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Great White

(Carcharodon precarious)

A story of the paradoxical European Winter of 98-99

by Bob Mazarei

All Part 1 Photos by Mark Shapiro

Part 1: The Start....

Here’s to swimmin’ with bow-legged women.
Quint, Jaws, 1975

You’re gonna need a bigger boat.
Martin Brody, Jaws, 1975

I’ve often wondered if I would ever see a season with too much snow. Too much snow? Well it happened and I feel driven to recount this season because although most of us had the season of our lives, Great White lurked. And like the big fish that terrorized seaside Amityville, the beast struck without warning, taking huge bites out of whole villages, psyches, and tragically, lives.

It was a season of snowfalls so vast that avalanche pros, meteorologists, as well as the run-of-the-mill old-timers, spoke of the snowiest winter in the last 40 or 50 years. Many died and I lived, and things might have gone the other way round. Thus I feel compelled to do the accounting.This is the story of the Great White European Winter of 1999.

A Mammoth Start

Jules: Don’t be tellin’ me about foot massages—I’m the foot f**kin’ master.

Vincent: Given’ a lot of ’em?

Jules: Shit yeah, I got my technique down man, I don’t tickle or nothin’.

Jules and Vincent, Pulp Fiction, 1994

One Minaret Road, Mammoth Lakes, California.

Back in the mid 40’s, the U.S. Forest Service sent consultants to search out a suitable spot for a new western ski area. They eventually came upon the dormant volcano west of Mammoth Lakes but gave it a pass deeming it too high, too far from a major population area, and a place with too much snow.

But by 1941, Dave McCoy already had a roving rope tow in the area and he was allowed to set up wherever the snow was best. Dave, a fervent skier if there ever was one, acquired the tow by hocking his Harley to the bank where his girlfriend, Roma, worked. The bank wasn’t really interested, but the precocious Roma threatened to quit if they didn’t oblige.

Dave knew those consultants were wrong. By the mid-50’s, after settling on the big elephant, Mammoth was bringing in more skiers than any other place else in California.

Since then, with Dave’s nurturing, Mammoth has grown into one of the finest ski areas in America.
I was back for the opener, Nov. 7, 1998, with all my mates. Fun opening season conditions dictated beer-a-run madness non-stop all weekend. It felt like being safely home again with my tribe after a long pilgrimage. Jacuzzi’s, frozen chins, Dan-O’s borrowed Steely Dans (those fridge-magnet Volant’s), and foot massages on the way back down south (editor's note: yeah, by the author to my future wife!). It was a great—no, a Mammoth—start to the season, especially so to be hanging with my bros.

Switzerland

I like two kinds of beer: domestic and foreign.

Big Tim Connolly, A Guide To Strife, 1994

Some people ask me if I do it every day.
I get drunk and tell ’em it’s what we do in Verbier.
You get so drunk, you cannot speak and it’s difficult to say.
There must be 50 ways to love your liver.

Scotty Hammond & Paul Simon, 50 Ways To Love Your
Liver, 1995

I was back in Verbier skiing by mid-November in nice, but not unusual, conditions. Little snow fell in December leaving the mid-altitudes fun but average, and the higher altitudes with fine conditions. As President Clinton (like Jules, a master foot-man) was getting closer to impeachment, everything was as normal as could be over here in the Alps.

The first storm of any size hit on the night of January 2nd, 1999, followed by another a week later setting up a series of one and two-star powder days (my own personal stat-man, powder rating scale, with five being the highest. I’m very tough on my ratings, however, as I’ve never given a five yet). The base hadn’t thickened at the mid-altitudes yet so I took advantage of the early-season couloirs with the snowboard and its inherent floatability. I was also tele-ing piste with my 223cm Dynastar DH boards a bunch, as January is uncrowded with room to groove.

The first big day of the season came January 13th. Mountain Guide Hans called me that splendid snowy morning and by the end we had snowboarded eight Attelas couloirs where practically every turn was over the head. We would turn and it would be inside of a ping-pong ball white and we had to time our breathing so as to not choke. And then we would be spit out—like being released from the foam-ball at Pipe. Breathe and be covered up again, turn after turn. Looking back at my notes from this day, I see that I gave it only two and a half stars. Wow, only two and a half? Yeah, I guess I’m pretty tough with my ratings (or that I realized that one displaces way more snow on le surf).

