IT WAS 1983....

And I was pretty fresh out of college at Florida State University. I had a 1971 Opel Station wagon we called the "beach rail" and I had outlived the fun in the Tallahassee area and it was time to move on, move west. My first job in the west was in Yellowstone National Park at the Lake Hotel. This was the summer I fell in love with fly fishing, and then made a living teaching it for 20 plus years, this was also the summer I met one bad mother effer and one of my very best friends I'll ever know in this lifetime, Duke Brown. Duke was a fishing guide in the park and I used to bribe him at the prime rib station on the dinner line at the Lake Hotel to take me fishing and show the "spots". It was a fucking GREAT summer, the best of my life. Not a care in the world, no money, a shitty car, a cheap fly rod, and one of the best fly fisherman in the Rockies to run and learn the ropes with, damn good days. We determined how far we would drive on our days off to fish by how much money we had in our pockets for gas, that determined the trip of the day, how far $6 of gas would get us. And we lived like kings. And we caught the shit out of fish. That summer, Duke introduced me to this crazy vehicle with two wheels, it was dark blue and called a "Stumpjumper". He called it a Mountain Bike, and I had never seen one before. Duke rode this bike ALL OVER YELLOWSTONE to fish in the back country, waaaay before this became illegal, it was just cooler than shit I thought.
So the very next summer, while now living in Gunnison, with none other than John and Liz Bailey (yeah, the John who ended up racing in Worlds with Mike Kloser, and beat him), I sold my Opel for $500 and bought a Trek Mountain Bike for $750, and that was the start. I raced my first mountain bike race in 1984 at Crested Butte during the third annual Fat Tire Bike week which was held in the fall in those days, and finished somewhere mid field, there were two classes, pro and amatuer.

Duke and Kirk on top of Keyworld
This was the very first stretch of single track "hand built" at Keystone, by Joey Klein, who now works for IMBA.So some 27 years later here we are. Duke Brown and Kirk, another of the Yellowstone contingent from 1983 drove down to Keystone this past Sunday with full on downhill gear to rip Keystone Mountain, and hell yes I drove over to my old stomping grounds to meet those guys and ride and laugh. I worked at Keystone 1984-1996. Me of course and the hard tail 29er and them on 50lb Norco rigs. I met them at the top for lap 3 after climbing to the top of Keystone (my old training ride in the 80's) and followed them down the hill. 9 inches of travel versus 2.5 on the front and zero on the back. We laughed like school kids despite our advanced age and well, felt pretty damn alive. It was the bomb. After lunch at one of my friend's pizza joint, the afternoon session sent them back up the lift, and I snuck off to one of my old spots and found a VERY seldom used foot trail that connects "a part" of Keystone to the Colorado Trail, and it was KILLER. Beer and burgers ensued, stories that get more enhanced everytime we meet, and plans for hopefully more fun in the future, life was damn good yesterday.

Some highlights...

This is the building where I bought my first pair of skis and boots, from Tom Glick, K2 710-FO's and Hanson Boots

Kirk and Elgee, DH and XC living harmoniously

Duke and Kirk on the way to the goods

Can't tell ya....

Part of the Colorado Trail "access" trail....

My first year working at Keystone was 1984, the same year YAN installed several new lifts on the front and back of Keystone Mountain. I knew ALL the ski patrol staff very well and was skiing Keystone the day the Teller Lift bullwheel weld failed, it was massive carnage, and the stories from the ski patrollers on sight that day were horrifying. Mark Campion, one of the first patrollers on the scene helped set up the triage station, and the battle to save lives began. That night Campo told me that there were a couple of dozen bodies just laying still in the position they had hit the ground in, there was no way to assess injuries or anyway to know where to start, but they got it figured out and done. Mark now runs a window cleaning business down in the islands and plays golf, he is one of the funniest people you'll ever meet, but nobody was laughing the day the Teller ski lift failed....notice the chair back destroyed in the pic below.

The Teller Lift was installed in 1984, when Keystone expanded into the
North Peak. In a multi-million dollar contract, Lift Engineering installed a 143 six-passenger cabin high-speed gondola at the River Run Base.
Along with the tram, two Yan 1000 model triple chairs were built in the
North Peak area. The following year, a faulty weld on one of the lifts
failed causing the drive bullwheel to fall to the ground. The end result was fifty people thrown to the ground, which left two skiers dead. Lawyer settlements between Yan and injured skiers topped over seven million dollars. The chairs nearest the top of the ski lift took the brunt of the lift cable whiplash, violently slamming the three person chairs up an into the chair cable, in some cases shattering the "unbreakable" plastic seat backs. The skiers sitting in the middle of these chairs were crushed and sent flying into the air from a starting point of 30-50 feet in the air, it was a bad day to say the least.....