Duckin' under the rope for the 10 inches

The fog lifted and betrayed us. The ski patrol saw tracks in the West Bowl and waited. When we climbed back into the ski area, they were there. Busted. Our season passes pulled, Bobby Conat smiled an illegal smile and said, "Now I know what Bobby McGee meant when she sang, 'Freedoms just another word for nothing left to lose.'"

"We can ski up as well as down." That was a novel idea at the time. The next day, we began a "Monkey Wrench" campaign to get back at those knuckleheads who ran the ski area. We would "wax up" into the West Bowl, ski the bejezzus out of the slopes visible from the top of the old Chair 1 in hopes of luring tourists into the West Bowl and causing havoc for our friends on ski patrol.

I cannot recall if our campaign resulted in anyone lost in the dreaded West Bowl that required the ski patrol to leave the Bierstube for a headlamp search down to the beaver ponds (where Chair 8 loads). Most likely the fog returned and we went back to skiing powder and waited for someone to invent Gore-Tex or introduce us to climbing skins. All the North and West that today's lifts serve was ours. We were busy.

Bob Conat, Ed Roy and Tony Hinderman had "learned themselves' from old ski books how to make the elegant Telemark turn. They taught others. We skied Norwegian Birkebieners, 210-215 cm hickory skis by Madshus. Our boots were leather Italian Fabianos. Wearing woolen knickers, 60/40 jackets, (a nylon-cotton combination that were 60 percent cold and 40 percent wet), we carried rucksacks, ate gorp, and pine-tarred and waxed our skis.

It was all about untracked powder beyond the Big Mountain — Lodi Peak, Window Pane, Evan's Heaven and Half Moon Slide were all skied. I once asked Bob how I would know if I made the turn properly. The snow was knee deep and only the wood tips would float out. He smiled and said, "You know you got it when it makes you feel good."

All that happened in the early '70s. The Telemark turn was experiencing a synchronized emergence throughout America. My high school classmate Bob Conat, home safe from Vietnam, first lifted the ski area boundary rope and invited me to go under and ski out-of-bounds. "Remember, 10 inches of snow falls on both sides of this rope line."

Bob flew too close to the sun. His hang glider collapsed over Bozeman in May 1979. His exploits on Big Mountain were legend in the '70s. Wearing leather boots and skiing on double-cambered wood skis, skis without edges, skis meant for the Nordic track, that wild Frenchman from Olney amazed us all.

I still ski the mountain. I buy a pass most years but prefer ducking under that rope and seeking the "10 inches' of snow "out there." I have had the privilege of skiing "bigger mountains' in Europe and Canada for almost four decades.

At the Britannia Hut near Sass-Fee Switzerland, I met two brothers, Thomas and Guenther, who had both traveled in America. They asked how I stayed fit for skiing in the Alps. At that time, I was climbing and skiing 4,000-meter peaks. I said that after work, I often skinned up the mountain near where I grew up.

When I told them that it was Big Mountain in Montana, they laughed and said, "Oh, that 700 vertical meters of fog with the fluorescent balls on the runs." Yes, that's the one I answered, and I promised to send them a picture of it, as they only were here for four days and never saw the mountain. Geez, I thought, "The Unseen Big" is world famous.

I have waxed up or skinned up that 700 vertical meters of fog, often in the dark, innumerable times for most of 36 years. I avoid the groomers. Some groomers have always objected to uphill traffic even when there was only a few of us. Once a fire cracker was tossed out at me.

To me a slope groomed every night is pretty, is easy, lacks personality and is on speed. If you groom, it they will come and ski faster. What came first, the helmet or the groomed slope? Snowboarders have a blind side, twin-tips skiers go backwards, ears are stuffed with iPods — and that's during the day. Are we worried about nighttime skiers crashing into well-lit lumbering Bombardiers? Slopes are groomed during the day in Europe. And pssst, corduroy a carbon footprint makes.

Knuckleheads are positioned on both sides of this issue. Anyone who disrespects a taut winch cable should wade in the shallow end of the gene pool. Those skiing up the middle of a run against downhill skiers, the "look at me I can skin up a mountain" types, should skin up Mounts Brown, Vaught or Stanton in Glacier Park. You can get twice the work out and the parking is free. If being seen is important, drop down the north side of Brown to Moose Country — that will slack the jaws of onlookers.

I don't have advice for the Big Mountain management concerning this issue. If they listened to people like me, there would still be a Doug Smith downhill race and a Nordic track. However, climbing Big Mountain in the evenings has given me enjoyment beyond measure … for whatever that's worth.

Pat Muri lives in Whitefish.