The Darkest White by Eric Blehm

Author:Eric Blehm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-01-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Layers

WHITEWATER SKI RESORT, NELSON’S LOCAL ski area, had snow on the ground but the lifts weren’t yet running. It was barely light out as Craig separated his splitboard, affixed the climbing skins, strapped into the skis and started climbing with stoic determination all the way to the top . . . of the bunny slope.

“Goggles down, gator pulled up over his face so nobody would recognize him,” says Mark Fawcett.

Two sessions going downhill on icy groomers was anything but “the smooth groove” of Craig Kelly lore. With his heels lifting and soft boots flexing, Craig’s legs were as rickety as a just-born colt: all of the ambition but none of the control. If he didn’t lock down the heels on these bindings, he was doomed.

He called in a four-alarm fire to John “JG” Gerndt and Chris Doyle, his “mad scientist” pals at Burton’s research-and-development “lab,” alerting them to check the fax machine, which spit out a pile of papers. Their mission was to transform Craig’s ideas—sketched out in surprising detail—into a mechanism that would allow him to quickly (without tools) lock the heels of his bindings for downhill (skiing) mode or unlock for uphill (walking) touring mode.

Doyle flipped on the lathe, turned on the mill, pulled down his safety goggles, and got to work shaping and grinding metal into a working prototype he had boxed and at the local FedEx hub in time for their last truck to rush it to the airport.

A truck pulled up in front of Craig’s house the following evening and delivered, though not exactly what he had conceived, something that amazingly worked. With his binding heels locked, Craig started thrashing his way down steeper groomed runs at the ski hill. Not knowing what kind of terrain the examiners would choose for his demo runs, he pushed himself into patches of moguls and in and out of trees, skiing as fast and hard as he felt comfortable without risking injury. In little more than a week, he would have to hold his own beside a bunch of guides who could ski, in some cases, as good as he could ride. He felt like an all-star righty batter being told he had to switch-hit for the World Series.

JUST A FEW days before the mechanized course, Craig sat down for the first major interview he’d allowed in his schedule since returning from Chile. It was for Frequency: The Snowboarder’s Journal, a new magazine launched by four of Craig’s friends—former Snowboarder editor Jeff Galbraith; photographers Ari Marcopoulos and Chris Brunkhart; and pro snowboarder Jamie Lynn.

Craig told Marcopoulos that he had not been reading the snowboarding mags or watching the videos and had no idea what the latest trends, tricks, or superstars were. “I’m really quite out of it,” Craig said, “but I really like some of the smaller backcountry magazines like Couloir. I enjoy reading stories about people working so hard, and who’ve stuck it out with a sense of adventure, not knowing what was going to happen and came through and scored.

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