John Bresee » Body

Chasing the FedEx Van for my iPad

John Bresee — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:05:53 +0000

The snow has been dumping in Park City, Utah. Falling in huge car hiding piles…for the first time in one of the driest, saddest winters ever. And what drags me out of bed at dawn with a shovel and broken down snowblower was the fact that without some skinny path cleared to my door there was a chance that the FedEx guy might make me the last semi-blogger to get a hold of an actual iPad.

But FedEx came through and I plugged it in and waited for the lightening bolt to strike. I waited and failed through synch after synch…thinking it might be time for for Apple to spend a little time with the iTunes app and making it the happy center of the media universe that it’s supposed to be.

I keep hoping that iTunes will be great at synching this complex media world. And I keep hoping that somehow it will recognize that I am going to exceed the 16 Gigs right as I check the buttons of what I’d like on my iPad. But no, I wait, patiently and run through about fifteen dry runs before I get enough data off to make the iPad run.

But it’s not the optimum data load. But eventually I’ll get the hang of it.

And I inadvertently dumped all of the apps from my iPhone onto the iPad. What a mistake. A small iPhone app doesn’t belong on the iPad. Wait for those that are iPad ready.

And yet once it happens. Once the iPad fires up…the magic happens. It was when Netflix loaded that I first felt the magic. Just the media I want when I want it, beuatifully rendered. I preferred watching on my iPad than my 44″ 1080p flatscreen. The show felt more intimate. And the iPad never got warm in my lap. I thought I felt much of the media world begin shift to a new axis. And again and again as I loaded new apps I saw the media world shifting and twisting in, beginning to be caught between the old way of business and the new. Media will benefit first and suffer first. Commerce will come very shortly after.

We don’t yet know what the iPad will change . But there are some guesses:

Ecommerce will shift toward home and couch and bed, from primarily work.
The iPad will succeed
Netflix is going to kill on the iPad.
And the rest of the world is going to have to watch and wait to see what happens as we figure it out with them.
Well designed ecommerce sites run just fine on the iPad. No need to hire firms to redesign for a small form factor. Just build beautiful simple focues ecommerce sites and QA on all top four browsers and you should be fine
And build apps that have real single purpose that deliver value above and beyond the flat world of standard ecommerce site. It’s time to innovate in return for the gift that Steve Jobs has given us. He has allowed us to once again shift into the future.

Thanks Steve…it’s brilliant.

iPad and eCommerce- Finally a cash register for the individual

John Bresee — Wed, 31 Mar 2010 20:03:18 +0000

“(the iPad is) not nearly as good for creating stuff. On the other hand, it’s infinitely more convenient for consuming it” — Pogue In one sentence this anonymous scribe captured the essence of the iPad. It’s a consumer oriented cash generator with almost every form of payment waiting for you to join. We may well get out of this recession because Steve Jobs willed it to be.

One analyst just raised his 2010 sales number for the iPad to 8-10 million. Which is a ridiculous amount when you consider the category doesn’t exist yet. Which is silly for me to mention it’s not like the analysts spotted the housing crash, the dot com crash or any of the other eighty three recorded fiscal bubbles…but still, they are analysts and presumably they have more wisdom in their domain than I, so I listen.

But what I am guessing and feeling is that the iPad is going to revolutionize in a different way. The notion of personal browsing. That ecommerce+ will be at your fingertips and it will be incredibly powerful. This is not a browser who’s history you have to wipe to keep corporate from reading it, but instead your own that you carry with you…history of all messages, commerce browsing, blogging, writing, photography. The iPad will be the window into your own lives and others.

Ecommerce only represents 6% of total commerce in the US…but it’s the fast growing segment and will be for years to come. It is expected to grow 2% a year for the foreseeable future and that is without mobile factored in. The iPad will do an interesting thing in that it will help migrate those who have been resistant to ecommerce by way of a more friendly environment where commerce will, perhaps feel less threatening. So it will increasingly steal from the physical side of commerce. For the cognoscenti ecommerce will grow faster due to a deeper wallet share. Suddenly commerce that never would have happened over the web will be possible, be it the hot dog vendor or bike parts for a kick ass bike/community/commerce app. Those who comfortably spend on the web now will see their spending accelerate as the software grows to meet capabilities in the new hardware.

