An exhilarating portrait of winter sports in the 1920s, especially skiing.For the sake of new St. Nicholas readers who have not heard of Wildyrie, it is necessary to repeat that in New York State there is a wilderness of forest, lake, and mountain, river, pass, and pond, larger than Yellowstone Park, called the Adirondacks. In this wilderness at latitude 44°17'14" N., longitude 78°54'41" W., there is a group of buildings made of logs, moss-chinked, set in a particular section called Wildyrie, which we named Wilderness House. At Wilderness House live Essex Lad, an ex-city chap of fifteen plus, Prunier, the French-Canadian guide, a descendant of the old coureurs de bois, who is mellow with wisdom and woodsmoke, and myself, who am not yet bent with years.
It is a beautiful spot near a lake called Dark-eyed Water and a mountain, Clouds' Cobble, and we live there the year round. We have two chief amusements—living and answering letters. Since it is considered unusual for three men to live of their own accord in a place that is so lovely, so healthful, and so interesting, we get a great many letters. These collect for us at the Lake Placid Club post-office and have to be carted in on our backs, along with books, bacon, wool socks, lollypops, and the other necessaries of a forest life.
But they are worth their weight in amusement. On an evening when the snow is piling silently down upon the spruces, and Prunier is pulling at his old pipe before a blazing birch-log, E. L. and I drag out the wood-box in which we keep the unanswered correspondence and have a good laugh. We are as cosy as toasted cheese, having just had a supper of broiled venison and tarts made from some of Prunier's wild raspberries, then E. L. will read questions like these:
"How on earth do you get enough to eat?" "What do you mean, forty-five below zero?" "Why on earth do you remain in that heat-forsaken spot?" "What on earth do you find to do?"
"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, FORTY-FIVE BELOW?"
To begin with, forty-five below zero means that the mercury has to rise seventy-seven degrees before it reaches freezing point. That makes you safe—no thaws, no wet feet, the ice will stay hard, the snow will stay soft. This feeling of security is very comforting to anybody who has lived where every snow-storm turns to rain and every hour of skating is likely to be the last. Security is, then, the first boon granted us by the Frost King.
The second is lack of wind. I have seen an entire week of zero weather without a breeze. Going out of Wilderness House is like going from one room to another, except that as you breathe the motionless air it burns a little, like soda-water in summer. Color flames everywhere. The shadows of trees are an intense blue, and the fields of snow on the far plains or on the mountainsides are not white, but heliotrope or gold or purple or canary. The fir-trees glisten, the pines glow in green fire. The sky shines like polished steel by day, and at night is of bluer, darker steel, set with ragged, glittering stars.
Seventy-five degrees of frost brings new colors into existence, new exhilarations, new sounds—new sounds especially. E. L. and I put on tarn and mackinaw and gloves some nights and go down to the shores of Darkeyed Water to hear the frost at work. At first, it is all so still that you could hear a wood-mouse squeak over in the next county. Suddenly there is a zip-crack! And we jump. But it is not a bomb; just a tree. There was a bit of sap or moisture caught, then, and something ripped. Now, down in the valley, we hear a fusillade, several trees cracking at once. The cold has gripped the night and is squeezing, squeezing, until there is no moisture left. That is why we feel nothing.
Not always, of course, can one stand around and philosophize. There comes a day when the skirts of a blizzard are swishing out of the southern door of the world and a cold wave pouring in through the northern; then it is very different. The mercury may be fifty degrees higher, but the wind is blowing. The whole landscape is a hurricane of howling gray. The forest roars. You might suppose the north Atlantic Ocean was beating on our shutters. One drift tops the southern eaves of Wilderness House. Tomorrow it will be fun seeing what the storm has done. To-day we repair ski-harness or go on a short snow-shoe walk in the woods, for a few minutes of wind like that will freeze you. Which brings us naturally to the next question.
"how On Earth Do You Keep Warm?"
