to some ownership issues. The ownership issues are still keeping the doors closed, which is a shame. Hopefully, someone will realize what a great place it is and re-open it, I’ll certainly come back. The Homestead is a small place near the Loaf that I’ve skied a bunch. The Homestead used to be decent, but the owner put a golf course in and began to neglect the skiing side of things and it’s not what it was around 10 years ago. A little further south you’ll find Crystal Mountain. Crystal is not bad, but the terrain can’t hold a candle to the Loaf or Nubs. They do have a lot of lift capacity and some challenging, albeit short runs. I set my runs-per-hour record recently at Crystal when I skied 40 runs from 9:00 to 12:15 on a Sunday morning.

Since I’ve moved to Chicago I’ve gotten a taste of skiing on the other side of the lake, and it hasn’t always been pleasant. My brother and his gang, we’ll call them the Warriors, go on an annual ski trip and I’ve tagged along a few times. As the older brother of the gang leader I’m allowed to hang out with them without going through the initiation. The first time I went with them we skied at Chestnut Mountain, on the banks of the Mississippi. The company was fun, but the mountain sucked. It just seemed like no one should be skiing that close to Iowa. On top of that, I almost killed my wife while I was "teaching" her to ski on more difficult terrain.

The second time I skied with the Warriors was this past weekend at Devil’s Head in Wisconsin. I decided to get a room at a local Best Western rather than stay with the Warriors. The Warriors tend to party pretty hard and once you reach a certain age you know there is no way you can play beer pong until 3 a.m. and then get first tracks on the slopes. I was on the trip to ski, so I opted out of the partying. It’s kind of sad considering my past… I was never one to shy away from partying, especially if competitive drinking was involved. The runs at Devil’s Head are o.k. They are relatively long, but not particularly challenging. The place seems pretty serious about skiing, but they have a few disadvantages. First, the chair lifts are all 30+ year old 2 seaters with a center bar construction, basically first generation chairlifts. These are uncomfortable and really, really slow. I was rockin’ the mp3 player while I skied by myself and I could only make one run and one lift to the top throughout the whole duration of Rush’s classic "Working Man". That’s slow. Second, they are on the wrong side of the lake. The resorts in Michigan have the benefit of getting dumped on with lake effect snow. I didn’t see snow anywhere besides on the runs. Devils Head has done a good job building base with man made snow, but a total lack of real snow leads to crappy conditions. Everything tends to ice up and man made snow is "heavier" so it will kind of grab your skis, which makes it hard to ski real fast and real smooth. I managed to go fast, stay upright and not break anything, so it was a pretty good trip. It was also nice to ski with my brother and the Warriors. Skiing solo can get a little monotonous and my brother and I have always had fun skiing together.

One last note about midwest skiing. There is a place at the very top of the UP in the Keewanaw peninsula that I want to try. It’s called Mt. Bohemia and it looks gnarly. You can actually rent a trail side yurt for lodging. They also get 300+ inches of snow a year, which is nice. Anyone up for the long trip to Mt. Bohemia?