And in that way the iPad will work to combine the aspects of commerce that are already appealing with those of geo-tagging, nearest physical product, best price within five miles, and much more to move a large percentage of wallet share to the web. So ecommerce will grow, again at a much faster rate than it has. And it will grow in new, unexpected places that get the distinct advantages of this format. For instance in-game digital product sales might well grow at an astonishing rate.

And Android will follow along with their impossible to beat “Better Than Free” model and slowly and they will own the lower pricepoints. Yet this is a market that is already proven, the $275 netbook is very desirable. Add in a touch screen and phenomenal OS and it will be a dream browser. The Tablet is here to stay. And so is the app. A web page is nonspecific brochureware for the dying 2000s and an app is the perfect hyper-focused one purpose tool for which this generation was born to use.

High price-points will be Apple‘s as there is something luxurious in software and hardware designed together. But Android’s breadth of connectivity to massive data sets creates opportunities that I don’t have the brain power to imagine. Apple and Google do something that no other companies do, they create moments when the current and future exist at once. It’s this strange feeling, as if for a moment, we get a moment of living in the future just by way of a new product release. What a cool capability.

Tablets will not have to war for its share of computing. It will instead be the third form of computing and within 36 months the primary mode for ecommerce.We won’t stop using our laptops and desktops and we can’t give up our mobile phones.” The world never converges, it only diverges into more ways that we can stay in touch, buy, say hello, record our thoughts, support our existence.

The Best Skis Ever

John Bresee — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 17:15:13 +0000

The wind off Swaner Nature Preserve had a November bite this morning. The dark clouds were vogueing above Square Top like it was a winter day. Just idle posturing, no snow fell, but the threat was real and strange for August in the desert. I stopped at the ski rack in the garage to do a quick gear check. What’s going to the Park City ski swap? What do I need to replace?

Sadly it looks like it’s time for my XXXs to wrap up their career. They were a gift from George at Rossignol. He said, “I’m sending you some new tongue depressors, I think this fat ski thing is going to take off.” Seven years later, hundreds of thousands of vert on their scarred bases, one serious injury, two near avalanches, three jobs, four countries, four A-stars, one Bell JetRanger, three pairs of bindings and countless ski resorts…and some kid is going to take them off my hands for $50. There ought to be a graveyard for skis like these; a solemn resting place for workhorses that have done more than their duty. In these hammered bases I see my ski history, each weld represents a gamble that paid off or a bad decision narrowly won. The TGR sticker on the tail is from the Harvest year when my allegiance to one movie company was strong, but it’s scratched to hell and I think I’m past my sticker days.

But next to the XXXs is a spanking new pair of Atomic ReXs with Naxo alpine touring bindings. I skied them three days in the spring and they grooved like pole dancers through every type of snow. But I have yet to use their super-slick touring functionality.

My wife gave me a pair of Atomic TMeXs with Burnt Mountain TeleBulldog step-in bindings. I whaled and flailed my way down the mountain like a movable yard sale, but I can now say I drop the knee. Riding in my pack they felt as light as a pair of cross country skis and every step in the bootpath was easier. They make the peaks seem a little nearer, a little more accessible.

The final pair in the rack is the absurdly wide Fischer Big Stix 10.6. They wait for the deepest days that are sure to come. I live five minutes from the gondola…fifteen minutes from first tracks. The strange weather of this summer hopefully bodes well for an insane winter. And that’s the heart of the Big Stix—deep in the 60” storms, days when crashed snowboarders bob and flail in the bottomless pow like ocean buoys in a hurricane.

But I’ll need something new to fill the slot left empty by my XXXs. Time to begin my new history.

Thanks George.

–John Bresee

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It seemed so simple- Tab A, Slot B

John Bresee — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 10:24:05 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

I tried to grab one more day on my KTM before the snow took over for realzie but unfortunately I was beset with personal mechanical failures.