There are four rules for that: wear wool; wear it loose; eat the right things; and don't be afraid. With two pairs of socks, an extra pair of mittens, a flannel shirt (or maybe two), a sweater, and some wind-proof outer garment, E. L. and I can ski all morning at twenty below and sit down in the snow for a thirty-minute lunch and be more comfortable than in June. In June, there are flies in the forest. In winter, there are no problems of insects or of swamps, of sudden rains, of wet wood, or of spoiled food. In winter the human furnace burns better, and you have the pleasure of being able to eat more sweets and still maintain that righteous feeling. A little ax-work will bring a glow. You have the satisfaction of lording it over the elements. In the forest, there is never much wind; and where there is little wind, it is small trouble to keep warm. Keep out of the wind and wear wool.
But the last rule is the most important. A little care and a little courage—that is the secret of the winter sportsman. You can shiver worse in anticipation than in- any reality.
"what On Earth Do You Find To Do?"
At last, after this brief introduction to the weather you will meet, and with our assurance that you will not freeze to death, I propose to list the sports in which E. L. and I personally indulge. The list is n't complete, because we are not accomplished athletes. Neither do we do all these things at Wildyrie, for some, as you will see, require an equipment already established, or a crowd of people with whom to do them. But we are not so very far from Lake Placid Club, which is the winter capital of America, and there, as everybody knows, are to be found the best facilities for winter sports in America, the best teachers to school one in these sports, and a crowd of girls and fellows, old and young, all learning and enjoying the same thing. In addition, there are the International Speed-skating Championships, the International Figure-skating Competition, the International Curling Competition, and the International Ski-jumping Competition to watch. But I shall content myself with telling about what any fellow or girl can do; because not everybody can get to Placid, but everybody can have a sort of Wildyrie Junior of their own at home.
Winter can be divided into three parts: ice, level snow, and hills. In our country, there is so much snow (often 150 inches; that is, over 12 feet, the record for the last twelve years having been 226 inches, government figures), that we can not depend on the wind and thaws keeping the lakes clear. So we either scrape rinks on the lake or flood tenniscourts. But it is worth doing, for there are many sports possible on clear ice: Plain skating, racing, figure-skating, hockey, skate-sailing, ice-boating, motor-cycling (in which a steel runner has been substituted for the wheel), motorjoring (in which you are dragged behind a motor-cycle while on skates—a practicable pastime on good ice), curling, ice-tennis (on skates, exciting enough and worth trying), ice-baseball (on sneakers, a lively and upsetting pastime), and gymkhana (a carnival of foolishness, being an adaptation to the ice of Hallowe'en games and other antics. A peanut-race on skates makes ordinary fun look solemn).
So much for the ice, and we have scarcely drawn on winter's account as yet. These are three ways of getting over snow: on snowshoes, on skis, and on runners. Let 's consider snow-shoes first, since they come first historically, being the way the Iroquois trod these same hills so many moons ago.
Plain snow-shoeing is not so plain as it sounds. By the time you have tied the thongs a few hundred times (though there is a regular strap harness now which is easier to manage) and stubbed your toes and crossed your heels, you will have discovered how very clever it was to be an Indian. But just the same, the snow-shoe is the one way possible to thread our underbrushy forests and to climb our close-growth mountains. And after all, if you get the right equipment, it is as easy as walking in the woods in summer.
Snow-shoe racing is a good way to discover who has the best lungs. Best lungs can beat best legs, given a hard course. A cross-country snow-shoe hike on a moonlight night to a place where you are sure of hot chocolate and Adirondack griddle-cakes (the special kind with powdered maple-sugar and cream that will just pour) is one apex of winter sport.
Snow-shoe climbing. To stand on a slippery peak, perched up in the infinite, with a whole world of white and blue beneath you and a good slide to come, on the tail of your shoes—that is another glorious sensation.
