36 Ski Terrain Park. Song: “Come Back Liza”. Photo; Moon Over Breckenridge.

It took me from 1990, until 2006, to convince myself that I had “earned” a vacation after working 12 years full-time for my parents in Naples, FL (with no time off). It had been over 15 years since I was able to enjoy my favorite sport of skiing, and I finally had the means to be able to ski. So, I decided to drive north toward the Vermont/New York/New Hampshire ski areas where I had played, for example, five days per week at the Sugurbush Inn in 1980 for the whole winter season (that’s a whole story in itself). However, because a huge snowstorm brought traffic to a standstill, I detoured west, and didn’t stop until I reached the Rocky Mountains! I took the I-70 exit toward the town of Breckenridge, CO, and it turned out to be the perfect place to have happened upon.

It was Christmas Eve when I arrived in Breckenridge. My first two trips to Breck were alone, and my third season was with my wife. I went looking for a church where I could attend a Christmas Eve service, and when I drove up from the main street on the third cross street (each street went slightly higher up in elevation), I saw a small picturesque church with a nearly full parking lot. It was the Father Dyer Methodist Church. From their parking lot, I could see that the whole town was all lit up with lights strung on all the trees in town. It was snowing with no wind, and the moon illuminated the thick flaked snow as it gently drifted into the church lot. It was just like a snow globe that had been lightly turned over, and quickly back again.

The Christmas Eve service was in progress, and I wanted to just quietly go in and sit in the back of the church. However, I wasn’t sure what door to use, to go in, so I chose one and, when I opened the door, I walked up the stairs, and into the church. I found myself standing right in front of the entire congregation! AND, there was no place for me to sit at all! I had clean black pressed pants on (velvet pants), and a black velvet tux suit coat with a white turtle neck, and was standing comfortably in front of everyone. I must have been mistaken for one of the ushers because, much to my surprise, someone handed me an empty large gold offering plate. I noticed that there were three big golden plate-bowls, but only two lady ushers. So, because I’ve sung in church choirs all of my life, and was familiar with church liturgy, I naturally went with the flow, and helped collect the offering. When I finished helping collect for the whole main body of the church, I followed the other usher who was the second young lady with an offering plate who went with me in the main body of the congregation. I found myself standing with her just inside the main front entrance (the door I probably should have entered through) of the church. We were both holding very full offering plates, and when I glanced over at her, she had a panicked look on her face, as though she had absolutely no idea what to do next with her offering plate! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It looked like she was planning on slipping out of the front door with the offerings! (I think that they usually had collected the proceeds from the main body of the church, by putting the smaller third offering plate by the minister, but walking out the front door with the two from the main body of the church!) I simply reached out and took her plate, and walked them both to the front of the sanctuary while everyone was bowed quietly in prayer. I placed them behind the lectern where the minister was still reciting her prayer, and placed them with the third plate which was from the small side of the congregation. I found a place to sit (people snuggled over to make room for me), and sat in the front row of the congregation for the remainder of the service. After the service, the man who was on the church board of directors was in the office counting the totals for the service, and he informed me, privately, that things were going to be done differently from now on.

In the next days (instead of skiing), I fixed the Father Dyer sound system by taking apart the mixing console, and cleaned it, which repaired any glitches in the sound system, and in the speakers, which cleaned up the sound dramatically. The man on the church board was so apparently happy that I fixed the crackling sounds in the speakers, that he gave me permission to park my RV right outside the choir room downstairs door, as well as plug in my extention cord for heat, all night, every night for the whole season, as long as I was left by early morning, and didn’t park in the lot on Sundays. I thought that I had made it to heaven, and naturally started going to choir practices every week, joined the choir, and attended their services just like I have always done wherever I happened to be, for 16 years in a row. I loved singing in the Father Dyer Methodist Church choir, and for the next two winter seasons I sang in the Breckenridge choir whenever I could. After I got married, I brought my wife to Breck (who also joined the choir), and volunteered playing on the grand piano four hours per night at “One Ski Hill Place” in “The Living Room” restaurant which is right at the bottom of of the ski slopes at Peak nine. It was exactly what I had missed ever getting to do at Brandywine… playing the piano. Playing when my wife was with me, and getting to ski, too, made me feel that my life was complete.

