The Green Room

1:30 p.m.

As the finals are being held, the scene in the channel looks like Lake Havasu during spring break.

There are tons of boats, watercraft, yachts, a standup paddler, kayaks, two coast guard boats, a catamaran, a helicopter … and no waves. In the first 15 to 20 minutes of the finals, there was one lone wave.

It’s sunny, it’s beautiful. It’s more of a big party than a thrilling, scary, guys-cheating-death contest. That vibe was earlier in the first-round heats.

Now people are relaxing, enjoying the sun and the beers are out on a few of the boats, waiting for the next set.

The highly anticipated Heat 4 featured three former champions in Darryl “Flea” Virostko, Anthony Tashnick and Grant ‘Twiggy’ Baker, as well as Mav’s kingpin Peter Mel and consistent placers Zach Wormhoudt and Tyler Smith. Five of the six were from Santa Cruz, Baker from Durban, South Africa. Sure enough, Heat 4, didn’t disappoint. Aside from the final, it was the highlight of the contest.

Three-time champ Flea made a dramatic entrance, arriving 5 minutes late. He never checked in for the heat. People heard he was arriving when the heat started and alternate Ryan Augenstein has held back. Flea came speeding in on a jet ski, asking if anyone had any wax. He hopped out gets to the lineup 10 minutes late and got into the thick of it.

Flea went straight over the falls on the first wave that came his way and would back it up with another dramatic wipeout to lay claim to worst donuts of the day–although Evan Slater probably deserves a share of that honor for his multiple free falls in the pit.

Flea’s first wave came right to him. He paddled in late and tried to push down the face, perching himself practically on the tip of his board. He was suspended at the top of the wave for so long that once gravity finally started to help him out and get him down the face it was too late, and Flea just free fell and went down with the lip.

On his next wave, the biggest of the heat, he split it with Baker. Baker went right and Flea went left. Flea’s backside drop was epic, leaning back on his back foot, looking like he was in some advanced yoga position and somehow sticking it and getting a long ride to the inside.

The third wave Flea took was his second gruesome wipeout. Again the wave came right to him. This time as he dropped his fins caught for a second and it looked like he might make it, but then his board slipped out from under him and he went skipping down the massive wave face on his back, like a pebble.

Flea would finish last in his heat despite charging as hard as ever. The three-time champ was his normal, unique self, arriving fashionably late and entertaining everyone in the channel with his antics.

On Friday night, Flea is reported to have shown up at the competitors meeting wearing a goofy tie and carrying a reporter’s notebook. Witnesses said he paid rapt attention and was taking vigorous notes, or, possibly, pretending to take vigorous notes.

After his opening round performance, Flea was towed in to a flotilla of friends on skis, including Anthony Ruffo, on a tin, rusty fishing boat spraypainted The Compassion. I can’t see the boat in the water any more as the finals are being held. Looks like they split.

Flea boards “The Compassion” after his opening round heat, with skipper Ruffo at the helm.

I’m on the boat. A couple early observations midway through the second heat:

With the swell already peaked the night before and the tide filling in quickly, the waves are kinda small for Maverick’s. I’ve got an urge to paddle out, but then an outside set wave will come through and call bullshit on me.

When we arrived before daylight, cars were already in overflow parking along Highway 1. While perhaps not as large as last year, when some 50,000 stormed the beach at Pillar Point, the crowds still haven’t heeded organizers’ advice to stay away. There are spectators packed all along the bluffs and beach and even along an eroded section of the cliffside.

Event producer Keir Beadling told me that the contest website is adding 1,000 viewers per minute on the free webcast. By 9:30 a.m. they had reported 30,000 viewers.

Boat watch: J.T. Snow, Eric Byrnes and F.P. Santangelo are among celebrity fans out on boats in the channel. Snow (above) in particular seemed to be enjoying the big waves.

Stay tuned…

See ‘The Science of Mavericks,’ with Grant Washburn, from San Francisco PBS station KQED.

The life of a professional big-wave surfer isn’t all nonstop adrenaline, glamour and glory. Just ask Santa Cruz’s Anthony Tashnick.

Thursday evening, Tashnick was sitting at a bar in the Portland airport, drinking a Bloody Mary and feeling utterly exhausted.

“I got here at 5 in the morning and I’m flying back tonight,” Tashnick said. “My girl is picking me up in San Jose at 10 and then I’m just going to try and get some sleep.”