Relaying. We play a game in which the fellows are stationed a half-mile apart and have to carry not a ribbon, but a pack-basket, as in a relay-race, combining speed with obstacles, and very good fun.
Plain skiing. Plain skiing is the easiest, the most practical, and most delightful way that has yet been discovered of being an angel in this world.
Ski-running is cross-country flying on earth.
Ski-racing tells you what kind of a man you are.
Ski-jumping is the only way yet found of falling a hundred feet without hurting yourself.
Ski-joring is the art of managing a horse, your skis, your partner, and the rest of you while being whirled prestissimo along a road.
Sledding sounds tame after all that I have said about skiing, but if you take one of our upland pastures filled with stumps and glacial boulders, incline it at an angle very like a roof, and have a slight crust on the snow, sledding can be made attractive to the most venturesome.
Shuting. If the extra-venturesome cry for danger, they can try a flexible flier on the iced toboggan-shutes.
Tobogganing. An accurate way of dropping down a gulf so that you continue on your way rejoicing at the bottom. On the Lake Placid Club shutes we make sixty miles an hour, and as one is only an inch from the ground it seems more! "Swishee! walkee back a milee" is the Indian notion of it.
Toboggan racing, six a-breast down a free hill is good fun.
Tobojoring is done by hitching a toboggan to a horse and allowing him to do the rest. This is a dangerous sport unless you know your horse very well, for you come very close to his heels.
Sleighing, the coldest known form of merrymaking.
Sleigh-joring, in which you follow a sleigh on skis is equally cold, but more interesting.
Straw-rides have a place in the program, and hitching-parties, particularly those in which a horse with a taste for practical jokes takes the lead, can provide a very charming moonlight soirée.
The sports mentioned partially answer the question of what E. L. and I find to do; and yet I have not mentioned the grand climax of winter sport, the exploring trip.
This always begins with a look at the map. Some mountain view that we have never seen; some route, through passes and over lakes, that looks as if it would consume two or three days without doing us up, and we are afire. We add the last touches to our equipment, the last parcel of food to the pack, and turn our backs on Wilderness House. But not on comfort, for we have Prunier with us this time—he on snow-shoes, we on skis, with snow-shoes on our backs for emergencies, and with just a little bacon, a little tea, and a bite of sweet chocolate for lunch.
Perhaps we make some cabin for the night; perhaps not. If not, then the work begins. Snow must be cleared, browse cut to unroll the sleeping-bags on, much wood piled for the long night—then supper, darkness, turn-in, talk-a-little, morning!
Skiing; Or, How On Earth To Fly
Skiing is the easiest of all sports to learn well enough to enjoy. The beginner on skis has to choose a gentle slope, keep his feet moderately close together, and go; he is skiing. The thing to do is to get your equipment and begin. I 'll describe E. L.'s equipment, which includes just what is necessary for our forest ski-running, and nothing more.
