Crazy For The Storm Part 20

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Surfing with Dad

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Dad

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With Mom and Dad

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Puerto Vallarta

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St. Anton

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St. Anton

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Ski race in the U.S.

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With Mom-same pair of blue Vans I wore February 19, 1979

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At grandparents' house, Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

CHAPTER 26.

WE LEFT TOPANGA Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m., headed for the championship race. My dad and I wore Levis and T-shirts, and Sandra had on a parka. I cramped in the back of the Porsche on top of my hockey bag with my sticks on the floor-ready for my game that night after the ski race. My dad and I sang country songs all the way to Big Bear while Sandra slept on her pillow against the pa.s.senger window. Sunday morning at 5:00 a.m., headed for the championship race. My dad and I wore Levis and T-shirts, and Sandra had on a parka. I cramped in the back of the Porsche on top of my hockey bag with my sticks on the floor-ready for my game that night after the ski race. My dad and I sang country songs all the way to Big Bear while Sandra slept on her pillow against the pa.s.senger window.

It was a clear day. The sun came up right over the Snow Summit ski resort, edging a pink halo behind the yellowish rotting snow. I had breakfast with the Mountain High ski team and realized during breakfast that I was racing for Mountain High today. When I asked my dad why, he said that in order to race in the Southern California Championships I had to be on a Southern California team, not the Incline team-even though I was from farther south than anyone else racing. My dad had arranged all this and in his typical fashion slid me into a whole new world as if it were just a minor detail. Without a fuss, without resentment, I reframed the situation, like Dad always seemed to do. Just a new name, the rest is the same: same gear, same mountain, same skis, same race. Looking at it like that was sure a lot easier than fighting it. At the end of breakfast Dad presented me with a fancy new Spyder race sweater to complete the transformation.

The snow had turned to solid ice over the last few days. By noon it would soften and my dad hoped they got the race going right away so that my second run wouldn't be in the slush. The course was set much like Squaw Valley-steep and tight.

At 9:30 I took my first run. My line was too aggressive, a bit c.o.c.ky, and I had to gouge the ice to make up for my poor angles. Still I was tied for first place with Lance, who was racing for Big Bear.

When the girls took their first run the sun was high and the snow was getting soft. Dad said there was a fast-moving shot of moisture coming in off the ocean, which was only eighty miles away. And by the time the girls were done I felt spindles of cool air wafting over the ridges and saw wispy clouds.

Come on baby, said my dad up at the clouds. Keep it cool for us.

After lunch ruffled blankets of c.u.mulus striped the sky and the cool breeze was steady, keeping the snow hard enough to be to my advantage.

Let it all hang out, Ollestad, said my dad.

Come in high. Nice smooth turns, Norman, said the Mountain High coach.

Racer ready, called the starter, who then began the countdown. I adjusted my goggles under the rim of my helmet. A deluge hit my bladder and I pinched my thighs together, catching it in time. I c.o.c.ked my wrists, guiding my pole tips over the wand and into the holes, arms stretched forward like Superman in flight.

Two...one...Go! said the starter.

My chest shot out between my hands and I drove my poles downward as my heels kicked back, rocking me onto my toes. My whole body launched off the pad before my boots tripped the wand. I came in high on the first gate. I brushed the gate and sliced up under it setting up my next turn. As the hill got steeper the ruts got deeper. My skis bent, uncoiling as I came out of the pockets, flinging me into the air. So I pulled my knees in on the next turn and felt my skis suck up the rut. One more gate to go, then the flush. I was well ahead of the turns and charged into the flush. Five quick edge changes-five quick turns through this tight section of gates. Slithering out of the flush the next rut bent 90 degrees, and when I hit it my kneecaps rammed my chin. Stars and the taste of blood. I was late into the next turn. Half blind, I chiseled my edges into the ice and abruptly released them, bouncing off the rut floor and into the air, losing some time in the process. When my skis touched down I set them on the proper line and spit out the blood before compressing into the next rut. Spit, compress, pivot the weight. Another jagged trough. Delicate edge work. Light as a cat. I found my way back into a good rhythm.