Y’see I’m not real handy around the house. I replace a light bulb if it isn’t over shoulder high but after that I’m hiring someone who understands things like why smoke detectors beep for years after the battery is removed.*

So I attached the KTM to my new UltimateMX Hauler and within fifty feet it popped a wheelie like a circus freak and looked at best unsecure and even more likely that it would do a full el rollo before cartwheeling down I-15 until some Suburban cleaned it out like a gnat. Of course I didn’t discover that until my first refill.

I didn’t exactly follow the directions. I don’t generally. I think if a product is any damn good it shouldnt’t need a book to tell you how o use it.

I have never heard or seen anyone read the directions on a urinal. It’s designed in such a way that we all figure out how to make it go. So I assumed the MX Hauler would be much the same. But I was wrong and it was past midnight and time to give in. Now I have to figure it out while my neighbore makes comments like, “wow, you put it on all wrong.” Yeah, I got that. That’s why I’m in Ranch Place instead of ripping to the top of Wile E’s favorite Mesa.

*(Handy tech tip when a smoke detector just won’t shut up; detach the offending smoke alarm and remove the nine volt battery (it won’t do anything but makes it lighter.) Take the smoke alarm and put it inside three large freezer Ziploc bags. Then drive the largest car you have over it back and forth at least 20 times. This won’t have stopped the noise but it is now half the volume and has a backbeat that could make it a hit for Bjork on the laughable improbability of man.

Open the bags and fill with pumpkin pie filling, carnation concentrated milk, and beets. These ingredients do little to stifle the noise, maybe 25%, but at least you have used only items from your pantry that you wouldn’t eat unless it was a full-scale thermonuclear war. Put these bags in the freezer. It’ll still beep every once in a while, but muted to such a level that it’s livable. Wrap them at Christmas and send them to your least favorite cousin.

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Old School Internet Marketing

John Bresee — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 07:41:50 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Here’s a video about how we used to market at Backcountry.com circa 2007. It’s kind of a B- performance. Sorry. There is some good data in here though:

This is a link that may or may not work to a speech to a BYU entrepreneurship class circa 2007.

Pardon me while I take a big “Droid”

John Bresee — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 04:38:32 +0000

: Image via Wikipedia

Wow. When Goliath finally decides to step up and kill David you expect some fireworks. I mean Motorola isn’t exactly new at cell phones. They practically invented the Bat phone and those huge things that Crocket and Tubbs lugged around on ‘Vice. So when Google and Verizon and Motorola teamed up for the wireless Malachi Crunch I expected something really cool. Unfortunately the first go round with it suggests that it kinda sucks.

I remember my two year-old son was able to operate my iPhone and unlock it on his own. He was quickly navigating through the interface without any help. I was able to make the iPhone work without resorting to a manual. I was annoyed by the touch screen typing but I got used to it in a few weeks. Already I’m jonesing for my touch screen QWERTY. The Droid is confusing and awkward and lacks, well, UI. As the CTO at my company often says, “soft is hard”. And boy the User Interface just plain stumps someone with my room temperature IQ.

The hardware is okay. The flash on the camera is nice and the speaker is better. There’s a nice use of vibration/haptics in the interface that I like. And it’s got a nice heft to it so when I finally get annoyed enough it’ll go clear through the window as opposed to bouncing off as the iPhone might.

I will say it’s better. The iPhone has forced the rest of the world to raise the level of their game. But all you Verizonites who can’t seem to understand that it’s only about $100 to break your contract will be happier on the Droid than on the DOS like Blackberry. But it’s no iPhone. The droid is the Corvette of phones…which is nice if you’re into that kind of thing.

The game isn’t over.

1999 Article on Ski Trends

John Bresee — Mon, 01 Jun 2009 05:52:36 +0000

I wrote this for a magazine called Core Sports in 1999. It’s not, well, not very good. But it is interesting, to me anyways, to see what was new and what the shapes were then. And interesting to see how hard I was pitching fat and it still didn’t catch on for years. Consumers move very slowly and yet we always forget and try to get them to rush.

Core Sports Ski Review

Ski technology seeps into the public consciousness about as fast as you can download e-mail in Eritrea…that is to say, slowly. While your dad might be looking to buy you skis this year, unfortunately his idea of hip is parabolic—and people who rip stopped saying “parabolic” right after Urkel entered grade school.

