When I first found out that I was the lucky winner of the I Want to be the Snow Bum contest I was totally psyched with the chance to spend three months in a ski resort.

Now, after only one week in Sun Peaks, I'm figuring out that I'm even luckier than I thought. I'm not only spending part of a season in a world class resort, but for the first time in my life I have the opportunity to join a real mountain community in this beautiful part of British Columbia’s interior. That is the full package!

In the last seven days I’ve skied with people from all over Canada and from all over the world. Everyone has been so kind, guiding and showing me their favorite runs and favorite parts of the mountains. Bill, from Seattle, showed me a secret run off of Homesteader and Christopher and Ron from Tourism Sun Peaks explained how some of the runs on Mt. Morrisey were named.

I’ve covered a lot of great terrain up here, and I've got to say that I'm absolutely impressed with the variety and length of the runs. You can take the Crystal Chair to the top of Tod Mountain and ski all the way down with breathless scenery in front of you! Burfield Chair does take a while, about a 20 minute ride, but if it isn’t the coldest day it can be a chance to take a longer than usual break to admire the view, plus you get off the lift on a fantastic peak!

Thanks to Melanie, Christina, Christopher, Ron, Colin, Bill and all the other fellow skiers and snowboarders that I'm still getting to know the names of for the great runs we’ve shared already. I'm not that good with names but great with faces so I will recognize you!

Last week I had some beautiful sunny days and fresh snow in Crystal Bowl, got some speed in on manicured groomed runs such as Spillway, Cruiser and Broadway, explored fun glade areas on Sundance Mountain and learned from Miles from the UK that if you want to experience some private skiing, just head to Mt. Morrisey - Still Smokin’ and Mid-Life Crisis will satisfy your appetite!

And I do have to mention Saturday's Family Cup GS race, it was the first time I joined a ski race with timing and real gates! Those 8-year old kids race so fast! This is a long season and maybe in a few weeks I'll keep up with them or even be able to ski the Laundromat area top to bottom without stopping to catch my breath… or I'll keep dreaming!

Carpe mountain!

Thiago,
the Snow Bum

In our last post we promised a Ski Bum movie featuring the fluorescent 80’s ski suits we all fondly remember and here it is- Aspen Extreme.  Checking out the DVD cover we find many touchstones that indicate 80’s snow bum glory- from the yellow and pink snow suit, to the jarring neon yellow/blue/purple title, to the “Top Gun” reference, which is more prominent than the actual movie title.  Indeed, there are so many aspects of the 80’s in this poster that is might surprise you to find out that this movie came out in 1993.

As pointed out in How I Met Your Mother though, “The 80’s didn’t come to Canada until 1993” – and while this movie may be set in Colorado, it does feature everyone’s favourite Canadian actor- Paul Gross.  He’s the guy on the left wearing the aviators- if you don’t immediately recognize him, it might be because you’re more used to seeing him looking like this:

That’s right – before Due South, Men With Brooms, Slings & Arrows and waaaaay before Passchendaele Paul Gross was ski bum T.J. Burke. 

The plot of the movie involves T.J. and his friend Dexter who quit their jobs in Detroit to become ski-instructors in Aspen. While T.J. advances to the most popular instructor of the school during the season, he has to take care of Dexter, whose future is less bright and who is eventually thinking about jobbing as drug courier - bringing their friendship to a test. Meanwhile a rich businesswoman supports T.J. in his recently realized writing ambitions and invites him to live at her home; T.J. responds by falling for a blonde radio moderator.  Finally – as no one reading will be surprised to learn- the subplots come to a climax with (wait for it…) a ski contest!  Granted, this contest features considerably less punching than Hot Dogs.

Our favourite part of the film had to be the cinematography- this movie features the best scenic shots this side of a Warren Miller flick.  Even better, while the bowl skiing sequences were actually filmed in Colorado, apparently the mountains there weren’t “scenic” enough- so all those wide mountain shots were done here in big, beautiful British Columbia (or so the internet tells us.) 

Anyone wanting to experience the snow bum life here in BC has just less than 2 weeks to get his or her video entered!  So get filming Snow Bums!

Continuing our roll-out of Snow Bum cinema history, we leave the 1970’s era of mulleted-minstrel alpinists and come to the 1980’s with its brave new world of anti-social, reckless, and still-mulleted snow bums.  The film, of course, is none other than 1984’s Hot Dog: The Movie.

The story of the film involves a young Idaho farm boy-slash-skiing-wunderkind traveling to California to compete in the FIA International Skiing Competition.  Naturally, he finds a rival in the form of a snobby European and a beau in the form of an outgoing teenage hitchhiker.

That being said- the plot has very little to do with what the movie is actually about.  To catch our drift, check out the amazingly 80’s trailer (and don’t feel self-conscious about rocking out to the equally amazing 80’s synthesizer music.)

Like the Ski Bum poster this trailer contains too much awesome to address in a single post- so once more, we’ll just break out a few:

1. Why is it in the list of verbs that only half seem to actually coincide with what's happening on screen?  When he says, "jumping" it's a guy sort of dancing/walking on the spot.  Two of the clips during the "daredevil stunts" segment are a guy spitting out a piece carrot and some other dude cracking a peanut.  What gives?

2. Why is everyone beating on each other in the downhill?  What kind of race is this?

3. Finally the Shannon Tweed thing.  It's awesome for many reasons- the fact that they have to spell out the Playboy thing, the crescendo ripple of angelic synthesizer when she appears on the screen, and their odd decision to introduce her as "The Ultimate Challenge."  Really?  Is she really?

Some Snow Bum readers might be dissappointed at the relatively tame outfits in the trailer.  It is from the 80's after all- where are the clashing florescent purples and yellows?  Or the spandex?  Well don't worry- we're coming to that in our next installment of Snow Bum cinema history.

Image Courtesy of Movie Poster.com

Behold the movie poster for 1971's monument to all things alpine- The Ski Bum. Anyone looking for inspiration for their video - look no further.

There are so many awesome things to be said about this poster, but we're going to limit ourselves to two questions:

1)  UK snow bums - does anyone else think that The Ski Bum looks like the fourth doctor?

2)  Do the shirtless guitar playing mullet guys weird out anyone else out there?

We were at a bit of a loss to find out what exactly this movie was about (besides the obvious.)  Imdb and wikipedia were both dead ends, but finally, nestled in the third page of google results was Hal Erickson's All Movie Guide Review:

With master cinematographer Vilmos Zsigismond wielding the lenses, it's surprising that Ski Bum looks as amateurish as it does. Zalman King ... stars as the title character, a Jean-Claude Killy type who leaves the slopes in favor of the business world. He is taken advantage of by a gang of crooks, who plan to use King as their fall guy for a major caper. Charlotte Rampling costars in this "pure 1970s" adaptation of Romain Gary's novel. Ski Bum is fascinating for those film buffs who will recognize the various "auteurs" whose techniques director Bruce Clark swipes throughout the film. 

We doubt that the Sun Peaks Snow Bum experience is going to replicate The Ski Bum very closely- the likeliness of there being any "gangs of crooks" or "capers" are pretty low, and the free outerwear we hook you up with is definitely not going to be a full length wool coat.  Nevertheless- we are pleased to share this awesome tidbit of snow bum history with you.  Stay tuned, as we continue to list off classic pieces of snow bum cinema.