Seven Degrees of West Yellowstone
By xcskiworld.com Contributing Editor Andrew Gardner
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Geology is fascinating because it is such a decidedly human science. Massive upheaval, chaos, layers of complex growth, it is difficult to ascertain what is more apropos of this description: rocks or humans. Skiers are especially prone to an application of geology to their respective pasts. All racers have layers of ski history, some are buried deeper than others. I’m no different.
Driving north through patchy snow en route to my first West Yellowstone fall rendezvous, I pondered what the epic annual event would hold for me. Of course, I knew of some folks were coming, some of the layers I would encounter but the degree of ski history I unearthed in West was startling at best. From my first painful trappings as a high school skier to my most recent years coaching and traveling to marathons, faces of my history, conversations, and the occasional hug continually interrupted my first ski on the perfect trails at the edge of the national park. This was a homecoming of a massive scale.
I first met Fritz Spiegel at a Junior Olympic qualifying race in Giant’s Ridge Minnesota. He had frostbitten his ears to the point of severe pain and we became friends as I ran increasingly warm cups of water over the icy appendages. We skied together for years, chancing races in the Midwest, hiding from crazy Green Bay Packer fans and even racing for a time together in college. Fritz works for Rossignol now and has one lobe that hangs lower than the other. I didn’t recognize him immediately at first. He was bundled up and peered out from under a red promotional tent for a long time before I even noticed.
Having grown up in the U.P., a place devoid of many people much less young people, I realized early what these ski encounters would mean for me. I moved into a house while training full time with the Gitchi Gummi Sport Association. Gary Colliander was my roommate, a biathlete (though I didn’t hold that against him) and a training partner. He now works for Minnesota Biathlon as a coach, guru, and massage therapist. I spotted him in a gaggle of biathletes offering advice to a particularly young, frightened looking skier.
It kept on for hours: I’d no more ski another two kilometers before I’d run into Lowell Bailey, a UVM stand-out last year, who taught me my first chords on the guitar. There was Lowell’s longtime companion, Tim Burke, who, next to Lowell, skied for the US Junior Biathlon team for which I was a summer trainer. There was Justin Easter, the Factory team’s newest hired gun. Easter was a Freshman at Bates College while I was in my senior year and showed soulful talent early on even before the shiny logos of the Subaru suit, or his killer website fullthrottlexc.com. There was Piotr Bednarski, Emily Klemp, Roger “Shug” Knight, August Teague. There was Bjorn Bakken, the youngest of the Salemela brood, Kai and Brit, and Anders Osthus. There were Tyler Henderson, Simi Hamilton, and Brandon Cooper. Layer upon layer upon layer of skiing piled on top of itself.
One quiet afternoon, I skied alone pondering the interconnectedness of our lonely, inbred, tiny sport community. I remembered when I was eleven reading Luke Bodensteiner’s book Endless Winter and marveling at how many names I could put faces to. I remembered when I was twenty-five, reading Pete Vordenberg’s book Momentum and marveling at how many names I could put faces to. I skied on. In the distance mountains built on thick striations of rock posed picturesquely. Snow obscured the layers of rock but they were there muddled together making a pointed spire towards the skies, these banded pieces of history standing strongly against the elements.
Andrew Gardner skis for Atomic and the Swix Tech Team. He is the Director of the Colorado Rocky Mountain School Nordic Program in Carbondale, CO.
