How to ski backwards
I was the newest Weasel on the mountain and set off down to the lift station to get back up to my first job which I had no idea how to do
My initial introduction to Whistler’s famed Weasel Workers was a memorable one although, oddly, this is the first time I’ve ever written about it.
It was the winter of 1984-85, exactly 40 years ago, when I first arrived at Whistler, B.C. from the Yukon, hoping to land a job grooming ski runs to finance the subsequent summer season of prospecting for placer gold deposits in the Klondike and Atlin.
The newcomers that Yukoners call “cheechakos” are called “gorbies” in Whistler and I was the biggest gorby of them all. I had never skied before, yet landed a job as the first sports editor of the local weekly, the Whistler Question, and self-assigned myself the dubious task of writing a feature about the volunteers who prepared the local race course and called themselves “Weasel Workers” for reasons that will become obvious shortly.
It’s actually just a popular nickname. Their registered legal name is Coast Alpine Event Club.
The first Weasel I met was standing on the Orange Chair race hill looking up at the chairlift when I snow plowed up to him, introduced myself as a writer doing a piece on the Weasels and he said, “That’s nice. Are you here to write or work?”
I said “both” and he pointed up to the lift and said those big orange “Willy Bags” piled up there needed to be brought one at a time down the course to “The Toilet Bowl,” where a crew of young Weasels would attach them to the fence to keep the racers out of the trees.
“I’ll know when you finish that and will find something else for you. We can talk about your story when we stop for a lunch break at midday.”
Just like that, I was the newest Weasel on the mountain and set off down to the lift station to get back up to my first job which I had no idea how to do.
As I was standing there scratching my head, a middle-aged man who looked like a lawyer skied up with a radio and said: “You must be the gorby.”
When I asked him what was the technique for getting the bags down to the job, he replied with a straight face, “Easiest job on the mountain. Just grab one of the long ropes on either end, point your skis where you want to go and give ‘er. The bags work like a giant brake to hold you back.” Then I heard him say “Gorb on course” into his radio and everybody on the crew within sight stopped working to enjoy the show.
I pretty much knew within the first 10 seconds that I had just been pranked, which was a complete surprise. It was flat close to the lift but as soon as the big bag felt the exhilaration of gravity again, the party began.
It was directly behind me when I went into my high speed snow plow but was soon about to bowl me over, so I cut across the fall line, passed the rope behind my back and it narrowly missed me as it picked up speed and quickly spun me around backwards so I was facing uphill while the bag zeroed in on the target far below and picked up more and more speed.
There was no longer time to think so I just reacted much like getting sucker-punched. My faithful Coyote 200 skis, thinking on their own, formed a reverse snowplow which allowed me to get both edges into the snow in an out-of-control braking position but I had no way to bend my knees and apply pressure.
I was just trying to stay upright, slow the damn thing down and not fall over backwards, which would have made me drop the rope, not a viable option with five weasels starting to scatter downslope.
I was frozen in that reverse snow plow and felt my quads, hams and glutes ignite like they were on fire and about to blow up.
But, to my astonishment and amazement, the wooly mammoth actually felt like it was slowing down and gradually stopped with me still standing on the uphill side holding the rope, the proper position to be in to sideslip a Wooly Bag downhill.
I heard scattered applause in the distance and an unknown Weasel skied by saying softly, “Nice recovery,” and disappeared with a laugh.
And I’m proud to report, at nearly the age of 80, that I was a party pooper on my first day as a Weasel and continued the job as soon as I got my legs back. I spent the rest of the day moving all eight bags down the mountain to their Toilet Bowl destination.
And I never did find out the name of the lawyer who lied to me.