I became familiar with the skiing at Breck, and every time I rode the chairlifts on “Peak Nine” I saw avid skiers sailing over those three jumps near the top of the Breckenridge Terrain Park (you can see the second of those three jumps, in the photo below). There are also two larger jumps at the bottom of the hill which I so often went over that I got used to them, too.

Jumps like these just weren’t around when I was growing up. Before the awesome giant lip-like mogul jumps in the photo above which I quickly found at Breck, and fell in love with, my only other try with a similar kind of jump was at ski area Peak and Peak. It was in the late 1960’s after racing in my finals of the “Budweiser Cup” slalom race I was in. I was 16, and had been given permission only to drive straight from where I worked at Brandywine in Ohio, to be in this race at Peak and Peak Ski Area, and straight back. It must have been a time when my father needed to be sure that I was gone, because I was working for him non-stop 7 days a week all winter. The lifts at Peak and Peak had just closed, and it was close to dusk… so this was my last run down (and my last chance to try this jump). I was disqualified on my second race run because for some reason, I blew out of the course. I was never permitted to take any of the weekly racing classes at Brandywine (because I always had to be clocked in, and working), but I was permitted to race in the races, and got to drive to this last race, because I had remained in the top scores with all of the other racers my age and older, like Cory Miller, Bert Fisher’s, and George Mayor’s kids, all season long. As it neared closing time, It was snowing thick wet “corn” snow, and it would soon be dark. Every time that I slid off the chairlift, I would ski right past a trail with a rope across it that had a wooden sign hanging which read, “closed”. Near the top of this trail beyond it, about 30-40 feet beyond that rope, I could see that there was a large man-made jump, and I had been eyeing this jump on every run all day long (it was a lot like the one in the picture above). Every time that I got off that chairlift, I was determined to go over it. I had never seen one like that anywhere before, and now I had stopped and waited until all the lifts shut down, and most everyone had gone down the hill, so I knew there was no more skiing for me that day, so that was when it would be my very last chance to try that jump, and I think that this was one of the stupidest decisions that I’ve ever made in my life. Unfortunately, the landing wasn’t steep for landing safely, but I had seen kids going over it while holding their knees, so realized that it was a “flip” jump. This was my very first time trying a flip jump. I knew that it would have been ridiculous to make a normal jump going straight over it (because you’d go so high up in the air that, when you landed, you’d land way too hard, hurting your feet, or worse). So, I decided that, instead of leaning way forward and into it while going over it like I was quite used to doing, instead, I’d lean way backward, doing a full non-twisting back flip, while looking for the ground, all in the effort to stay lower so when landing I’d get less air, and be facing forward. I thought (erroneously) that by leaning way backward while going over it, that I wouldn’t fly up as high in the air… Thus, when I landed, I’d be moving with more of a smooth, circular, forward momentum. Wrong… It was just like Newton and the apple. It was straight up, stall, and straight down, just like gravity! I figured that doing a back flip in “layout” position would be the easiest, but when I jettisoned over, I only made it half way around through my back flip because the weight of my heavy skis (yellow Hart Swivel Sticks 170mm with aluminum Look Nevada bindings) and my heavy boots, both unweighted me, stopping me while straight upside down. My feet went up while my head went down, and I remained stalled, landing on hard icy snow in a perfect upside down three-point-landing… the two tips of my skis, and my head. It nearly killed me, and stripped some of the ski binding screws nearly all of the way out on both skis, but it didn’t brake out the bindings completely, or the skis. (My Swivel Sticks had Look Nevada bindings that I kept “bear trap” tight so they would never fall off.) I was lucky to have a very hard head, and miraculously, my friend Leo was able to help me untangle my skis. Then, I was able to eventually get up, ski down the hill, and even drive back home to Ohio. How resilient we are when we are young! Both Brandywine ski instructor Leo Sulda, and his wife Carol watched this in entirety. I’m sure that it would have been a lot safer trying to learn to do flips into water, or something else that was softer than hard packed snow, but despite that accident, I never lost my love for skiing. I did manage a seasonal gig at Sugarbush in the late 70’s, and a seasonal one at Mammoth in the 80’s. Then, more than 20 years later, I managed going skiing again, so was able to pick up from where I left off…