Skis—hickory, about seven feet long (determined by how high you can reach above your head) straight-grained. Harness—this is bought separately and consists of toe-irons, which lock in the slot after you find out just how wide they must be by trying them on your shoe. There 's a toe-strap and a heel-strap and a lever at the back which snaps backward when the ski is being put on. Some wear another strap over the instep. E. L. carries an extra strap, also extra rawhide for an emergency. Shoes—the regular ski-boot is the best, but expensive: If you have a concave heel on your shoe and (most important of all) straight sides to the sole (instead of the ordinary shaped sole), that is all that you need for comfort. The idea of the straight sole is to let the foot have no play sideways. It must be held firmly along the ski or you can not make your turns. The shoe ought to be large enough for you to wear two pairs of socks. Ski-sticks—there is much good-natured quarreling done, I am told, about whether to use sticks or not. E. L. and I would as soon think of going skiing without our skis as without our sticks. They are invaluable for climbing, for dividing the exertion with the legs on the level, for braking on perilous slopes. The ordinary stick is of wood, a poor material. Get bamboo sticks and wrap them with tire-tape, and see that the ring at the bottom is six inches across and made of aluminum, leatherwrapped. You had better dull the steel point, too. And never carry these sticks across you when going down hill, because you may lose an eye. It is very easy to trail them behind. Your hand goes through the leather thongs at the top. Rest it on the bottom of the loop when pushing and see what a purchase it gives you. Wax—when it is warm, or when the snow is new, we use a dark wax, rubbing it in, and, if the day is going to be very sticky, ironing it in with a warm iron. This gives a glassy surface almost impossible to climb with, but swift on the level. Linseed oil is nearly as good if rubbed a while. For most of the winter we need nothing except a slight going over the ski surface with emery-paper. Before doing up the skis for the summer, they should be surfaced with oil and then tied at each end with a four-inch wood-block in the middle, to keep the spring in. Clothing—two pairs of mittens (one of horsehide), a wind-proof outer garment, knickers of wool, with golf-stockings (and puttees for long trips), a tam, and a sweater tied around the waist, to put on when you stop. These are the essentials of outside wear. Always start off on a run a little cool; you 'll soon warm up. It is possible to ski in almost the same things you would play tennis in, and not be uncomfortably cold. Have outside surfaces as smooth as possible, so that the snow can not cling to them.
And now you are in our clutches. You are going skiing for the first time with E. L. and me this afternoon. Keep up your courage; we will get you back safe—a skier!
E. L. has helped you fasten on your harness; I have explained that there are but two things to remember at first: keep your skis parallel as you push one ahead and then the other; and think of yourself as a carriage spring when you go down hill—that is, keep your knees a little bent, a little flexible, and, if there is a steep hollow, bend a little more to offset the lurch. By keeping low, there is less danger of upset, and yet you want to keep your balance. It is ten times easier than learning to skate, for you have a platform to stand on (if you keep your skis close) instead of two separate steel ridges. Now we will start.
"Seven Spill," our favorite run, begins very easily, for we don't want to discourage you at the outset. There is almost a mile of wood-road. You soon catch on to the knack of sliding first one ski straight ahead, and then the other. And pushing with alternate sticks comes natural. Pretty soon you have forgotten the queerness of gliding ahead over two feet of snow with no apparent effort, and you begin to notice the woods—a partridge-track here, a mouse-track there. You are getting conceited, thinking how clever you are to "catch" on so easily to a sport that you have always imagined very difficult. What an idiot you were not to have tried it years ago! And how immensely expert you are—you have n't fallen once!
E. L. and I look at each other and smile a smile which reads, "Poor thing, little he knows!" We judge that it is now time for you to begin to learn, now that your first confidence is established. We turn from the wood-road into the woods, taking a trail that winds gently upward. "Help!"
We look behind. You are flat on your back, your skis are above you, your poles criss-cross, and you are disappearing slowly. "Don't struggle!" yells E. L. We go back.
"Don't struggle," say I, looking compassionately down, but offering no assistance. Now, once and for all, we are going to tell you how to arise.
First, do not struggle. It only gets you over-heated and out of breath. The less haste, the more skiing. Second, wiggle your skis so that they are parallel and below you. There! Now you are lying comfortably in the snow with your skis together and below. Pull them up a little by bending your legs. Now, grasp a stick in each hand, just above the ring, plant each firmly, and push up, slowly, keeping your balance. You are standing! It 's easy if you take it slowly. "What made you fall?" Look, you tried to take too steep a slope straight up. See how we zigzagged just a little on the trail?
The stage of the first fall has been passed. You are less conceited now, and your education can begin.
"You might have given me a hand," says your reproachful look, when you have taken the snow out of your ears and neck. But we know better. Every time we help you up, you are postponing learning by that much.