While the world has been wallowing in this collective hangover known as shape skis, the manufacturers have been whipping up a whole new arsenal, and now you rarely hear ski rock stars referring to skis in a way that could be confused with a Playboy centerfold. Now instead of “curvaceous” and “nice shape”, the comments are more along the lines of, “that bitch is fat!” Fat skis rule the world and if you haven’t gotten yourself the latest laminate backbacon, you better get on it. If you bring a pair of slalom skis into the terrain park you can pretty much count on lawn darting. Skis have changed, now it’s time to ride that change. The following skis are the absolute sickest rides on the hill. Whether ripping the park, or tackling the big mountains, these sticks will do you right.

For the East Face of Everest

Dynastar 4×4 Big, $695

800-992-3962, www.dynastar.com

Shape: 115/85/107

188, 194 cm

This is the undisputed heavyweight champion of the world. The 194 is so insanely powerful you’ll think you grabbed hold of a bullet bike. But this bullet has edges that could cut through steel, a firm flex that holds the hill, and the ability to take you down any mountain at 70mph or more, regardless of what kind of snow you’re on. If you like people staring at your skis while you stand in line, and then you like leaving them all in the dust, then this is your ride.

Salomon AK Rocket $825

800-225-6850, www.salomonsports.com

Shape: 118, 85, 110

200cm only

The Rocket is big…bigger than the Big even. Yet for such a large ski it’s surprisingly soft and controllable. This is an excellent ski for deep deep light powder. Built with a wood core and a two layer Titanal wrap for sturdiness, the AK Rocket is a ton of ski, and yet still very manageable when skiing in the resort.

For Great Scott at Snowbird

Salomon Super Mountain, $695

800-225-6850, www.salomonsports.com

Shape: 110/78/100

178, 186, 194cm

The Salomon Super Mountain is a fat ski for the rest of the world. When you want to go fast, when you want a ski that does everything, but you don’t want all the fat, go with the Super Mountain. This is Salomon’s strongest move to the hoop since they busted out cap skis. So many companies make “all mountain skis,” but there are very few that can actually do it all. This is a Power Foam PU core ski with a titanium monocoque frame.

Rossignol Bandit XX, $699

802-764-2514, www.rossignol.com

Shape: 107/74/97

170, 177, 184, 191, 195cm

The Bandit XX is the slightly smaller brother of the legendary Bandit XXX. The Bandit’s Dualtec construction is a blend of cap and traditional technology. Yet they have exorcised some of the demons of cap construction—vibration—and gained the advantage of excellent torsional rigidity. This is a great ski for anyone who ever steps off the groomers, even for a minute. The XX can handle all parts of the mountain.

For the Stratton Mountain Half Pipe

Salomon X-scream TenEighty, $595

800-225-6850, www.salomonsports.com

Shape: 108-75-100

161 & 177

K2 Enemy, $600

800-426-1617, www.k2skis.com

Shape: 109-75-97

173 & 183

This ski is often the big boy in the park, yet it gives you the versatility to make your hits wherever you find them on the mountain. This ski is versatile. The classic K2 Triaxially braided core is at work again; giving you a strong ski with excellent feel that encourages you to stick every landing.

For the HannenKahm

Nordica Grand Prix GS, $999

800-892-2668, www.nordicaboots.com

A fast ski on a steep corduroy groomer is as close to God as one man can come. But if you want to get just one step closer to the Almighty, then slip on the Grand Prix GS, from Nordica. These skis are Benneton Green, and some say downright homely. But they inspire confidence at the limit of adhesion that the best

Salomon Superaxe Series 2V, $715

800-225-6850, www.salomonsports.com

Shape: 103-62-93

173, 185, 193, 198cm

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Greed–From the Seven Deadly Sins Powder Issue

John Bresee — Sun, 31 May 2009 21:54:12 +0000

Incoming

This is the simple story of nine days, six heli-ski guides, four skiers, three helicopters, and more than a 100,000 vertical feet

“It’s my birthday, and my Dad says I can have whatever I want, and I want your bicycle.”—Pee Wee’s Big Adventure

When I was made editor of Powder I laughed, my friends laughed, and somewhere deep in the Earth, Satan laughed as well. It was like giving Charles Keating responsibility for Social Security. In the first editorial planning meeting of the year I looked around the large conference room table with as much sincerity as I could muster. I said, “it’s time we gave some coverage to the hardworking folks who are flying helicopters in the lower 48. It’s time to go back to the heartland because that’s where the best skiing really is. What we need to make this work is one big roadtrip through the West, nailing the crown jewels of US heli-skiing. To do it we’ll need a couple of fast cars, lots of money, a hot ski model, big fat skis and lots of heli-time.”

