The heart and soul of a ski bum

by Joe Foster

We all live where we do for reasons all our own. For those of us who live here, in the heart of the San Juans, those reasons generally boil down, simply, to place. We don’t live here to get rich. Many of us have chosen a life of relative poverty over a life of meaningless comfort and drudgery. We avoid situations that might require a tie, seeing them for the symbolic noose that they are. We scoff at fashion trends that flash across the media waves and rely on our own comfort to dictate what we wear. We work hard; many, if not most, of us working hard for multiple employers. As such, it’s difficult for us to get ahead, to invest, to own instead of rent. All this, a life of financial hardship and labor, so that we can be here, in this place, doing the things that are really worth living for. All you ski bums, river rats, trout bums, trail … tramps, cliff … hoboes … You’re here for immersion in a place of beauty, to find your niche and play hard enough for long enough that you become a part of the place you love.

Despite the differences you might have with your neighbor, you have both made similar choices, have you not? You’re both here, eschewing the drone’s suburban lifestyle to live on different terms than the American norm. Maybe you’re a waitress at three different bars, and your neighbor sells insurance. Maybe you keep your kayaks and raft frame in your living room and they keep their cadre of bikes in an actual garage. You deal with tourists who treat you like shit and then write letters to the editor about the crappy service they received in Durango, but your neighbor has to live with the fact that he or she sells insurance. We all have our trials that we face to be the bums that we are. Some bums drive nicer cars than others, but they’re going to the same trails. I digress a bit, maybe, dreading the divisiveness of the coming election year.

Anyway, Wayne Sheldrake is a guy that made the same choice so many of us have made. He became a ski bum. He lived for it, he breathed it, he suffered for it, and almost died for it. A few times. His book, Instant Karma, is a well-written, exciting, soul-filleting exploration of the decisions that led him to his present place in life. The sub-story of how he wooed, disappointed, lost and re-won the love of Vreni, his wife, is amusing and wonderful. All place-bums yearn for love and are poets and artists at heart. It’s no surprise to find a hopeful romantic nestled within the pages of Instant Karma.

Let me get one thing out of the way right now: I don’t ski. Don’t really even want to. There. So what? Sheldrake’s descriptions of some outrageously intense runs were exciting as hell, nonetheless. His exploits as a ski bum are funny and charming, and possibly a little perverse, but it’s his descriptions of skiing that bring to light his true joy and his true talents as a writer. I didn’t feel like I really needed to have experienced the things he writes about to understand or enjoy what he has to say, although, those of you who love skiing as he does, will read these passages like a lullaby.

Doing stupid crap for the sake of an increase in heart rate is fun and part of enjoying the outdoors. Sorry mom(s), but it’s true. (I just floated the Grand Canyon for three weeks in January. That has nothing to do with anything, really. I still keep trying to find ways to throw that into my conversations without being too overt, thus the parenthesis.) If you do it long enough and hard enough, you’re gonna get hurt. That’s just part of it. Sheldrake was no exception. His choice of lifestyle led to a life of physical pain, or at least long moments of it. On different occasions, he shattered his lower leg bones, his femur, pulverized his hip, and underwent open-heart surgery, all by his early thirties. The surgery part wasn’t necessarily directly related to skiing, but his description of the pain and the recovery, the small pringle can-shaped pillow that was his comfort in the depths of pain too strong for morphine are beautiful and heartbreaking. The moment he was able to ski again felt like the lifting of a curse.

Sheldrake writes like a guy with whom you’d like to share a beer. Great stories, self-deprecating humor, and taste for the more ludicrous things in life, he’s an entertainer. The wonderfully ridiculous amount of snow we’ve been getting lately makes Instant Karma the most perfect read I can think of. •