John Marshall: Former Ski Bum

          John is the head custodian at my high school. Every once in a while I would notice that he was wearing an Alta shirt. My advisor told me that he used to be a ski bum and that I should talk to him for my project. Following her advise, I asked him about his experiences with skiing one day in the hall. At the time, I did not realize that my custodial manager was the perfect interview source that I could ask for for this project.
          Hearing about John's winters, one would have no idea that he works a full-time job that does not involve skiing. On most weekends, he heads up to Sunday River for day trips, and if he wants to go further North and stay overnight, he stays in "the skiers' quarters" for $100/night at Sugarloaf. With two beds and a shower, John heads up with a friend and pays $50/night to stay in Maine for the weekend. Unfortunately, the inn that has the skiers' quarters is very small, with four tiny rooms, so a room is not always guaranteed. Fortunately, most people don't know about it. When he gets a room at the skiers' quarters (which he usually does, due to his connections there), he uses his New England Pass to ski at Sunday River or Sugarloaf. It is a $900 pass that allows you to ski at Loon, Sunday River, and Sugarloaf, as well as a few mountains out West that are managed by the same corporation. He used money from working full-time to pay for that pass. If he is not skiing at one of those three mountains, he's at some other mountain North of Massachusetts. During the week, he works full-time at Parker Charter School, and works nights at Wachusett Mountain, a local ski area. He has a job in their ski shop, waxing and maintaining skis. Having that job gets him discounted ski equipment and free skiing at Wachusett Mountain. Most of the time, he isn't able to ski at Wachusett because when he is there, he is working. Regardless of not skiing Wachusett during the week, this season he skied an estimated 60 days.
          Aside from weekend trips, John takes one big trip every year; it's tradition for him. This past year, he went to Big Sky, Montana. Coincidentally, the New England Pass works at Big Sky as well, so he saved about $80/day on lift tickets. The amount that he saved by having a season pass paid for about half of the total price of the pass. He went for six days with two other skiers that he travels with every year. Last year they went to Steamboat, and next year it's between Jackson Hole and Utah. He mentioned that he could get rooms for $50/night in Utah, and it's all about keeping the prices low, since everything is so overpriced in the ski industry as it is. Next year, he also wants to take some time off during the summer to head down to Chile, where it will be winter and the resorts will be open. Luckily, it is cheaper to ski and stay overnight in Chile, but the lengthy flight bumps the price up quite a bit.
          All this is nothing compared to what he's already done. The winter of 1978, just after he had graduated college, he packed up everything he needed into a '71 Chevy Nova and headed to Vail. His alternative was to stay in Massachusetts and work on his father's farm, and he really did not want to do that. A friend of his was living in Vail, so he decided to go join him in being a ski bum. Once he got out there, he sold the Nova for $200. Quickly, he picked up a job washing dishes at night, and he loved it. They paid him, let him ski all day, and let him eat for free. He got a room in a dorm-style building for $100/night, which was a fair amount of money at that time. Vail was not too built up at the time, but still built up enough for them to charge you a solid fee to stay overnight. This also meant that there were not many options for places to sleep, so if you find a room that you can afford, you take it. He paid $195 for a season pass and skied everyday from the time he woke up until 2 in the afternoon, when he had to go wash dishes. John made lots of friends when he was staying at Vail, who would all wake up with him and shred all day. Come April, he had to start thinking about heading home. He sold his skis and equipment, and hitched a ride home. It took him a week, since he zig-zagged all over the country, but he got home safe and sound. After making those connections, he went back the next year and did the exact same thing.
          While John admits that because of the incredible growth of the ski industry, it is more expensive to be a ski bum these days, he strongly believes that being a ski bum is easy. There are always jobs in resort towns, and you can always pile into a house with 12 guys living there already. As long as you're really willing to be a ski bum, you can still be a ski bum.

Sam Barstow: College Ski Bum

          Being a ski bum means changing your life for the powder. You have to be willing to dedicate your life to getting on the hill. If you want to be in college and be a ski bum, it is nearly impossible. Many people try, and end up dropping out so that they can ski more, or end up skiing less so that they can focus on school. Sam Barstow, 21 year old senior at Union College in New York, has struck a perfect balance. After years of practice, he has discovered ways to be a ski bum while also being a full-time student.

