More Love for LOV

Story provide by Nick Lebel.

So, I didn't wind up with skis on my feet until I was about 11 years
old, but that didn't stop me from quickly turning into a rabid,
frothing grom. Even if I was a bit old to be considered a "grom" by
then, but that's besides the point. Even though I was a chubby kid, I
found some freedom I'd never known on just two feet. And I could be
fast! Skiing, as Professor Stump has told us through his movies, is
freedom, and I'd discovered that.

My first experience on skis was at Pleasant Mountain - and I never
forgot that fact, even as my family began skiing Sunday River instead.
And as Pleasant Mountain transitioned into Shawnee Peak, I also
transitioned. I moved from the Big City to something my parents'
Realtor told them was a "Bedroom Community", but I could bring my skis
with me, which was cool...

Where we moved to had an after-school ski program on Wednesdays (early
release Wednesdays, what a great idea!), and a whole group of
sixth-graders would pile onto the school bus and make the trek from
Cumberland to Bridgton, which felt like driving to the moon for me at
the time. And on the bus, we would talk incredible amounts of smack
about how hard we were going to ski... The Boneyard. The Boneyard; it
gives you chills just saying it... go ahead. Here's the thing, though:
I'd talk smack about it, then find convenient ways to avoid having to
ski it, because it would chew me up and spit me out, no questions
asked.

You know The Boneyard - that last promenade of rock under the
chairlift right before the last tower - the formation that, as you
approach it, is virtually nothing more than a horizon line that drops
directly into Moose Pond. It was wide, rocky and tree-strewn, and had
almost mandatory little drops... and to a 12-year-old kid from the
suburbs, that thing is the equivalent of Squaw's Palisades, Jackson's
Corbett's and Tuckerman Ravine all rolled into one. You'd never see
the name of it on the trail map, but everyone knew where it was - it
was out there, and it was hungry. And it scared the hell out of me,
because I was nowhere near good enough to ski it.

But here's the thing about The Boneyard - it was such a unique
formation in the East - with its wide open exposure, bare rock and
trees - it was something you just didn't see at Sunday River, and
Sugarloaf was so damned far away that if Shawnee was the moon, then
the 'Loaf was Alpha Centauri. But anyway, 20 kids would gather in
their Starter Jackets and CB pants at the top of the Boneyard and goad
each other into falling off it, where they'd pick up their skis,
poles, goggles, jacket, hats and socks and proclaim that they just
"shredded it." I, on the other hand, would ski down to the bottom of
it via Jack Spratt and tell everyone how awesome it was, and how
didn't they see me ripping it behind then?

This pinpoints a major Boneyard factor: its location - there it was,
right under the chair, right at the end of your chairlift ride, so you
were primed and ready to ski it, and God forbid if you saw someone eat
it under there. There was a lot of pressure for a little kid trying to
ski that, thinking to himself, "Don't fall, they're all going to laugh
at you. Don't fall, they're all going to laugh at you. Don't
fall---OOOFFFF!" and you were picking out a ski pole from your butt.
That's when you were vulnerable to the hoots,catcalls and heckles from
the chairs above, so you'd better have your A-game if you really
intended to ski it well. And that's why I'd slowly pick my way around
Spratt, avoiding the catcalls and keeping both skis firmly attached to
my feet.

Eventually, once I'd graduated from Wedge-Christie-ing my way down
Jack Spratt to semi-parallel-ing my way down, I did tackle The
Boneyard, and I spent my early-teenage years re-living the same
blown-up-yard-sale dreams that all my friends learned, until my skiing
became stronger, and one day The Boneyard actually became something to
attack, rather than survive. And then I learned how to play with
terrain, how to use rocks as ramps, and how to find a line through
chaos - it became a teacher, and a damned good one.

For every Shawnee skier who's ever tackled the steep, exposed faces on
Mt. Washington, or proved themselves out west, each and every one of
them owes The Boneyard a debt of gratitude. It was the short, sharp
training ground for generations of skiers, and continues to be - it
even looks like they opened it up more with the advent of the gladed
areas off the top. This sounds trite, but I still love to ski it, and
don't even mind going a little extra hard on days where each chair is
full. Instead of a voice telling me "Don't fall, they're going to
laugh," today my voice says, "Enjoy this one - it's an awesome day."