It was more of the same for the next week where we worked it in stages. This is one of my favorite things about skiing and boarding at such a large ski area like Verbier: they open up terrain in stages after snowstorms—each with its own characteristics and fat chunks of acreage. Normally, Ruinettes at 2100m would open first, the trees below this altitude helping with storm related visibility that is the bane and pain above tree line during whiteouts. Perhaps the snow is blanketed down to the village of Le Châble below Verbier—as it usually is part of every season—allowing wonderfully varied skiing next to summer chalets and farmers ancient granges; where we would shoot through left opened sections of barbed wire fences in knee deep powder (or spring snow), jumping rough stone walls then slipping cleanly onto the summer road cranking a hard left, dropping in wherever the next section of field looks good. (“Yo, watch the stump on the right and that piece of rebar sticking out down below! Manhole? Naw, that’s a silo cover—missile silo!”) Then we would finally get down to Châble at 820m, cross the railroad tracks and jump back on the télécabine, but not before we would stop for a coffee and croissant, or maybe just a petite dèlice and a beer.

Afterwards it would clear some and the patroilleurs—also working in stages control-bombing —would give the thumbs-up to open to Attelas clearing the way to ski the “front range.” Then Tortin, Gentiane etc. until finally, the Mont Fort at 3330m, would open. Skiing from Mont Fort to Le Châble is one of my favorite things to do when it is happening—a run of over an hour and 8200 vertical feet. (Yes Marge, that’s a Mammoth on top of a Whistler! But Mabel, I like both kinds of music, Country and Western!)

Yep, working it in stages, a concept that stems from the reality that it’s the only way a place like Verbier can practically and reasonably control safety on such a scale. (It is far from foolproof, however, as many parts within the ski area are for all intents and purposes “backcountry” or at least backcountry-like, and impossible to completely control.) What the stage scenario means to you and me is: powder today, powder tomorrow, and powder next week, stress-free. Usually.
The Alpine snowpack got my mates and I into an exploring mood and we ended up skiing at two ski stations that I had never been to before. The first was Champèry, a beautiful village and ski station tucked in under the shadow of the magnificent peaks of the Dents du Midi. Champèry is one of the interconnected villages in a ski region known collectively as the Portes du Soleil—half of which lay in Switzerland and the other half in France (it is wise to ski with your passport, tucked somewhere safe).

Although lacking in overall average altitude, it is, acreage-wise, the largest ski region in the world, boasting numerous villages and 265 ski lifts. We had just a taste of the pleasures of the Portes that day, but, like honey-bees in a new field of flowers, we knew there would be a lot more pow-pollen to be transferred on our ski boots during subsequent visits. The problem is that I have only one lifetime.

The day after Champèry, we visited the ritzy Swiss ski station of Gstaad. Gstaad! Güsuntheit! Yes, Gstaad, second home to the rich and, fur coat wearing, famous. It is actually a very fun, albeit cruisy, station where we had a blast bombing the perfect, DV-like (Deer Valley) pistes, and Hula-Hoop-ing the small bumps under the lifts in between comments like, “Dieter’s down! Hurry, double Gspray him! Gshut up and go Gski over there. Gstop it, already.”

Tuesday, January 26th started out as a normal sunny day and as General Grant from Aspen had just arrived in town, Big Tom and I decided on the classic Four Valleys tour.

We start in Verbier, ride up and ski down and repeat until we finally get to the farthest reach of the interconnected region, the funky family-oriented station of Thyon 2000 which affords views of the beautiful Val d’Hérémence and the Rhone River valley simultaneously. Then hang at Thyon for a bit

and ski the bump runs or maybe one of the steep couloirs off the ridge if the snow looks good. The obligatory bomb down the FIS downhill piste de l’Ours (the Bear run-nicely!) to the village of Veysonnaz would follow next, then a variation run through the trees…well, you get the idea. (The main thing with the Four Valleys tour is to keep an eye on the time to make sure you make it back to where you started. Big Tim and I missed the last Tortin lift once and got stuck in the village of Nendaz. We had to call my wife Fabienne to come pick us up. She didn’t appreciate having to drive an hour and 20 minutes each way after work just because we missed the last lift by 15 minutes). Anyway, by the time we hit Tortin again it was snowing hard and continued, with just a couple of short breaks, like this for the next four days. Then it really started.