#11% opens the door and slumps back into the driver's seat. #43
is in the back, lying all over everything.
"How long were you guys up there?" Mountain Mexican says. "I
saw you up there. Then I lost track of you."
"We were up there for about forty-three minutes. It's cold up there.
Some guy said it's 15" comes an answer from the back of the van.
"Did you get a lot of good pictures?" asks Ripstop.
"No. I only took one picture. After that, my hands wouldn't work,"
says #11%.
Klein notices the graphics on the windshield. There is much white
outside now. The snow begins to fall again.
That night the team of Ripstop and #43 lose again at Pictionary.
#43 blames Ripstop's lack of ability to draw a "household stapler."
"It's sure cold," observes Mountain Mexican. "Is the heater on?"
"I turned it on last night," offers Ripstop. "Maybe it needs more
time to warm up."
Cold sleep.
At 7:00 a.m. on Saturday the quartet stands in Hell Inn's parking
lot, thinking about how their van most likely won't negotiate the icy
road up the mountain.
"Every man for hisself proclaims #11%. The freaks Chinese fire
drill it to various departing vehicles.
#11% finds himself sardine-packed into a VW bus driven by one of
the notorious Achenbach brothers. The ride is bumper to bumper most
of the way. Many vehicles slide right off the road. Halfway into the
trip, #11% realizes that the gentlemen from Okey Dokey World are
also in the van. He immediately switches into false information mode.
"Y'know, they don't allow Nikons up on this mountain. At least not
ones without piston return springs"
The climate at the race site is one-thousand times worse than chilly,
The course is said to be in better condition than the day before, allow
ing for much faster runs. Since the race course is enveloped in clouds,
#11% and #43 leave a few million dollars worth of supersonic camera
equipment in the van, streamlining their operation.
Walking down the course is easy on foot. #11% learns that walking
back up the course requires wings. Thus, he devises a plan. A whole
new concept. He instructs #43 to venture off the beaten path on a
top secret XX assignment, #43 knows what this could entail and regrets
not packing his cyanide capsules.
"What's my objective?" #43 asks.
"You'll know it when you find it."
"OK."
#11% slowly manages the descent along the edge of the steep bank-
ed slalom course. Racers intermittently whiz past him in anonymous
blurs. With nearly three hundred entrants, identification of competitors
is possible only by reading bib numbers. Upon reaching the finish line,
# 11% manages to shoot one whole roll of film. He is thoroughly ima
pressed with the ability of the snowboarders, as they navigate the steep
walled, few-thousand-yard snake run in the unnerving cold.
At the end of the racing day, back at the lodge, #11% attempts to
blend with the recoiling snowboarders. His basic plan is to cop a ride
back down the mountain.
"So, who won the pro banked slalom?" #11% asks Kelly Jo Legaz,
one of the ten women competitors.
"Craig Kelly won the pro men's, Don Schwartz won the amateur
men's and Marcella Dobis won the women's division."
#11% looks about himself and notices that those around him don't
buy regular bottles of beer. They buy it by the quart. He pulls out a
pad and makes a note of it, then turns back to Kelly Jo. "Do you know
of anybody who could give me a ride back down the mountain?"
"You can ride down with me and Craig!"
"Craig who?"
"Kelly."
"The guy who won?"
"Uh-huh."
Twenty-one-year-old Craig Kelly is the world's slalom champion and
is quite possibly the top competitive snowboarder in the world today,
winning just about every competition he's entered in the last two years.
Once a Mt. Baker local, Craig is now boarding in Oregon.
It is nearly pitch black out when the ride down the mountain is sud-
denly interrupted. Craig stops his car behind a van fitted with
snowracks, pulled over to the side of the road.
There's a cool drop right here, maybe a six hundred footer. It
ends where the road swings back around this ravine," Craig explains
as he and two guys from the van pull out their sticks. "It's burly.
You can hardly see ten feet in front of you."
"What color goggles are you gonna wear?" a faceless voice asks
from beyond the headlights.
"Blue" comes the faceless reply from beyond the tail lights.
#11 walks over to the edge and looks down into the dark
nothingness. These goons are gonna die, he thinks
Kelly Jo is gonna drive. We'll meet you somewhere down there,"
Craig explains.
"Are you going to take a picture?"
"I don't shoot suicides. Leave that sort of stuff to the National
Enquirer and Okey Dokey World
Kelly jo drives the mile, maybe two, along the mountainside and
pulls up to the spot below where they have just been.
Before the car comes to a halt, the boarders appear in the
headlights on the other side of the road.
#11% pulls out his note pad and jots down a memo: These guys
either have icecubes for guts or permafrost for brains.
The Pictionary circle has doubled in size. Ripstop still reigns
Ernie Weed (spread) negotiates the last turn of the
glant banked slalom course as the sun makes a brief,
rare appearance over his shoulder. Insets (Clockwise
from Left): An unidentified racer, midway through
the course. When Steve Caballero sild this layback
around gate 4, the visibility factor was limited to
about thirty feet. Shawn Farmer speeds down the
course on his way to second place. Roskopp and BK
are jubilant after solving a word in Pictionary.