Having the time of their lives
By Ray Eakman
For ttio Emrrtld
The morning after Eugene's big snowfall, I skidded
my way to work in my Toyota Through steam-glazed
windows I noticed a man who had discovered a better
method of travel in those circumstances. He was
cross-country skiing.
That took me back.
I've only skied cross-country once It was several
years ago, when I shared a small room in Carson Hall on
campus Someone had come up with the brilliant and
totally original idea of a dorm ski weekend We'd charter
a bus, and everyone who wanted (and could pay) could
go We all would have the time of our lives
It all sounded so easy
When the alarm shrilled at 4:21 (a m., and on a
Saturday) my first thought was, "this is not a good
idea.” But after a shower and some encouragement
from mv roommate Chuck, I once again
One man's saga of
a ski tour adventure
discovered his were also Louise muttered something
about IQ’s as we made adjustments.
Wearing the skis correctly didn't solve our balance
problems completely, but by the end of the day we’d
gotten the hang of it. By late afternoon we returned to
the bus and actually looked forward to skiing the next
day The excitement was back — it really was going to
be the time of our lives
After a short drive to the fringe of Bend, we arrived
at an outdated motel our trip organizers had reserved.
Only then did everyone realize that no one aboard was
in charge None of Carson's resident assistants had
partyers proceed to one end of the units, mellower
and/or exhausted skiers to the other, and in
betweeners in between. Order was restored
I walked into our gas-heated room to find a two
members of the group wrestling with the pilot light
fixture In time they conquered it, fortunately before the
room filled with enough gas to blow us up. We sat
around a television set, watching the Ducks play
Arizona, and while John Murray was casting off a
thirty-footer, the power went off.
The power returned in time to let us see the Ducks
lose (in keeping with the trend of the weekend s events),
and we called it a day.
Showers were practically non-existent the next
morning after Chuck’s five minute splash depleted all
the hot water. But we set that thought aside when
Chuck entered the room after checking on the others
and burst out with “One of the guys got arrested!’’
Unfortunately, one of the group, who had driven his
car rather than take the bus, had been
looked forward to the time of my life
Shortly before our expected departure
time of 5:30, we arrived in the lobby
dressed for an arctic expedition, clutch
ing our skis, poles and boots
And we waited
We spent a lot of
time in snowbanks.
f
Soon it became evident that the bus
was not going to be on time I began to jj
keep careful count of all the extra min
utes I could have slept, while observing
that more and more psuedo-Eskimos
were falling asleep by the door The rest
had managed to figure out how to get
into the locked cafeteria Though not at
all appetizing, eating stale Rice Krispies
with the previous day’s re-warmed coffee
at least gave us something to do
At 6 30 the bus arrived The driver
apologized, saying she had locked her
self out of the house and had to break in
to get her car keys before she could get
to the bus that was to take us to Mt
Bachelor.
We left at 7:00, as the sun began to
rise, and in a few hours we arrived safe,
sound and ready to ski at Mt Bachelor
The majority headed for the lifts, anxious
for the thrill of hurtling out of control
down a precipice Myself, Chuck, our
friend Charles, and a freshman French
Canadian javelin thrower were there to N
ski cross-country, however, and we set
off to slide through Christmas card set
tings
For awhile, the idea of screaming in
terror in anticipation of compound frac
tures as I slammed into a chair-lift sup
port seemed a heck of a lot more fun than
this sport
Cross-country skis are hardly wider
than your foot They are long,and to a
novice, extremely awkward Louise, the
javelin thrower, had almost been born
wearing such equipment, and had no
problem slushing in the tracks, but the
rest of us spent a lot of time in the
snowbanks when we weren't crawling
stopped tor drunk driving during the
night. "And Clay is missing,” he added
"No one can find him.”
The weekend was becoming very
interesting.
When the bus driver loaded up the
bus in the falling snow that had already
accumulated three inches deep, she
discovered chains for only one wheel No
problem, she said She had a number to
call for assistance. Yes, a problem, she
said, returning from the phone booth
She had been given the wrong number
Some very sleepy and irate citizen of
Bend had answered, and would be ab
solutely no help at all.
But her ancestors had crossed on
the Mayflower, fought Indians, came
west in wagon trains and weathered
storms — she was going to drive that bus
up the mountain, chains or no chains
We boarded the bus and somebody
yelled "There's Clay!” He had passed
out under one of the beds in the party
end and had awakened just in time.
Minus our arrested friend, we started up
the mountain and, to my surprise, arrived
at the lodge with no difficulty
And the skiing was great. The four of
us tracked six miles through forests, over
frozen lakes — even experimented with
some downhill jumps, which were chal
lenging with our equipment.
More and more
pseudo-Eskimos
were falling asleep.
By the end of the day, we were ex
hausted. We located the bus as our
strength gave out. After collecting all the
downhillers, all of whom enjoyed two
days of injury-free skiing, we rode back
to Eugene. Beside having a car filled with
snowball throwers that repeatedly at
tacked us,we arrived at Carson with no
incident.
I slept very well that night.
up me ocuaMuiusi :>•
Finally, after a couple of hours and countless falls,
Chuck jokingly asked our expert in attendance it we had
our skis on the wrong feet She replied quite seriously
that we might Chuck checked as I rolled down a hill to
meet them His skis and feet were mismatched So were
mine And when Charles tumbled down to us, we
made the trip, and no appointees had been christened
to run the show
Panic swept the bus like an avalanche
My business major roommate, however, was tired
and disgusted enough to assume command. He
somehow collected all the keys to the rooms, had
I remembered all this as I pumped my brakes to
barely avoid spinning the car through a red light,
proving the cliche about your life passing before your
eyes. While I waited for the light to turn green, I watched
the obviously experienced skier gliding down the
sidewalk. And I felt envious.
--\
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