          Union College is a small college in Schenectady, New York, a small city just outside Albany. With the border of Vermont being about a 45 minute drive East, good skiing is completely accessible. Sam took these factors into account when deciding on a college. Since every student at Union is automatically part of the Ski Club, Sam started skiing once the snow hit the ground. All he had to do was sign up for a trip (two trips weekly), and pay $20 (if it's a Saturday trip, Thursday trips are free), which covers transportation and a lift ticket. The Ski Club travels to mountains all over; from the border of Canada, to further upstate New York, to free Thursday trips to Jiminy Peak, in Massachusetts.

          After a few years of being in the Ski Club, Sam became president. He gets to plan all of the trips and choose what mountains the club goes to. He also learned how to get more skiing into his schedule while still getting all of his work done. Since Union is on a trimester schedule, they only have to take three classes per term. Sam discovered that by rearranging his, already sparse schedule, he could have two days during the week completely open for skiing. Most winter terms, Sam would keep his Tuesdays and Thursdays clear. This makes Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays very work-heavy, but he says that it is more than worth it. He also buys a season pass (with a college student discount) to Mount Snow; the closest, best skiing. He has a car at school, and countless friends who also have season passes, great skiing is always just a 45 minute drive away. With two weekdays opened up, two guaranteed weekly trips, and accessibility to Mount Snow at any point in time, Sam is as close to being a real ski bum as he can get while still being a full-time college student. Regardless, he does not consider himself an actual ski bum.

          The reason for this is because of his basis for comparison. Yes, he changes his schedule and lifestyle so that he can ski as much as possible, without falling behind in school, but he still feels like he is not a real ski bum. For two winter breaks from Union, Sam went to Alta in Utah to be a ski bum. This is where his basis for comparison came from. He knew some kids who finished college and had moved out to Utah to be ski bums, and went to join them for a month. One of Sam's friends told him that he could stay on their couch, work as a busboy in the lodge, get free food, and free skiing, but it would all be taken out of his paycheck. For $30/day, Sam was sleeping in the base lodge at Alta, working morning and night shifts as a busboy, skiing in between, and eating the, normally overpriced lodge food. Without that connection to the resort, he would have had to buy an $1,100 season pass, rent a house outside of the canyon that Alta is in, find a job in a surrounding town, and buy a car so that he could commute to the mountain everyday. Luckily, he had that connection to the resort, so for two winters (so far) he got to live the dream. When he looks at his skiing routine while at college and compares it to the kids he skis with in Alta, he feels nothing anything even resembling a ski bum.

          Last summer, Sam took the infamous trip to Mount Hood. He had gone to visit friends for a week or so before, but this time he was in for the long haul. He and a big group of friends rented a house together in Govy, the small town at the bottom of the mountain. Most of the people that he was living with had spent at least a summer at Hood, so they knew the deal. They had to pay a bit more, but they rented a decent house and ate decent food. According to Sam, most Govy first-timers rent a house in The Summit, a cheap housing development (a.k.a. "Slummit"), and living off of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. In order to ski on the glacier at Mount Hood, day passes have to be bought to ride the public park. Sam and his friends would go to the base lodge at Hood anytime they wanted a day pass and work for it. They were never assigned hours; if you wanted to ski, you had to work. It didn't give them much of an income, but they were skiing for free.

          The secret to Sam's skiing success is his connections. His school helps him get discounts on season passes, his friends help him get lodging, food, and a job when he wants to really be a ski bum, and some resorts have been more than willing to give him free skiing in exchange for labor. Although he does not think so, Sam fits the description of a ski bum, and equally impressive, he fits the description of a successful student.

Owen Ringwall: Photographer Snowboard Bum

          Owen Ringwall, a freshman at the University of Vermont, has always dedicated his winters to snowboarding. Since he can remember, his family has been going up to their condo at Sunday River almost every weekend during the ski season. Both of his parents ski, as well as his younger brother, so skiing was always a family activity. His father, Bruce, is on the board of trustees at The Grand Jordan Hotel, right on Sunday River, and has always been involved with the corporate side of things at Sunday, resulting in a condo at the Jordan and discounted skiing. At a very young age, he dropped his skis and picked up a snowboard. After a few years of snowboarding, he started competing in freestyle events. Owen joined the Sunday River Snowboard Team, and spent every weekend doing freestyle competitions in Maine. Many times, he did so well during the competition season that he would end up qualifying and competing at the National competition in Colorado. He would save up money throughout the year doing small landscaping jobs so that he could help pay for his summer trips to High Cascade Snowboard Camp on the glacier at Mount Hood in Oregon. He got to snowboard during the winter, and get help on his tricks from professional snowboarders. Around his junior year of high school, he lost interest in competing. Like most people, he realized that it would take an incredible amount of practice and dedication to improving his tricks in order to continue winning competitions. He then turned his focus to cameras.