When I first arrived in Breck, on each time riding the chairlift up Peak Nine, I always rode right past the terrain park, but strictly free skied for my first two weeks in order to get enough of my old ski legs back in shape before considering trying to tackle those awesome tempting looking five jumps (three at the top, and two larger at the bottom). Terrain parks were becoming the happening thing at ski areas, and I couldn’t wait to see if my body was still limber enough to be able to jump the 3 little jumps at the top at the top of the terrain park, as well as the 2 big ones at the bottom. After two weeks on my season pass, I finally decided that I had watched and waited long enough, and felt that I was back into my old skiing condition well enough, to enjoy some of that “serious” air. So, after two weeks getting in shape skiing, and feeling like I was in the best shape of my life, I decided to just “go for it”!

The weather was perfect on that second week day that I joined in with the gathering skiers at the top of the “terrain park”. These kids were all waiting to ski down the middle, in the approach chute to the first of the 3 jumps. I merged into that group of kids waiting to jump, fully committed in going over the first of three jumps in a row, for my very first time, and began hyperventilating to prepare. Just as I reached my turn for stepping into my descent. I heard one of the young skiers standing next to me say, “Uh SIR, I really wouldn’t if I were you”! I paused, then noticed that he had just looked down at my skis. Then, he looked down at them, again, and commented that I didn’t have terrain park skis on. Besides seeing my old heavy skis, he was also witnessing my overemphasizing of hyperventilating determination, obviously combined with noticing the fact that I “looked” older than anyone around. It was because by the time I experienced the privilege of skiing for my first winter in Breckenridge Colorado, I “was” old. This being my very first attempt over those jumps, was perhaps obvious to a keen observer like him, and I may have appeared to look a little bit too determined, and too old to do this, and I had no idea about how terrain park skis made it all lighter, and easier. But, I just ignored him, and before I knew it, I succeeded in making it over all three of those little jumps in a row (the same ones in the above photo) perfectly, and all on my very first try! I was very determined, and landing on a steep downward angle was a whole lot easier than landing on an almost flat surface, that’s for sure. Eventually, I made it over the two larger ones near the bottom, too, all during my first season. I was told, that season was also the first season of their terrain park. That same young kid who had cautioned me before I made the jumps, was grocery shopping that same evening at the busy Breckenridge City Market. When I saw him, he immediately recognized that I was the “old guy” that made it over those jumps. He said, “Hey DUDE”, and gave me the “high five”. This was the typical atmosphere in Breckenridge… There was good skier camaraderie. I learned that going over those jumps with my regular skis was definitely unorthodox, but that was how I did it, and got used to doing it. I noticed one guy who always went over starting backwards, and landing backwards! Lucky for me, at the employee party (which I was invited to at the end of my first season at Breck), I bid on, and won(!), a pair of lighter weight terrain park skis, which made all the difference in the world on those jumps. Now, going over those jumps, I felt like I was much “lighter in the air” and “sailing”, instead of going over those jumps heavily, and landing violently, like I had two canoes attached to my feet. Unfortunately, the terrain park skis broke after just a couple of weeks on them, by landing too far over, and past, the bottom of one of the two larger jumps. The ski shop in town, told me that the company which made them would not warranty them. They also told me that if I donated them (which I did) that they would make them part of a chair in town somewhere, which I thought was cool, and a very clever way to put broken skis to good use.

I learned that on the Breckenridge Terrain Park’s mogul jumps, you have to be going at the perfect speed approaching the jump, to get just enough time in the air to make it PAST the flat part called the “desk-top”, or “dance floor” (the flat part is located just before the steep downslope, gentler landing area), but you also need to be sure of not going too fast, in order to avoid landing clear down past where the jump runoff meets the ski slope. Going too fast, can mean going too far, which will also land you where it’s too much flatter, and be a harder landing on impact. Unfortunately, that was how I broke my new terrain park skis! I had gotten used to using my old skis, and just kept using them with no problems. However, I’m probably lucky that I shattered my heel in FL before any more visits to CO, or I may have tried either jumping the huge single jump at Breck, or the huge one at Aspen.