When I came through the finish line I choked on the blood. I coughed it up and spit onto the snow. My dad skied beside me. I looked up and his insatiable grin said it all.

Am I in first? I said to make sure.

Yep. Two more racers, he said. You okay?

I nodded. Lance's coming now, I said, pointing up the hill.

He whizzed through the flush and ka-banged into that gorge of a rut and was thrown back onto the tails of his skis-never regaining control all the way to the finish line. My dad and I swung around to the board. My combined time was faster.

The next racer hit the first rut on the top and I saw him flip over. D.Q.

My dad nodded. Looked down at me. His face was placid. His smile was gentle.

You won, Ollestad.

I raised my arms and spit more blood. We stared at each other. I saw him so clearly. The cranium shelf rising off his forehead b.u.mpy and uneven, the cl.u.s.ter of diamonds in the blue of his eyes fragile cracked windows, and I saw someone younger and full of grand ambitions and I thought about how he had wanted to be a professional baseball player. He looked at me as if into a mirror, studying me, like I was holding something that he admired, even desired.

Way to kick a.s.s, he said.

Thanks, I said.

The Mountain High coach skated over and patted me on the b.u.t.t.

Good skiing, he said.

He looked at me intensely too. It felt like there was a small fire in my cupped hands and everybody wanted to savor its heat.

Finally, I said.

CHAPTER 27.

I TURNED AWAY FROM TURNED AWAY FROM Sandra's body, shielded by twigs, and surveyed the landscape. From the crash site I had mapped out this elliptical ap.r.o.n and the tight gulch below it. I had to control my descent down the ap.r.o.n and, hopefully, forge that gulch, then I would find the meadow and, below somewhere in the woods, the road that would lead me to shelter. Sandra's body, shielded by twigs, and surveyed the landscape. From the crash site I had mapped out this elliptical ap.r.o.n and the tight gulch below it. I had to control my descent down the ap.r.o.n and, hopefully, forge that gulch, then I would find the meadow and, below somewhere in the woods, the road that would lead me to shelter.

As far as I could see the ap.r.o.n was perfect for my energy-saving technique of sliding on my b.u.t.t. Off I went. After a few minutes I realized that I was turning around markings in the snow-rock tips, b.u.mps, animal tracks, anything-and that I was whooping as if it was a slalom course. This playful whim struck me as careless so I stopped whooping, went straight, only turning to control my speed.

Nearly a thousand feet later the slope tapered into the gulch and the sides of the gulch rose like two tidal waves of rock about to slam together. I was deep in its heart. The pitch got steeper and I alternated between skimming on my a.s.s and flopping onto my stomach to cleat the snow with my sticks.

As I descended, the terrain mutated into uneven rock mixed with snow, and the pitch tilted close to 35 degrees. It was too dangerous now. I had to stay on my belly.

Slowing down gave the gathering night a chance to overtake me. Each methodical step and fingerhold over the broken ground became a ch.o.r.e. Soon both sides pinched so tight I was forced toward the creek bed. I had sensed it down there in the crevice and wanted to avoid it at all cost. Getting wet would surely slow me down. Might give me hypothermia.

I noticed shrubs squeezing from the rock and decided it was worth taxing my strength to get to them. I used cracks in the rock, wedging my frozen fingers into them to traverse the dicey overhang above the creek. I got hold of the shrubs and lowered myself as close to the creek's edge as possible. I was short by about two feet.

I eyed the transparent layer of ice coating the slurry of water that flashed beneath like schools of silver fish. Recalling how my dad almost froze when he had gotten wet during one of our backcountry powder adventures, I knew I had to stick the landing. Fall sideways, not backward, if you lose balance, I told myself.

Lowering my body, my hands slithered down the vine and I dropped. My feet plunged into the snow and I teetered backward. I forced myself to one side, landing on my hip, avoiding the creek. The buried foot did not release and I felt my knee tweak. I got up on my hands to relieve my knee. I pulled my feet out and started moving. The knee hurt but it worked.

The wall on this side was too vertical, and the bench of snow next to the creek was too narrow. So I jumped the four-foot-wide creek. The creek bench was only a foot wider on this side and I had to descend on my hip, with my back to the creek, facing the gulch wall. Using nubs in the gulch wall to control my speed I slid down on my hip-an unproven technique. A mistake here would be disastrous. Don't slip off this bench of snow, I warned. You'll freeze and that'll be the end.