          When he was around 16, he became seriously interested in cameras. He bought a Cannon digital SLR camera and began taking pictures; a lot of pictures. When senior year came around, he had to choose a topic for his senior project, so he chose to document snowboard culture through photojournalism. He began reaching out for mentors, sending emails to snowboard photographers and photo editors for snowboard magazines all over. The photo editor for a small, East coast snowboard magazine (coincidentally called East Coast Snowboard Magazine) happened to live in the next town over, and was more than happy to set up a lunch. After meeting, he agreed to be Owen's mentor for his project. Owen spent the rest of his winter taking trips all over the East, taking pictures as the magazine's intern. He had top level media credentials to most of the major snowboard events on the East coast, and ended up with a few pictures published in East Coast Snowboard Magazine and Transworld (one of, if not the largest snowboard magazines). All of the snowboarding he did with his mentor that year was covered by the magazine, as well as all of the overnight accommodations. On weekends when he was not with his mentor, he was up at Sunday River, as always. Towards the end of his senior year, Owen's mentor suggested that the fill out an application for a job as a photographer at High Cascade, the snowboard camp that he had attended when he was younger, but stopped after he was done competing. His mentor told him that the job was almost guaranteed with all of the work that he had done over the past season, and his connection to the magazine; he just had to send in an application.

          His mentor had been right. Owen got the job, and shortly after graduating, he flew out to Oregon to start being a snowboard bum. He moved into a house in the town at the base of Mount Hood (called "Govy" by the locals) with a few other guys who were also snowboarding for the summer, but had never met them before. He had been saving up money working at the front desk of a tennis club, and was making money everyday while he was taking pictures at the camp. He was working with the campers, coaches, pros, and ski bums who wanted to ride the public terrain park everyday. Owen was riding every day of the summer, and making tight connections with people deeply involved in the snowboard industry. By the end of summer, he had made a good amount of money from working at High Cascade, lots more connections in the snowboard world, and secured a job for the following summer.

          A few weeks after coming back home from Oregon, Owen headed up to college. His parents were willing to pay for a portion of the $47,000 cost of attending UVM, and the rest would have to be covered by scholarships and loans. Owen decided to take out loans every year so that he could afford to go there, and pay off his education afterwards. He could have gone to a cheaper college elsewhere, but he chose UVM for the location: Burlington. Burlington, Vermont is undoubtedly the Mecca of snowboarding on the East coast. With thousands of college students, amazing mountains within 40 minutes, a hippie vibe, and the Burton corporate offices one exit south, Burlington is a perfect spot for snowboarders. Owen is majoring is studio art, and is on the UVM Snowboard Team (meaning he pays an entrance fee, gets a van to mountains weekly, rides a few mountains for free, and gets a competition fee waiver, if he were to want to compete). For the second semester, he arranged his schedule so that he has two days completely free for snowboarding during the school week, and his weekends as well. He absolutely takes advantage of this opportunity. While taking classes to legitimize his talent, meeting people and forming connections to the snowboarding world, and snowboarding more than most people get to in a winter (and summer), Owen is taking snowboard bumming to a different level.