After getting word that the Nelscott Reef Tow-in Classic was set to run Friday, Tashnick and tow partner Osh “Frog” Bartlett loaded up their truck with gear and left Santa Cruz with jet ski in tow at noon Wednesday, headed for the contest site in Lincoln City, Ore.

After a 17-hour marathon drive, the pair finally reached their destination in the early hours.

“It was a heavy drive,” Tashnick said. “We got stuck in a snowstorm going over Grant’s Pass and were stuck for hours.”

For all their efforts, Tashnick and Bartlett were greeted with howling South winds thrashing the surf and a poor forecast.

“It’s snowing and raining up here, there’s huge chops on the ocean, both Oregon buoys are broken,” Tashnick said. “It’s not even surfable right now.”

Then Tashnick got the call that Maverick’s had been given the green light to run Saturday, at which point he quickly changed his plans, rushed to the airport, and hunkered down dazed and confused at the airport bar waiting for his flight home.

Tashnick wasn’t the only Maverick’s invitee who had to turn back after making the long drive North. Peter Mel and the Smith brothers, Russell and Tyler, were in a two car caravan about half way between Santa Cruz and Lincoln City when they received the call from Maverick’s contest director Jeff Clark that the contest was a go for Saturday.

“Yeah I’m stoked I’m home now so I can actually take a shower,” Russell Smith said Thursday fresh off the road. “It was dumping snow flakes the size of golf balls up there. We made it close to the Oregon border, basically halfway, when we got the call from Jeff.”

Eleven of the 24 invitees to this year’s Maverick’s contest were also scheduled to compete in the Nelscott contest on Friday, and all of them decided to forego the event in favor of competing at Maverick’s, Clark included.

“We knew going in Maverick’s could be one issue, and it was,” said Nelscott contest founder and organizer John Forse. “We knew where everybody’s loyalties lied. The one conflict we were concerned about happened. It’s not Jeff’s fault, It’s not our fault. Jeff didn’t have it last year, so he really wanted it to happen, and we did too. … Plus, they have a bigger prize purse than us.”

“You kind of feel like the girl no one asked to the dance. … But I’ve dealt with worse rejection. The bottom line is, these guys are paddle surfers first, and I kind of like that.”

Forse said he didn’t foresee the conflict between contests stifling the future of mainland America’s only tow-in event.

“Will it affect the future of the contest? I don’t think so,” Forse said. “They just want to surf. … That’s what I hoped when we put the contest together. It’s not like a contest, it’s like a bunch of buddies surfing together.”

The big swell forecast to hit Northern California this weekend was just too promising for Clark to resist. Less than 24 hours after Clark reportedly told Mav’s invitees that the contest would not be held over the weekend, Clark and fellow contest organizers decided they couldn’t pass up a potentially golden opportunity and decided to run the prestigious big wave event after all on Saturday.

Despite having to make a 14-hour drive for nothing, Smith said he agreed with the call.

“Oregon is fickle,” Smith said. “It’s gotta be early season in order to have that contest. I hope the best for them if they’re still planning on doing the contest, but Jeff and Twiggy [Grant Baker] said it was supposed to be pumping. With the direction, it looks like it’s gonna be a sunny, nice, paddle day. I think they made a really good call.”

Meanwhile in Hawaii, talk of running The Eddie at Waimea Bay this weekend has also been circulating and event sponsor Quiksilver sent out a press release saying it was eyeing Sunday for a possible green light.

By all accounts the large West-Northwest swell lining up across the Pacific off of Japan appears to be the product of the perfect storm by big-wave contest standards. With three of the most prestigious heavy water events all threatening to go off at the same time, what’s a big wave surfer to do?

For Tashnick, it’s a no-brainer.

“Nelscott is a pretty good wave and for other guys it might be Waimea, but Maverick’s means more to me,” he said. “For me, Mav’s is like the Super Bowl.”

It’s official. The Maverick’s surf contest has been given the green light.

Now 24 of the world’s best big wave surfers have approximately 24 hours to make it to the legendary break in Half Moon Bay by early Saturday morning, when the event’s opening heat is scheduled to run.

“We have a really good swell coming at us with great weather,” contest director and Maverick’s pioneer Jeff Clark said Thursday. “All the Santa Cruz guys are around, the South Africans are here, a lot of guys are still on their way, and we’re stoked.”