In the past, on all moguls, I had always just leaned forward when going over them, and sprung up, usually trying to get all the time in the air that I could, out of any little jumps (which were all I had ever seen out East). I called them “Lip” jumps. Moguls suitable for jumping (the ones with a “lip” up), were hard to find out East. I remember seeing the ski patrol, at many of the ski areas out East, leveling them down. Doing that took some of the fun out of skiing but, I’m sure it also saved on broken bones. However, anyone that can read, can see the signs, in order to ski on the slopes marked for their level of expertise, so why not leave the moguls alone, and let everyone have responsible fun? (Obviously, because not everyone is responsible.) Now, the waivers which all skiers must sign, are even more specific… Skiers are required to ski at their own risk, and ski areas are not libel for any accidents, or injuries. Otherwise, there probably wouldn’t be skiing, anywhere, anymore.

I was now using the same technique I had always used for jumping off the little moguls out east, but now on the huge moguls at Breckenridge, I leaned drastically more forward, and into it, so that when I sprung up and over the jumps (though I went much higher than normal), I STILL passed beyond the “dance floor”. If you land short, onto the flat top or “dance floor” or “desk top” as it is called, you can really hurt your feet! It is very important to remember that, if you DO happen to land too short (slapping down early, and onto the “desk-top”), you WILL continue moving forward, sliding off into mid-air, and you will land in whatever position you happen to be in (you don’t get to choose!). If that happens, one can easily break a neck, or any of the bone(s) in your body. Unfortunately, I was there on a day when I heard that a teenager did break his neck in the terrain park, and I assume that it was on the jumps.

While I was in Breckenridge, I also joined the USSA ski racing program, so I could race in the “Rocky Mountain Masters” which does Slalom, Giant Slalom, Super Giant Slalom, and Downhill races. Racing in a “Downhill” race, is practically the ONLY way you can schuss (go straight down, no matter how fast) the whole mountain, without putting yourself, and others, in danger. One of the downhill races was at Keystone, and after I reached my highest speed, (I’m guessing higher than 70 MPH near the bottom of the hill), I realized that the very last gate before the finish gate, made all the difference because, had I not seen it, and gone around it, (it happened to be clear over, and across, on the other side of the hill, next to the woods), I would have been going way too fast, and could not have slowed down enough, after the finish line, to STOP! Anyone missing that last gate, would be going through the finish line at such a high speed, that it would have meant either plowing into and through the long line of skiers waiting to get on the lift, or missing them, and slamming right into the ski lodge! You couldn’t have stopped in time! I remember asking one of the race coaches, (after that very same race) who was a former US Ski Team racer, why he didn’t still race. His response to me was, “Are you crazy, do you think I want to Die!”

Ski accidents happen all the time. There were several accidents that happened to some of the racers my age, and older, that winter season and others. One of my fellow “older” racers that season, was hurt at Aspen, on a downhill. He wiped out where there was a downward compression in the surface, just before the very last gate. Because of the suddenly lower bowl in the ground, it made it even harder for anyone to stay up on their skis. Because they let the oldest racers go first, he was the first racer to encounter the dangerous compression. And, he was physically wiped out by the end of the race, which made it harder for him to maneuver, by the time he reached the compression just before the last gate. Not having enough strength to handle the last turn, he wiped out hitting the very last race gate pole, and I heard his injuries were so bad that he ended up having to spend four months in the hospital in traction.

Before my third season at Breck, I got married, and brought my wife with me to Breckenridge. I even received permission from hotel management to trade dinners in exchange for playing on their huge old grand piano on Friday and Saturday evenings, and I did that all winter long mostly because that was what I always wanted to do at Brandywine, but could never do. So, I played in the “Living Room” restaurant from five until nine o’clock while people either had drinks around the fire in the large living room at the top of the entrance stairs with the piano, or while people ate in the bar, or had diner in the more private dining room which was further past, and beyond the bar. I also found two paid guitar gigs at restaurants in Breck, and what my wife videoed, you can see toward the top of this page.