They looked at me like I was insane. But being editor is like being king and until someone takes your head off you get your way. Absolute power corrupts absolutely…or something like that. So March 19th we hopped into two borrowed Volvo’s, both all-wheel-drive turbocharged wagons, one of them electric blue with 240 horsepower. The Volvo press guy was nervous, saying, “you know Road & Track gets that one next…it’s the only one of its kind in the US.” By which I think he meant, “please don’t flog this through the Bonneville Salt Flats at a buck fifty spraying mud like a man possessed.” Sorry.

“Mummy, I want an everlasting Gobstopper, get it for me.” –Violet Beuaregard in Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Two days into my abuse of power I found myself atop a no name peak in the Snake River Range of Wyoming, being hammered with the stinging nettles of propwash snow, as my ride, a Bell JetRanger, dropped for the valley floor like it was dodging ack ack fire. I cowered with Dave Peck, a lifelong friend, Darian Boyle, K2 Team rider, and Lee Cohen, walking flashback to the ‘70s and legendary ski photographer. After the heli cleared the LZ we scrambled to get our gear on with a manic energy that was reminiscent of Micah Abrams scrambling to get laid in Vegas. Unlike Micah, we all got gear. Because contrary to our guides lectures—safety never takes a holiday—we would not be descending in a safe and responsible manner. It was every beater for himself and last person to the gunship…well that would be Lee, because he was toting the Angry Midget, a pack stuffed with honking big lenses that, from a Freudian point of view might suggest a lack elsewhere.

But I digress; descending is what we set about doing, and damn fast. The snow was six inches of crystal light, on top of perfect wind groomed pitches. With each turn the snow flitted up in light sprays, and it cut with the sound of tearing newspaper. It was the kind of smooth that challenges you to push for more speed, and I found just enough to duck in front of Dave and steal his line. Mortal sin my ass, this was skiing. Darian worked us both ripping 100-yard turns across the tops of the bread loaf like hillocks, cutting back just before the edge and throwing up a jet ski spray. Darian is six foot of catwalk worthy model and a Green Mountain Valley School graduate—she waxed us without breaking a sweat and was first into the valley.

The Snake River area was as massive as ten Jackson Holes, from every peak you could see ridge after ridge of skiable backcountry, without another soul skiing—and it was all in High Mountain Heli Skiing’s permit area. Jagged peaks, massive bowls, and incredible winding drainages, it was a million-acre terrain park with only four kids in the pipe. The day became a series of fevered attempts to poach lines, rip down mountains, and cajole our guide, John Shick, into taking us to steeper and steeper terrain, to which he resisted with lines like: “Heli-skiing in the US is not extreme skiing. This isn’t Disneyland, there are no safety brakes on this ride.” Ummm…yeah, whatever, can we ski something steeper now?

We spent two days with High Mountain Heli Skiing and stayed in the lap of luxury at the Teton Pines, a country club cum ski getaway. Anna Olsen, PR guru from Jackson Hole met us for an evening at The Pines restaurant,. And like all good marketing people she knew how to put a good spin on things, so several bottles of wine later the chef brought every one of The Pines fifteen desserts. The PR worked, and with editorial integrity pushed into the back of my head, I can say that Jackson Hole–where the billionaires are driving out the millionaires–is the most kickass resort in the West.

Our two-bedroom condo at the Teton Pines came replete with five bathrooms, an amenity that told me the rich really are very different from you and me. We were just starting to kick it when the front desk rang with a message, “Wasatch Powderbirds will fly you as soon as you can get there.” Another night with not enough sleep, but one more day in a bird. It was a fair trade.