Clark said that, based on the current buoy readings, he is expecting to see waves of 30 feet on the face for the contest.

Click here for a slide show of the 2006 event!!!

“Not the biggest Maverick’s,” he said, “but 30-foot Mav’s is no pushover either. I think we’re going to see some really high-performance big-wave surfing out there.”

The decision to hold the contest this weekend was a delicate one because another big wave contest, the Nelscott Reef Tow-in Classic, was scheduled to run Friday, taking advantage of the same big swell. Eleven of the 24 invitees to the Maverick’s contest are also invited to compete in the Nelscott event.

Anthony Tashnick of Santa Cruz, the 2005 Mavericks champion, is one of those 11 surfers. Tashnick had already made a 17-hour drive up to Oregon when he heard that the Mavericks Contest had been given the green light. He elected to hop a Thursday night flight back home in order to be ready for Mav’s.

“It’s gonna be way better at Mav’s,” Tashnick said while waiting for his flight in the Portland airport Thursday night. “This swell is a straight west. Mav’s is going to be big and gnarly with perfect conditions.”

Contest organizers are urging big-wave surf fans to steer clear of the break off Pillar Point Harbor on contest day in an effort to reduce the impact of massive crowds on the sensitive coastal environment.

Clark said that spectators will have a better viewing experience by taking advantage of the numerous live broadcasts planned for Saturday, instead of squinting to see the action out at the break a half mile offshore.

Clark plans to have a live feed of the contest broadcasting at the Mavericks Surf Shop in Princeton. Fans can also head to AT&T Park in San Francisco, where a live feed will be shown via the jumbotron. A live webcast is also available online at www.maverickssurf.com.

Opening heats are slated for 8 a.m. with four six-man rounds of 40 minutes each. The semifinals will follow, with the finals loosely scheduled for 1:30 p.m.

This is the sixth running of the event. Santa Cruz surfers have won four of the first five titles, with the Westside’s Darryl “Flea” Virostko taking the first three, followed by Tashnick in 2005.

South African surfer Grant Baker is the defending champion, after coming out of nowhere to top the field in February 2007 in the best conditions the event has seen.

This year’s event boasts a $75,000 prize purse, with $30,000 for first place, $12,000 for second place, $7,500 for third place, $3,500 for fourth, $2,500 for fifth and $1,500 for sixth place.

The big swell forecast to hit Northern California this weekend was just too promising for Mavericks Surf Contest director Jeff Clark to resist. Less than 24 hours after Clark allegedly told Peter Mel and other Mav’s invitees that the contest would not be held on either of the back to back WNW swells scheduled to hit the West Coast Friday through Sunday, Clark and fellow contest organizers decided they couldn’t pass up a potentially golden opportunity and have decided to run the prestigious big wave event after all.

While the official announcement has yet to be made and the status bar on the contest’s website has yet to be switched from yellow to green (as of Thursday evening), an unidentified source at Mavericks Surf Ventures has verified the rumors that have been swirling around the entire surfing world for the last 48 hours that, indeed, the 2007/08 Mavericks Surf Contest will be held this weekend. According to the inside source, the contest is slated to run this Saturday, January 12th.

An official press release is expected some time early Friday morning, allowing for the minimum 24 hours notice.

The last minute change of plans threatens to throw a wrench into the contest campaigns of a number of Mav’s invitees who had already begun making the long drive/flight to Oregon with gear in tow to take part in the Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic. In fact, 11 of the 24 invitees to this year’s Maverick’s contest are also scheduled to compete in the Nelscott contest, which it was announced Wednesday would be held on the very same swell Clark had his eye on for Maverick’s.

Essentially, both contests have now been called for the same swell. Nelscott is scheduled to run Friday when the swell peaks in Oregon, and Maverick’s is planned for Saturday when the brunt of the swell should max out in Northern California. Meanwhile, a number of big wave surfers slated to compete in both contests–and are scattered around, with some in Oregon, some still hanging around Northern California, and some waiting at airports deciding where to fly to–are now stuck scrambling to decide which event to surf in. Some are reportedly even trying to work out the logistics in an attempt to pull off the unthinkable–compete in Nelscott on Friday, then catch a red eye flight to SFO and make it to Maverick’s by early Saturday morning in time for their opening heat.