I maneuvered my body into a chain of contortions, spidering the bench of snow between the gulch wall and the creek. A couple hundred feet lower I had staked out a landing site-a rock surface shaped like a bowl with no water in it. I hoped that either to the right or left of it there would be a needle hole through the bulwark of rock.

The tedium made my eyes dry and itchy, and I started to blink incessantly. Later I stopped in a good place and shut my eyes for a few minutes. Then I opened them to a.s.sess my progress. Not even halfway to that bowl-shaped rock, still over a hundred feet below.

I went back to the tedium of inch-by-inch, crag-by-crag, nail-by-nail progress. The minute details at my nose were my entire universe.

By the time I made it to the rock bowl it was noticeably darker. I scrutinized the clouds hoping they were the culprit. But they had dissipated in the gulch and hovered way up the sidewalls. Overcome with dread that ate away at my resolve, I succ.u.mbed to the numbness and exhaustion and hunger gnawing to be recognized. It hit me all at once and I plunked down onto the cold rock, whacking my chin against my knee. Just like when I rammed that gorge of a rut, I thought. If only I had wiped out during the race then I wouldn't have won that stupid trophy, and we wouldn't have gotten on the plane. This stopped my mind in its tracks and I rested down, as if to sleep.

I thought about my dad not allowing me to eat junk food. One particular time at my Pop Warner football team banquet, which Nick took me to, the coach tore open boxes of Snickers and Hershey and Three Musketeers bars and we all raced toward the feast. I had grabbed my favorite-a Three Musketeers-when my dad appeared out of nowhere. No way, Ollestad, he said. I cursed him and he told me he would always be there, even when I was sixteen on a date with a girl about to open a beer he would pop out from the backseat and say, Ah-ha!

Again my body reacted when my mind was too weary and I lifted up off the cold rock. I searched for the best way to proceed.

The gulch bent 90 degrees, leading toward a crack into a wider gully or canyon. But the rock floor just ended, a cliff for sure I thought. The other sides of the rock bowl climbed upward and integrated back into the ma.s.sive ridgeline. I had to go wherever the gulch took me.

On all fours I crabbed backward, following the rock floor. Below me the rock was shiny with patches of ice and I had no reason to believe there would be anything to hold on to once I went over the edge.

As I approached the edge I lay on my belly. Feet first, I wiggled over the brim. It was a dry waterfall, except to my far right where a vein of water poured down the face. The throat of the waterfall was composed of icy rock blisters stacked vertically. At least in the chute I had a chance of avoiding a collision if I slipped, but here the waterfall emptied into slabs of big and pointed shale about fifty feet below me.

There was no decision-making process. I had to go. So I went. Using the curved sidewall and whatever cracks I could find along the face to leverage between, I spread my limbs horizontally. I wormed my way down the face crease by crease, my numb fingertips and toe tips inexplicably culling the flaky holds and discovering tiny leverage points.

Then I dropped off the last icy rock onto the body-size chips of shale. I paused for a moment. The fog had lifted into the soupy clouds, I could see for hundreds of feet, and I was finally off the steeps. But I was running out of daylight. I took a couple breaths and labored forward. The meadow must be close.

CHAPTER 28.

MY DAD HUSTLED ME to the Snow Summit lodge and we put all our ski stuff in a locker. Then we went to the bar to get Sandra. to the Snow Summit lodge and we put all our ski stuff in a locker. Then we went to the bar to get Sandra.

When do I get the trophy? I said.

The ceremony's tomorrow, President's Day, he said.

But if I just get it now then we won't have to come back, I said.

That's not how they're doing it, he said. Plus you can train with the team tomorrow.

We entered the bar and Sandra was pretty buzzed. She wanted to stay the night.

Little Norman's got a hockey game, said my dad.

Well f.u.c.k, Norm, she said. Everybody stop. Just stop what you're doing, she announced to the bar. This little blond boy has a hockey game so the world has to stop.

We're leaving so come on, said my dad.