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  • Fall Line
  • Alexander Weinstein (bio)

I’m filling ice when Sunny radios that Desolation Pass is officially closed for the season. The top half is skiable, but after that it’s all patches of grass and rocks. “I’ll tell them to bring an inner tube,” I radio back, and Sunny says in his Cali drawl, “Riiiiight.” Ever since the Big Thaw, anyone wanting diamonds needs to buy a ticket to Dubai and shred indoor slopes. For the past three years, all we’ve had is slush and mud patches that catch your edge and leave you soaked and miserable by the end of the day. Even the hard-core skiers don’t bother going out more than once or twice a season. There will be flurries, the temp drops to thirty, and you get that phantom itch to grind bumps. Then you take the first run, mash through freezing crud, skid on a patch of ice, and realize why you don’t ski anymore.

The lodge is quiet, chairs still on the tables, just a group of old-timers changing into their boots—diehards who’ve been coming since the turn of the millennium, back when you could still catch knee-deep powder and the bar was standing room only after the lifts closed. They’re all in their seventies and I wonder why they bother. The slopes are hell on the knees, but still they boot up and hit the runs for their weeklong vacation.

“Think we’re going to see some powder?” one of them asks.

“Sure, right over there,” I say, and motion to the flat-screen, where we’re playing old X-Sports clips. Bonnie Hale is doing a 360 off a Kilimanjaro peak.

“Have faith,” another of the guys says, and they lower their goggles and go trudging out.

That leaves the only other two in the room, a little girl sitting on the bench and her dad struggling to get her suited up. Our kiddie hills are dotted with toddlers and their parents who want them to experience skiing before it’s gone. Sunny runs a ski school, which manages to barely be worth his time. He’s got half a dozen kids booked in his morning class, another five in his afternoon Little Eskimo Club.

My agent found me this gig when I got out of recovery. It was becoming clear to him that I wasn’t ever going to return to the circuit, stomp powder again, make real money. He said a lodge in Utah wanted me to teach classes.

“No fucking way I’m doing bunny slopes.”

“All right, then let me ask you a question: When’s the Comeback?”

“Soon,” I said.

“Uh-huh. You’ve been saying that for four years.”

“I was learning to walk for the first three of them.”

“Ronnie, you need to take this job. I can’t line up any more interviews if you don’t ski. People are forgetting about you.”

I didn’t take the job, and that summer my agent dumped me. I coasted on savings and posted updates on my Third Eye feed—mostly me lifting weights, going to physical therapy—but my followers were dwindling. I watched my feed drop below a million. Then I started bartending at Red Lobster, serving old biddies who had no clue who I was, and it depressed me enough to call the lodge and agree to work a season. [End Page 93]

Rick, the mountain manager, wanted me to give extreme lessons. He figured he’d cash in while I was still alive in people’s memory. Extreme Ski with Ronnie Hawks: Big Snow Gold Medalist and Xtreme Games Champion. I agreed, and though Third Eye’s focus fades as quickly as the next viral feed, it worked. Old fans logged on to my feed and actually came to the mountain to learn tricks from me.

It wasn’t a real extreme class. No cliffs, no 540 tail grabs or Lincoln loops, nothing that could break a neck or put someone in the hospital. What we had was a groomed slope with a couple packed jumps where I taught aging millennials how...

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