Deborah Chamberlain: Former Ski Bum

          Deborah Chamberlain is my old wellness teacher from my freshman and sophmore years. At some point while I was in her class, she had mentioned that she had lived at Killington (arguably Vermont's most prestigious resort) when she was younger. She was the first person that I interviewed for my senior project. We had lunch in her classroom one day at school and she told her story.
          Deborah became a ski bum when she was 18 years old (the 1980/81 season). After being accepted to North Adams State University (the closest Massachusetts state school to Killington), she decided to defer a year instead of jumping right into college. Her mother encouraged her to take the year off; her older sister had spent a winter at Waterville Valley just before going to college and felt like it served her well. Deborah wanted to stand out. She wanted to be different from her older sister. Instead of going to Waterville for her winter between high school and college (like her sister had done), she thought about going to Killington for her winter between high school and college. She nonchalantly mentioned the idea to two of her friends, Mary Ann and Elaine, and they were immediately on board. This idea that she had quickly became the plan, and Deborah was quickly becoming a ski bum.
          One autumn weekend, the three headed up to Killington in Mary Ann's station wagon, in search of jobs and a place to live. They walked into an inn at the base of the mountain, called Chalet Killington, and told the manager that they were looking for a job for the winter. This sight was nothing rare to the manager. These were three young women who want to spend the winter skiing at Killington, and they were willing to be "worked to the bone." After being hired, that is exactly what happened. They worked the breakfast and dinner shifts at Chalet Killington that winter as servers. The only servers. This meant they all worked split shifts everyday. The morning shift started at around 6 and lasted most of the morning. After a few hours to themselves, they had to return to the Chalet for the dinner shift. It was a lot of work, but they all felt that it was exciting and adventurous.
          Working at Chalet Killington makes being a ski bum easier for three reasons:
1. They pay you.
2. Split shifts everyday means that you are guaranteed at least a few hours of skiing on a daily basis.
3. The "Ski Bum Pass".
          The "Ski Bum Pass" is a season pass that the stores, restaurants, inns, etc. at the base of Killington sell to their employees at a very reduced rate. They include blackout dates, but they were during school vacations. This prevented ski bums from skiing while the mountain was covered with little kids and Joeys who drove up from Jersey for the day to do a bit of shreddin' (or fallin'). Most of the people who worked by Killington and had a "Ski Bum Pass" didn't mind the blackout dates; they got to ski the rest of the season while the mountain is empty, and make huge tips while the vacationers were staying at the, ever-so luxurious, Chalet Killington.
          After finding employment, the girls got themselves an apartment. They found one for rent at a good price, and at an even better location. The apartment was just off the access road to Killington; an 8 minute commute to Chalet Killington, and a 12 minute commute to the chairlift. This allowed Deborah to go take a few runs whenever she wasn't working, and go home. For her, going up to the mountain didn't take much effort whatsoever, which is not the case for most skiers. She didn't have to drive an hour to get there, and feel obligated to ski all day because of the amount of work it took just get to the mountain. If Deborah only wanted to ski three runs one afternoon, she could get a shuttle bus, drive the car that the three girls shared (if it was around), or hitch a ride to the chairlift, where she could take her three runs, and head home, in no time at all.
          Deborah got to ski from mid-morning through the afternoon, Monday through Friday, for the whole winter of 1980/81. She also had a season pass, which meant there was no waiting in line for lift tickets. Another advantage to having a season pass is that even without her discount through Chalet Killington, season passes cost exponentially less money than buying individual tickets. Deborah, Mary Ann, and Elaine took a shuttle from work after their breakfast shift, skied all day, and took a shuttle back to Chalet Killington to feed all of the hungry vacationers their dinners. It was exhausting, but they were living the life.
          For these girls, being a ski bum wasn't just about skiing. To them it was a life changing learning experience. They were learning how to live on their own for the first time in their lives, and looking back on it, Deborah describes that winter as being "eased into adulthood." Killington, as a resort, feels enormous. With six connecting peaks, a 4,235ft summit elevation (2nd highest in Vermont), and a 3,050ft vertical drop (2nd largest in the East), it is one of the biggest ski areas on the East Coast. Killington, as a community, feels microscopic. Once the girls' boss knew that they would be living right on Killington, he gave them phone numbers for almost all of their necessities. Fortunately, Deborah and her crew needed firewood, food, to have their driveway plowed, and not a whole lot else. Again, they were living the life.
          Once the season was over, Deborah headed home and got ready to go to college. She attended North Adams State that fall, but Mary Ann and Elaine had different plans. Elaine ended up falling in love and marrying Ken, from the kitchen at Chalet Killington. Mary Ann got a serious job at Killington and stayed there for about 10 years. Deborah got to go back to Killington during winter vacations off from college to stay with her old roommates, escape the college environment, earn some money working at the inn, and relax by the mountain for a few weeks, but it wasn't the same. Deborah would go back to school after breaks with a clear head and a stack of freshly earned cash, but she missed the freedom and independence of being a ski bum. To her, that one winter before college, where she got to work her tail off at a minimum wage job, live in a tiny apartment with a bunch of other people, and ski like there's no tomorrow, helped her define what it means to be truly free.