Stay tuned to the Sentinel and continue checking The Green Room for up-to-the-minute updates on everything you need to know for the Mavericks Surf Contest.

The 2007/08 Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic is officially ON! Contest directors are anticipating a long awaited break in the stormy weather and hurricane force winds that have assaulted the Oregon coast relentlessly with every large swell so far this winter. 

The contest is scheduled for this Friday, January 11th, when a massive WNW swell is scheduled to hit the Oregon coast and build throughout the day, while a storm front clears out and light SE winds (hopefully) help clean up the waves. The Sentinel will be sending its team up to Oregon for the event so stay tuned to the paper and The Green Room for all the latest news, footage, and results.

Right now elite tow-in teams from around the world are boarding planes, prepping their gear, loading up trucks, trailers and skis and heading to Lincoln City, Oregon. Contestants have 48 hours to make it to Nelscott Reef by Friday morning. Click here for the full list of contestants.

With a series of large WNW swells stacked up in the Pacific, many of the invitees were waiting to hear if other big wave contests might be called for the same swell.

Apparently Santa Cruz tow partners Peter Mel and Ryan Augenstein were ready at the drop of a hat and began motoring North from Santa Cruz with all their gear as soon as word broke Wednesday of the contest green light, but then stopped the trip a couple hours outside of Santa Cruz to make sure Jeff Clark wasn’t planning on running the Maverick’s contest.

Mel made a cell phone call to Clark, who then apparently made his decision over the phone not to hold the contest at least through the weekend, despite a very promising and large WNW swell forecast to hit Friday with good conditions, and another, slightly smaller swell but also with good conditions, scheduled to hit on Sunday. Read the full story in the Sentinel here.

Talk of running The Eddie at Waimea Bay this weekend has also been circulating. Read about it here.

With heaps of large swell lined up across the Pacific, and prestigious heavy water contests threatening to all go off at the same time, what’s a big wave surfer to do?

Below is the Nelscott Reef event’s official press release…

PRESS RELEASE
January 9, 2008
Behemoth LLC changed the contest status today to green as a large swell is forecast for Friday January 11, 2008. The third annual Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic will be held in Lincoln City, OR on this Friday.

It looks as if the decision to extend the holding period until March 31st was a good one. The forecast for Friday calls for light winds out of the SSE, and a long period swell. The swell will build throughout the day peaking at 20′ at 18 seconds.

“This is the first real swell of the season that is not combined with hurricane force winds. It should be bigger than the past two years, which were held in 14′ and 16′ swells”, said contest founder John Forse.

The Nelscott Reef Tow in Classic operates under a three month holding period. Forse is looking for the right combination of swell and wind - large swell and light or no winds. On the few days a year that these conditions occur, the waves at Nelscott Reef can be epic.

Usually plagued with short lived swells, The Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic is looking at 3 days of solid waves. The swell should remain in the 20′ range through Sunday afternoon, allowing a little breathing room for the contest organizers. If conditions do not pan out on Friday, the contest will be pushed to Saturday or Sunday. Either way, the contest will be held this weekend.

Nelscott Reef’s web page has all the latest information and updates, as well as a real time traffic light for contest status, which is now showing green. Visit www.nelscottreef.org for all the latest information.

The Nelscott Reef Tow In Classic is the only tow in contest on the North American continent and Oregon’s only professional surf event. It is also the only tow in contest to be certified carbon free by Carbonfund.org.

A couple of years ago a family friend, Judy, gave me a beautiful old single-fin surfboard that belonged to her late husband John. John was a surfer throughout the sixties, seventies and eighties until he passed away from cancer. Judy had held on to all of her husband’s old boards and they represented a lot of fond memories. The single-fin was the only one she ever gave away. I was honored.

I promised that I would take good care of the board, fix it up, and one day ride it. The problem was that it needed a lot of work, repairs well beyond my tiny rail ding and Solarez capabilities. So the board, still beautiful, just sat in my garage for the last two years collecting dust.

Occasionally, when I grab one of my thrusters in my regular rotation from the garage, the light from outside will reflect off the single-fin’s heavy glass job, and the beautiful triple stringer, and the blue glassed-on fin, and will make me want to take it out and give it a spin. When I look at the single-fin and visualize riding it, I get a fast, loose, butterfly feeling in my stomach.

