technique; gearheads beset over the minutiae of equipment and design; other skiers simply and singly preoccupied with the various attributes of terrain (piste, moguls, steeps, chutes, glades) or jargon-laden meteorology (orographic precipitation, upslope storms, pineapple expresses, katabatic winds). Some ski writers are consumed with the physics of snow itself, penning columns on crystal formation and configuration and the temperatures at which it happens; water content and related phenomena like rime, graupel, and sleet—even the angle at which the Earth leans away from the sun in order to cause winter (known as axial tilt, it’s 23.5 degrees). There are abundant places in which to explore these notions, including some twenty national and international ski and snowboard titles that clutter magazines racks in North America alone—more publications than those devoted to surfing, skateboarding, hiking, and climbing.
Evidence of this peculiar mania lies in a glut of “I’ve been there” me-bris: ski gear and roofboxes adorned with resort-logo stickers; hats constellated with ski-area pins; jackets hung with clattering collections of weather-worn lift tickets. Likewise, there’s no end to the bizarre collateral that says “I’m a Skier.” Bumper stickers announce, “I 1 Big Dumps” and “If Hell Freezes Over I’ll Ski That, Too.” Auto knick-knacks like license-plate brackets and seatbelt covers scream “Ski Utah” or “Ski Tahoe,” turning vehicles into rolling chambers of commerce for the mountain ranges of their drivers’ fancy.
What is it about this particular badge—one rarely encountered in other individual sports like surfing or climbing—that so appeals to skiers? Here’s a clue: since you don’t see stickers claiming “I’ve been to Rogers Pass” or other favored lift-free snow stashes, perhaps it has to do with skiing’s conspicuous infrastructure and the fact that ski resorts are—or once were—built to attract like-minded individuals. While in some cases skiing was merely grafted onto pre-existing mountain locations, in others whole towns have sprouted solely because of the sport.
Society makes it hard to live simply and in the moment, so ski aficionados of all stripes are usually making some kind of sacrifice to get their fix. Which is why ski bums take perverse pleasure in the identity of a couch-surfing, dumpster-diving existence; the greater the sacrifice, the richer the reward. Some hang onto the ideal their entire lives, proudly wearing it on their sleeves, while others cover it up with the onion skins of career, family, and other facets of existence. But like a jungle tribe suddenly forced to relocate to a city and wear suits, true ski bums never lose a sensitivity to the perceived threats to their simple traditions. The kind of threats that progress and development ultimately deliver.
Mike Berard, a writer, photo contributor, and one-time editor of Canada’s skier magazine, still has a self-confessed obsession with the ski-bum life that almost always finds its way into his columns and features.
“This rootsy, cool, vibrant part of my life really stands out now that everything’s more complicated,” he says, alluding to ski-bumming’s Peter Pan qualities. “When all you had to do was ski, or wake up to a shitty job you were only doing so you could ski, life was carefree and simple.
“I met a construction worker in Fernie, [British Columbia] who exemplifies the ski-bum dichotomy,” Berard continues. “He snowboards all winter, and in the off-season wants a job that lets him bank enough money to keep doing it. New construction projects give him that but . . . he doesn’t want to see too much new business bringing more tourists to town to steal his fresh tracks. Only it’s too late—the change is already there and he’s participating in it. Fernie has expanded a ton, and more citizens and tourists are what keep the mountain operating for guys like him.”
This unsettling trade-off is the new reality for most mountain towns, and it drives the most obsessed skiers into the unfettered realm of the backcountry, or to remoter towns where the tide of change hasn’t risen too high. “Itinerant” is part of the credo: ski bum and ski gypsy were always one and the same.
These notions are mined endlessly in ski media, and though much of skiing has become the aegis of the wealthy, even these folks can relate. Connecting with the ski-bum ethos is maintaining contact with the grass roots; celebrating the core and its dedication to gravity. Above all there is this: ski-bumming’s essence—the compelling human arc of struggle and survival to achieve a certain idealistic end— never grows old as a storyline.
The National Film Board of Canada’s 2002 Ski Bums, shot in and around Whistler, British Columbia, follows an eclectic cast of oddly nicknamed characters from their resort life to the high-alpine world beyond the ropes to investigate the attitudes and emotions of those for whom snow-riding isn’t just a way of life, but life itself. Although much is gleaned from the subjects’ candid comments, including how and why they regularly walk a tightrope between life and death in the mountains, the movie’s true charm lies in its depiction of cliché: an indigent ski bum living in a van or squat, eating peoples’ unfinished food in the lodge cafeteria; making soup from the free hot water, ketchup, and crackers available; and poaching the bathing facilities of high-class hotels.
Almost predictably, the filmmakers are ski bums themselves. Portraying this lifestyle is nothing new. Dick Barrymore’s 1969 movie, Last of the Ski Bums, followed a tradition begun by ski-film icon Warren Miller, who built a multimillion-dollar empire on the movies he churned out each year in Sun Valley, Idaho (where David and Jake Moe were also stationed when they started the ski bum’s bible, powder). Miller and his ski-bum buddies lived in tents and trailers, hunted (with guns) for food, and made pocket money where and when they could by instructing, shilling books of self-penned ski cartoons, and, eventually, touring Miller’s celebrated annual movies through ski towns. Though Warren is no longer personally involved, the fall classics bearing his name now play to thousands in every major city on the continent.
Ski bumming’s storied history reaches well back into the sport’s literary tradition and possibly as far as its modern roots. As author Peter Shelton has noted, “ski bum”—a decidedly postwar phrase first mentioned in Ski magazine in 1948 (“Inside Report: Ski Bums Wait Table, Ogle Heiresses”) and immortalized in a 1950 Life magazine pictorial set in Sun Valley (“Life Visits Some Ski Bums”)—quickly acquired succinct definition: anyone who wanted to ski so badly they were willing to give up anything to do so.2“The word bum came out of the Depression, but the meaning took a turn after World War II,” Miller is quoted as saying. “A lot of people hit the road then, and it was almost a badge of honor not to be locked into the 9-to-5 . . . The words freedom and ski bum are inextricably intertwined.”
In 1962, when skiing was still considered a fringe activity, Sports Illustrated published “The Oldest Ski Bum in the World” about New York–based Leon Vart, a Russian artist whose path began when he found a discarded ski in Moscow at age thirteen. He may or may not have been the oldest person, but his was a story emblematic of an esoteric subculture barely on the public radar as skiing and resort development entered their Golden Age:
‘Because I am poor, I must live among the rich.’ At 73, [Vart] can afford such candor. It’s about all he can afford, since ski bumming is a hand-to-mouth life . . . He relies on ingenuity (the next best thing to money) to get around and stay comfortably lodged. His lean, tall figure moves with ease and grace, though his blue eyes are faded from the glare of snow and sky. . . he has bartered his services as a painter, translator, correspondent, waiter, baby-and-dog-sitter, and ski instructor for the privilege of skiing in Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand and across the United States and Canada.3
Readers at the time likely saw Vart as a Beat Generation holdover, but today’s skier—rich or poor—would have little trouble recognizing a kindred spirit.
Arnold Lunn, an early doyen of British mountaineering who first skied in 1896 in Chamonix, France, made much of the superior sensations afforded by sliding down a mountain, an act he believed could turn even the tamest terrain into acceptable challenge if not sheer, heart-thumping