“Don’t you know who I am.” –Lee Cohen, upon meeting the Jackson Hole Marketing person

There’s one downside to heli-skiing…same problem with fishing and hunting, to do it right you have to get after it at the crack of dawn, or at least nearer to the crack than I am comfortable. So with three solid hours of sleep under my belt and my legs moaning like a Kansas City call girl, I approached the start shack of the Wasatch Powderbird Guides. Only it’s no longer a rough log cabin stuck next to the highway. Now it’s a plush world war three bunker, replete with two landing pads, fueling system, and an incredibly comfortable Ledo deck. We went through the safety drills, cocky, because we had some days under our belts. But at the Powderbirds they take it all a little more seriously. Efficiency is everything with Greg Smith’s operation, and the guides worked like a crack SEAL team, strapping avi-beacons to guests chests, instructing skiers never to lift their skis with two hands, (see they can go into the blades, which is bad) and generally running us through some sensible training. At the Powderbirds they fly a sweet A-Star, powerful enough to operate safely in the 11,000 foot range, which conveniently was how high the mountains were around there.

When the sun cracked the valley rim we were airborne, heading past Snowbird into The Bush. Well, actually nobody calls it The Bush. We headed for regular ol’ Wasatch backcountry, perhaps the finest skiing this world has to offer. The day started with a buff corn run, but the corn hadn’t set up yet. Corn-soon-to-be, is much like ice, but the downside is that when you slide out in a frozen back bowl, it can quickly become a 2,000-foot ripper. Darian, always trying to please the camera, accidentally dislodged a 1,500 lb. tombstone rock that slid for a thousand feet throwing off a bow wave of snow. Oh yeah, we’re not in Disneyland.

After teasing us with this run, Oly, guide to the stars, took us into his private stash, and as is only the case in the Wasatch, two weeks after a storm and we were skiing thigh deep super light. This was helicopter skiing. Yet when we got to the ‘copter, we shut up about the snow. There were two groups waiting for lifts and we were all looking for the same snow. Oly, got on the radio and told the other guides, “we’re gonna work some photo shoot stuff for a while, you guys probably wouldn’t like it over here, but it has good light and that’s all that matters to this Powder Mag group. Suddenly Oly had become greed’s conspirator, so we hogged the pow filled trees all morning, lapping through the only powder left in Utah. At the end of the day I slipped Oly a shiny quarter as thanks for going the extra distance.

Darian continually offered to huck off every bump, rock, branch, and snowflake that could be found. I was all for it, “Yeah Digger, launch that cliff. See if you can break a hundred.” Lee, ace lensman, was not amused. Contrary to the image of photographers who send their skiers off impossible cliffs, he wouldn’t let anyone huck in the variable conditions. And when someone did launch something, invariably Lee had the lens cover on, or was changing film, or searching the Angry Midget for a snack. Dave tossed three or four forward flips for the camera, and you would think it was Lee’s first day with a Cannon Snappy from the way the shots came out. Two blurred shots of Dave’s bunger, and all he got out of it was a pronounced limp.

Toward the end of the day, my legs were toast, weakened from months of SoCal desk jockeying. So I urged more photo shoots, “Lee, let’s barbie here for a bit, send them ski models on a hike, we need distant silhouette shots to capture the grandeur of this place.” While they sweated out yesterday’s wine, I reclined in the Utah sun. Greed sometimes is a beautiful passive thing, but yes I bordered on stealing some of Sloth’s thunder.

We ended up in the White Pine area, hallowed ground for Utah backcountry skiers, but we didn’t see any hikers, no skintrails, and no gorp, just classic Utah descents. Long sustained runs through five centimeters of flawless corn, then carveable Styrofoam and at the bottom ugly ski sucking pine pitch covered mank. Some say corn skiing is better than powder skiing. They’re wrong, but they say it.

Our day ended as all days at the Powderbirds end, hitting their dining room and getting down with a serious buffet. I was catatonic after stuffing myself. But there was no rest for the weary, we had a helicopter waiting in Nevada at 7:00 a.m. and three casinos to hit between Utah and Ruby Mountain Helicopter Skiing.