But then I’ll remember that if I take it out in its present condition it will be ruined forever, water logged with ten extra pounds of saltwatery-soaked foam.

To say the fish is in need of a little TLC would be an understatement. Full on rehabilitation is more like it. There are so many dings on the poor thing I don’t know where to begin. Rail dings, nose dings, deck dings, many patched with black electrical tape of all things. God knows who did that, certainly it wasn’t John.

Like any old fish, the two swallow points on the tail are both ground down and chipped pretty bad. The big, beautiful blue-glass fin also seems to be a little fragile where it meets the bottom of the board, and there is a mound of more black electrical tape bound around here as well.

Just describing all these dings makes me feel like an unfit surfboard steward, undeserving of such a beautiful vintage board. Really, I’m a terrible caretaker. If there was a surfboard equivalent of Child Protective Services, the single-fin most certainly would have been confiscated from me after so many years of neglect. But that’s why I decided to come clean about it. It’s time I did right by this board.

The sheer volume of work needed is probably what has prevented me from just rolling up my sleeves and getting started. The other reason is because I don’t want to ruin a beautiful vintage board with my amateur ding repair skills.

There are no dimensions visible anywhere under the glass. It’s possible they were painted over in the black or blue of the board, forever to remain a mystery. It can’t be any larger than 5′5″ or 5′6″ max. It has a very flat outline with hardly any rocker. The rails are thick like a longboard but hold a sharp edge almost the entire length of the board. The leash plug is made of resin. My favorite feature of the board is the triple stringer, one straight down the middle of the board and two coming up at an angle from the two tips of the swallow tail. The three lines meet in an apex at the blunted, fishy nose of the board.

The decal is one of the most modest I’ve ever seen, simply “The Brotherhood” in small, conservative type in the middle of the board. It looks like it was written onto the board with a typewriter.

One time I took it in to see if the guys at the Haut Shop could tell me anything about its origins, but nobody was certain who might have shaped it or where it came from.

The coolest thing about old surfboards is that they carry with them an entire history. This just isn’t the case with many modern boards which are mass produced overseas, shaped mostly by a machine, and often wind up in a landfill within a couple years (sometimes months!).

Sometimes I try to imagine who designed the board. Who crafted it. Who mowed the foam and where. Someone’s garage? A busy shaping bay in Southern California? Who painted it and put the white racing stripe along the outline of the rails. Where John rode it. Pleasure Point in the seventies? Empty Ano Nuevo? Who else might have ridden it before him and what exotic locations might the board have traveled to. Did he ever get this short, stumpy, rockerless thing inside the tube?

In my mind I can create and recreate an entire historical narrative on the life of the old Brotherhood single-fin, precisely because I know nothing about its past.

But my curiosity is too much and now I’m determined to trace the genealogy of the board. I’ll try talking to experts around town and sending photos out to board historians via email. Hopefully I can find out who shaped it, when and what they were going for at the time, and maybe even talk to them.

If anyone has any info on The Brotherhood surfboards, please let me know.

I’m also finally going to bite the bullet and try and do the repairs myself. Who cares if they aren’t perfect? John’s board will ride again.

Just got back from New Year’s in the Sierras. I ushered in 2008 with a large group of friends and family at a cabin near Bear Valley and now I can cross off a number of items from my holiday to do list: partake in New Year’s Eve debauchery in a safe, friend-filled environment, experience the beauty of the Sierras in winter, and, of course, enjoy my annual snowboarding session.

I don’t consider myself a snowboarder at all–heck, I can count the total number of days I’ve boarded on just two hands. I usually only go once a year, sometimes once every two years. I don’t own my own gear and I usually borrow stuff or rent (thanks to Andy and Ski Shop Santa Cruz for the quality gear hookup!). With a surfing foundation, I find the transition to boarding pretty easy, and after an hour or so of getting my mountain legs back I can usually go down an average black diamond run at a leisurely pace.

While I always have fun every time I go up, I invariably find myself thinking about how I enjoy the surfing experience more than the skiing/snowboarding experience. For me, nothing can beat a good surf session for pure stoke and exhilaration.

My girl on the other hand loves to board and we have an ongoing debate about which board sport is superior. She says that I would like snowboarding way more if I went more often and actually scored good conditions (i.e. fresh powder, instead of the Sierra cement I seem to wind up relearning in every year). This makes a lot of sense. Who would be so dedicated to surfing if the best session they ever scored was small, crumbly, onshore closeouts, right?

