Saturday, March 10, 2012

Silver Star, it's cleaner than Red.

Last week I put most of the important things in my life into my van and drove to Silver Star to visit some friends from Broken River. Silver Star is a ski field near Vernon in British Columbia, about 5 hours drive from Rossland.

Before I headed to Canada, I considered spending the season at Silver Star. It's probably good that I didn't because if I had I would have spent a lot more time doing laundry and worrying about my personal hygiene.

It's a bit difficult to explain exactly what the differences are between Red Mountain/Rossland and Silver Star. The first thing is that although Silver Star is near Vernon, the 20 minute drive between the hill and town make them separate in all the ways that count. The ski hill has a pretty big village at its base, and most of the people I met while skiing were actually living in the village. Red Mountain also has a bunch of condos at the bottom of the lifts, but no one I know uses them. The condos at Red seem to be an excuse to hire unhappy cleaning staff and make their lives miserable. After all, Red is only 5 minutes drive from Rossland, so it's easier to live in town and commute to the hill.

So, does this seemingly innocuous variation mean there's any appreciable difference between Red Mountain/Rossland and Silver Star? Well, yes, because we're really comparing skiing and living at Silver Star against skiing at Red and living in Rossland. And living at Silver Star means living in a condo. That means normal, regular people who don't necessarily make more money than me live in 3 storey condos with a hot tub. I live in a house that's furnished from the thrift store and smells like weed every time our neighbour who lives in the basement apartment lights up. Of course, I've been living in dodgy share houses and cheap huts in NZ for the last few years, so I'd actually forgotten that regular people lived in places where all the items of furniture had the correct number of legs and the decor was from the 70s. In fact, it's slightly unnerving to use a kitchen without lino, or sit on a chair where there's a genuine risk that people would notice if you spilled food on it. The delicate thrill of a small risk of infecting my sleeping bag with bed-bugs is a constant companion when I fall asleep each night. It's hard to nod off without it.

Not only do people who live at Silver Star have to live in nice condos that must be kept clean and not set even a little bit on fire, they have to pay rent for those condos. Ouch.

But it's not just the standard of housing which is higher in Silver Star. Rossland is full of dirtbags. At Silver Star, people didn't even know what a dirtbag was. I went from the ski hill into Vernon to try to repair my bindings, and my host asked if I wanted to go home and get changed. Get changed? Here in Rossland I get changed to sleep. And in NZ I didn't always go that far. I don't really want to live in a world where people will judge me harshly for wearing my ski gear to the grocery store. Here, I am considered a respectable guy because I'm wearing more than just my thermals. That's how it should be.

And just about no one has a beard! In Rossland, you either have a beard, or you haven't shaved recently. Even the normal "Clean Shaven" stage of the shaving cycle seems to be absent from local life. People somehow reduce the amount of stubble they have without ever completely removing the hair from their face (I must admit - I do this using clippers, but every time I use them I feel inadequate and like less of a man). Of course, this only applies to men, but there really aren't enough women in Rossland to get a sufficient sample space to provide any statistically valid data on their facial hair grooming habits.

Silver Star must do a roaring trade in shaving razors. Beardiness in general is much less frequent, and clean-shaven faces adorn the landscape. Plus, there are quite a lot of women, and none of the ones I met had beards. Here at Red Mountain, we do a roaring trade in P-Tex*. I think that pretty much summarises what our two towns are about.

"OK," You're saying, "What about the skiing?" Well, actually you're not saying that. Most of you don't seem to care about skiing at all. But I'm going to tell you about it anyway. Hopefully those of you who aren't familiar with the graceful art of sliding on snow can gloss over the technical details and find something to LOL about.

It's important to realise that I wasn't at Silver Star for a powder day. It was warm and icy while I was there, and conditions weren't fantastic. Despite this, I had a fun time. But it was a slightly silly kind of fun. Perhaps the best summary I can give of Silver Star is that I didn't faceplant there once in three days. At Red, I faceplant every day, probably several times. Sure, the terrain is challenging enough for a mediocre skier like me and I was a long way from ripping the hill up, but at no point at Silver Star did I look at a piece of terrain and think "Holy crap, I'd better stay the hell away from that." At Red, I basically spend most of my day avoiding things (like responsibility and the inevitability of middle class working life. But also cliffs. In fact, mostly cliffs).

The style of skiing at Silver Star is also very different to the way people ski at Red. My housemates have a word for the style of skiing that's popular at Silver Star, and it's neither politically correct nor flattering. I don't really think that's fair. When you see a really good skier making smooth, precise, dynamic, short-radius turns in all kinds of conditions and terrain it's really impressive to see. Good skiers at Silver Star manage to go fast while constantly turning and sweeping their skis from side to side. Good skiers at Red go fast, turn occasionally and spend a disconcerting amount of time in the air. Good skiers at Silver Star ski fluidly around and through the bumps. Good skiers at Red just ski over the top of the bumps, with or without touching the ground. Of course, I don't do any of those things.

So, you should go to Silver Star if you like clean, friendly people, convenient facilities and good accommodation. The skiing is accessible and fun, and you can change your undies every day without ever having to worry about soiling them. If you never really know which setting you should use on your washing machine, and you like linoleum, consider Red Mountain. The skiing is difficult and occasionally scary, and you can keep wearing the same undies for as long as you like, provided you can keep them free of your own waste.

* P-Tex, for the non-snow-sliding types, is used to repair the bases of your skis or board if you hack them up on rocks or trees whatever other sharp hard stuff there might be lurking on or under the snow.

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