I want a cheeseburger…no I want a grilled cheese…no I want two chili dogs….
You’ll get nothing and like it!” –Caddyshack.

Sunburnt, stuffed, and exhausted, we loaded the Volvo’s and soon were running flat out 139mph across the desert. Our wake was filled with the broken dreams of a V-8 Camaro owner who just got his ass kicked by an electric blue grocery-getter wagon. You’re not in Detroit anymore, Toto.

There are only about six roads in Nevada, so quite naturally that’s where the cops are. They tagged me blindly going 46 mph over the limit. $391 ticket, and the best thing that could be said for the experience is that the officer skipped the standard “better slow down” lecture. He knew my days of speeding weren’t over, I knew it, why waste both of our time. But it was a poor and bitter ski bum that arrived in the Ruby’s. I have driven through Nevada many times, and always it was a race to see how fast I could get across, usually en route to Tahoe or San Francisco. This was the first time that I slowed down, not by my own choice, and looked at the mountains. They are beautiful beyond words.

Ruby Mountain Helicopter Skiing fits in with its surroundings about as well as the Amish at a rave. Joe Royer’s operation is run out of a massive country ranch house with huge vaulted ceilings, 25-foot dining room table, and creature comforts wherever you turn. And on the front lawn sits a gleaming new A-Star. It’s what you imagine Ted Turner’s house must be like. Yet the surroundings are true breadbasket, hard working ranches, agriculture based communities, not the average setting for a high-end heli-ski gig.

We quickly fell into a pattern at Ruby Mountain. Get up, check the weather, ski our asses off, then at 2:30, hit the ranch house for Backgammon, where I was trying to win back some of my speeding ticket money from Lee. Unfortunately he used some kung-fu voodoo New York child chess prodigy stuff on me and soon I was $160 down. At 6:00 every evening Francy, Joe Royer’s partner, lays out dinner. It’s here that words fail me. I can only say that each dinner became the best food I had ever eaten, and the entry fee was worth it for the culinary experience alone. Joe and Francy create the most comfortable atmosphere in which to talk, dine, ‘gammon, and relax.

Later in the evenings, the bad guests, the greedy ones, would load into the Volvo for the 20 minute ride to the local casino. Four nights running I took The House to the cleaners. The laws of chance did not apply to me. Nevada was one big ATM, and I just kept punishing them for that speeding ticket. I ended up with so much money that I had nothing else to do but buy a shotgun at a pawn shop. God knows why, but when you win enough, when money is falling out of your pockets, and all your friends are losing, then you buy a shotgun to illustrate just how wealthy you have become and how little money means to you. Returning home from a ski trip with a fat wad of dead presidents and a 12 gauge was hard to explain to my fiancée, but now she thinks I am dangerous and no matter how loudly she yelled I knew that secretly chicks dig danger.

Flying into the Rubies on our first day I was astounded. Joe Royer has locked up the only ski operation in an area that is equivalent to the whole of the Wasatch. In four days we never saw another skier, or ski-track that didn’t belong to us. There were incredible peaks, ungodly steeps, huge bowls, and some of the best couloirs I have ever seen. One shot, The Come Line, is…umm…true to its name. 2,000 vertical feet of perfectly shaped couloir, descending as a straight steep white line amidst impenetrable rock faces. Every day Royer brought us to new ranges, new mountains, new bowls, and every day we sated ourselves with endless untracked. Even though it hadn’t snowed in a couple of weeks he was still able to find us fresh snow every run. And on the last day it snowed about eight inches, and the Ruby’s revealed themselves as paradise. We raced through boot top ego snow, on top of perfectly carveable base. Royer didn’t mess around, no matter how hard we matted it, invariably he was at the helicopter first with a small smile that said, “these are my mountains boys, don’t fool yourselves.” And we didn’t, after nine days of spazzing around the country as fast as we could, slurping heli-time like soon-to-be-12-steppers at a keg party, we finally calmed down. And for a moment we let go of greed, and appreciated the majesty of the mountains, the power of skiing, and how infinitely lucky we were. Then we fought like dogs to get in the ‘copter and do it all over again.

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