Kenny Karraker and Jimmy McFeeley showed up at the News-Press office last Monday morning, excited and grinning like kids looking at a Christmas tree.
"Dan! There's seven inches of fresh at Lookout! Come on!"
Guys, I'm working.
"Call in sick! You're not looking too well."
How can I call in sick when I'm standing here? And who's sick? Kenny, you're wincing.
"Aw, I was over in the trees by Sundance, the steep stuff, not the flats where YOU ski. I hit a stump, lost it, whacked a tree with my ribs. It doesn't hurt too bad."
Away they went. Kenny's a Lookout newbie. He started skiing up there last year and is currently campaigning to hit 40 days this season.
On Saturday morning there were nine inches of fresh. Dick Vester was heading toward the lift when I arrived, and we exchanged greetings. I know Dick to be a hard-working, community-oriented family man, and I'd say that even if he hadn't saved my left eye some years ago. You tend to find all kinds of sterling qualities in a man who saves your eyesight — Brian Miller did the same for me with cararact surgery not long ago — and I've seen Dick at Lookout for decades. We knew each other back in the Dean Cooper/Don Walde/Jim Fowler days, and that goes back a bit.
Jeremy Seatz and children Owen and Izy were among the first in the lift line Saturday, and I rode up with Owen. He's in his second year of skiing and was headed for Cloud Nine. Cloud Nine? Isn't that steep and narrow at the bottom? Not for me, Owen said. Skiing runs in the Seatz family, he added: Grandpa Frank ripped the pow in his day.
I envied Jeremy the time on the hill with his teenagers. My sons Rob and David started skiing Lookout at ages seven and four respectively, and hitting the hill was all-day every-weekend for a decade. They're both living in the Seattle area these days. Rob was home for 17 hours at Christmas and made sure that part of the time involved Lookout. He made one token run with the old man, and I could see the wheels turning: I haven't skied in three years, Lord knows when I'll ski again, and I'm not skiing slow. "See you at the lodge, Dad!" Three hours later he was powering through lunch, tired, glowing, and talking about skiing Buffalo Gulch. The years melted and that happy seven-year-old reappeared.
On my second ride up I shared the chair with Dan McGee, and we swapped ski stories back and forth. Dan told of his brother, back in the Jackass days, who slid his old Blazer to the edge of a very long drop off the old road. The rig hung there, teetering. Both brother and Blazer survived unscathed.
It was a great morning in the trees, cutting untracked powder for hours. I'd promised Chris I'd be home early to help with chores and has to explain same to Cherise at the ticket window when she questioned my sanity with an 11 a.m. powder-morning departure. I missed Michele's Scots lilt, but Cherise's grin is a fair trade.
Reading back over the first few paragraphs of this column I think I've shot myself in the ski boot. The staff will never believe me if I call in sick on another powder day. It's snowing as I write this ...