Of course, it all comes down to personal preference (as well as which sport you grew up doing more of, which is often based on whether you grew up near the beach or the mountains). And many board sport enthusiasts like both sports equally and practice both.

But I’ve chosen to ignore all that and focus on all the reasons I prefer to ride the waves over the mountain. Sorry in advance to all those hardcore boarders out there who happen to stumble upon this. Feel free to let me know why surfing sucks. Here it goes…

1) You don’t have to pay for a lift ticket every time you want to go surf. And with your average lift ticket costing around $40 to $60 that’s a big deal. Call me cheap, but I could drive around checking the waves from here to Rincon with that dinero. Yeah, you can get a season pass, but then you have to go to the same resort(s) every time and you’re blacked out half the time. I wouldn’t want to be stuck surfing the Lane every day either.

2) Crowds. Don’t get me wrong. There are plenty of surfing lineups that are as crowded as downtown New Delhi. But at least surfers around Nor-Cal go to great lengths to try and heed the words of the Three Stooges and “spreeeead out” (e.g. dawn patrol, secret spots, drive to out-of-the-way, sharky spots, etc.) to get some waves to themselves. With surfing you have that option and potential to score some empty waves. Skiers and snowboarders all congregate at the same spots by default–ski resorts–so “empty” is never an option. Also, because lifts can service anyone regardless of skill level, you see more beginners mixed in with advanced riders. Often it seems like you can never lay down any good carving lines because you will end up nailing someone. You can try to hit up the tree runs when there is good powder and escape the crowds, but that’s increasingly rare here in CA.

3) The scene. Sure, surfing has sold out. But snowboarding is full on Hollywood. Both sports have become commercialized and exploited to a point far from their counter cultural origins and both are now used to market products to mainstream consumers. But when you snowboard you have to see it up close and personal, whereas when you surf you can try and avoid it (unless you surf in Huntington Beach). At the ski resort everyone is wearing the latest trendy, baggy snowsuit emblazoned with edgy skulls/grenades/graffiti art and whenever you aren’t actually riding down the mountain you are being sold overpriced stuff by the resort.

4) You can’t get a tan. I’ve been surfing in Nor-Cal all my life so I don’t get a tan either, but at least I can hop on a plane to somewhere tropical and score a tan while I surf. Furthermore, I’d take a wetsuit tan over a goggle tan any day–the goggle tan is feakin’ goofy looking, plus if you called in sick to hit the slopes then everyone will know you lied.

5) You don’t need all that gear when you surf. Snowboarding requires so much costly gear I feel like freaking MacGyver when I leave the car and walk towards the lift. Board? check. Bindings? check. Boots? check. Trendy, name-brand snow-wear? check. Goggles? check. Helmet? check. Gloves? check. Walkie Talkie?….

6) You can go surfing however many times you feel like it without having to shell out for another lift ticket. Kind of the same as reason number one, but also you can surf at all hours, even at night under a full moon. This also makes the experience more relaxed and enjoyable. When you snowboard you feel like you have to charge all day nonstop to get your money’s worth before the resort closes.

7) Surfing is done in a natural environment.To quote Doc Renneker, “Once you leave the shore, you’re in the wilderness.” Seals, otters, dolphins, sharks, birds, kelp forests. Every time you paddle out you’re entering Neptune’s Kingdom. The waves are really just the icing on top of the cake. Skiing is nice with the snow dusting the pine trees and all and you get beautiful views of the mountain ranges in all directions at the top of a lift, but I can’t help but feeling like I’m playing around inside a little snow globe. The environment is completely manicured, large sections of treeline have been clear cut for runs, and massive condo developments, hotels, lodges, etc. accompany all the cables and towers of the lifts built into the side of the mountain. It’s not really natural and I don’t get the same buzz of being in the wilderness.

8) You can surf year-round.

9) Surfing provides more exercise I can’t prove this. I guess I could get a heart monitor or something, but does anyone really care? All I know is I get way more aerobic workout paddling back out, dodging sets on a good day at O.B. than coasting to the lift, waiting in line, and sitting on my butt as I’m carted back to the top of the mountain again.

10) You can’t get tubed on the mountain. ‘Nuff said.