The trail rises more steeply now, and your skis slide back unmercifully until you begin to judge a little with your eye as to what slope they will take. You notice how we have tacked like a sail-boat in the woods where it is open, and you marvel at the quick kick turn that we make. It is very easy. Stand with your left ski firm on the level; lean, if you must, a trifle on your left stick right beside you (not slanting off), get your right stick out of the way, and then, lifting the right ski high, high, turn your foot out and back. It will come down almost parallel to your left ski, but facing the other way, yet without dislocating anything. When it is firm, lift your left ski gently around, parallel to it, and you have made the turn in your tracks. You will be immensely proud of yourself—for no reason at all. To-morrow you will not think of crowing about it, any more than you would feel superior to a baby because you can lace your shoes and it can't.
We have now gone two miles, and you have learned to glide on the level, have learned the sort of slope a ski will not take without throwing you, have learned the kick turn which enables you to tack. The trail comes out on an upland pasture, and all at once you feel ready to admit that you know nothing. "Down that?" you say in astonishment, "never!"
"Lots of times!" says E. L., grinning.
Walking, you know, is merely a scientific process of falling forward; and conversely, skiing at least, you should fall not quite backward, but a little to one side or the other; never forward. We tell you this for use only in the final emergency. We don't want you to fall, and we advise you not to expect to fall. For in skiing, what you expect happens. Our final instructions are: keep the knees limber, the shoulders a trifle forward, the sticks held behind, the skis parallel and close together, and have confidence! If you want to steer around a rock on the right, advance the right ski a few inches and press on the inner edge; you will curve a little to the left.
You are surprised how smooth, how easy, and, immediately, how fast is your motion! You crouch lower, remembering something of what we said, bend a little as a gully appears ahead of you, and emerge upright, much to your surprise. "This is glorious. Whew! Just missed that stump—must n't get conceited," you think. There is no more time for thought—a long, descending snow-slope, a speed that seems ridiculously fast, and yet somehow not unsafe. The scenery is a blur; but the scenery can wait; you will come back and look at it to-morrow. The snow sizzes from your skis, you brake a little with your sticks. And now you go faster, faster, Faster! and—totter, fall, splash!
Three somersaults, and you are now sitting in the pleasant snow watching E. L. flash by like an albino cannon-ball.
The first good downhill run usually convinces the beginner that skiing is the sport to stick to till death intervenes. E. L. goes up the hill and does the Telemark turn, the Christiania, and a few other stunts while you get your wind. And then we move on. The shadows are getting longer and are an intense blue. A distant range, the Sentinels, is turning rose-color and salmon and flame in the sun's last fire. The ozone in the air, the zest of speed in the blood (for you have got on to the swinging stride by now), the cold, the color, the beauty everywhere, make you think you are gliding on air. The mercury is below zero now, but you would n't believe it, and the air holds you up like a steel brace; you are perspiring.
And now we stand before the last long coast into our home clearing. "Have a care!" I yell to E. L., disappearing in the dusk.
"You bet!" he shouts back, scooting around a downward curve like a scared rabbit. You and I stand listening until the silence of the arctic night is complete. I tell you to be cautious, wish you luck, and watch you go. You crouch now, gladly. You spill at that second turn and hope I did n't hear; and quickly get under way again. The dusk gives you confidence. You keep in E. L.'s track, flying down the almost invisible way, the cold air on your cheeks, a new exhilaration in your heart. Finally, you shoot out into the clearing, your knees trembling a little from the unaccustomed strain, but with an exultation singing inside you. You can ski. At least, you have come five perilous miles without losing a limb. E. L. is chuckling as you pull up excitedly beside him. I join you with the feelings of Mercury alighting from the air. Through the windows of Wilderness House a welcome light shines. A still more welcome odor of broiled venison will greet you through the opened door. And yet, for all your hunger, your fatigue, you are sorry to quit; you take a last look at the immense, blue, arching beauty of the night.
"Great, was n't it?" says E. L.
"Great!" you echo, heartily. There is a feeling of band-music in your blood, but you can not put it into words—any more than I can.
No comments:
Post a Comment