January 30th: Nashoba Freeride Series Slopestyle

The third competition of the season was the second round of the Nashoba Freeride Series. The first round was a rail jam, and the second was a slopestyle, so like the USASA competition, every feature in the park was used. As always, I would be taking still shots while Ciampa shot video.

The most noticeable aspect of the competition was the mood. Compared to the USASA slopestyle, this didn't even seem like a competition. The USASA comp started off with the competition director shouting out the rules and regulations, and what to do if you want to get kicked out. At the Freeride Series, the park crew stood in front of the competitors and went over the structure of the competition, told the kids what they were looking at while judging, and told everybody to have fun. Two different worlds.

I spent the day skiing around the park, getting different angles on different features so that Nashoba's websites would have a variety of photos from the competition. I would stand on the edge of features or on the edge of the trail and snap shots of the competitiors, drinking free Red Bull (thank you competition sponsors). Nobody minded that I was riding through the middle of the park in between runs and setting up right next to the features, everybody was just having fun.

January 23rd: USASA Slopestyle

Sunday, January 23rd was the first official USASA (United States of America Snowboard Association) Slopestyle competition. This meant that each competitor would have to be registered with the USASA before the competition, they would have to abide by USASA rules and regulations, they would be judged by official USASA judges, and their points and rankings from the competition would go towards their standings in the national competition. People from all over Massachusetts came to compete, ranging in age from under 10 years old to over 20 years old.

The competition took place in the Sundance Park at Nashoba, and since it was a slopestyle competition, they would be judged on their performance throughout the whole park. I mostly stood by the big jump so that I could get pictures of the really big airs, and it also had a good perspective on the rest of the park features. Every once in a while, I would take a run down to the bottom, ride up and take some pictures on the chairlift, and stop along at different features while I made my way back down to the big jump.

The Nashoba Valley Freestyle Team kids were clearing all of the jumps perfectly, obviously very used to the park setup. As usual, they were horsing around with each other before each drop, and were throwing snowballs at each other and their coaches (the park staff). The Wachusett Xtreme Team kids, however, weren't getting enough speed for the jumps most of the time, and either knuckling the jump or falling. They were having meetings with their coaches after each run to see how they could improve their score, and were dead serious before and after their runs. They were entirely focused on winning, but they weren't even getting enough speed to clear the jumps. At one point, a Wachusett team rider asked a park crew member, "people actually hit this stuff?" The park manager, Keith, brushed it off as a typical quote from a Wachusett rider.

January 16th: Nashoba Freeride Series Rail Jam

              I had heard about the rail jam from Matt Ciampa when I was just skiing for fun earlier in the week. I showed up at Nashoba at 9am ready to work. I went up to the office and saw Ciampa and Jon sitting at the long desk, side-by-side, watching footage for the website. Ciampa is a kid, maybe two or three years out of high school, who is the filmer and video editor for Nashoba's website. He has a similar job as me, only he goes all the time, he actually edits the footage together, and he gets paid to do it. Jon handed me the still camera, handed Ciampa the video camera, and we were off.

                I rode down the park, taking pictures of all of the features in the park so that Jon could update the website. Then I went to the first feature of the rail jam. The kids had an hour to warm up, and then the competition began. I hiked around the box, taking pictures of the competitors as they practiced. Everybody seemed to just be having fun and getting each other stoked; I could hardly believe that it was a competition.

                Once practice was over, the first round of the competitions went down on the flat-down box. There was a large range in age, from about 9-20 something years old, but everybody was throwing down impressive tricks. Obviously there were a fair number of kids who didn't really know what they were doing, but the amount of talent that was there performing was really incredible. I didn't expect to see the caliber of tricks that I ended up seeing at such a small mountain. After that round came round two on the doghouse box, then the final round on the "tank turret."

                After the competition, I took photos of the awards ceremony, where the first place winners were given their prizes, and random prizes were thrown in the air during the product tosses. All of the kids who competed were having a great time, and the park staff that judged the competition was having just as much fun.

                The final part of my day was going back to the office in the lodge to upload the photos to the mountain's server. I ended up taking something like 1200 pictures that day, so I deleted the useless pictures, and kept the good ones. Once I was done with that, the pictures were uploaded onto the official website and the park website.