Freeheeler Saison_Nachdruck_25.12.Low-res

Colorado
In 1979, my second year of skiing, my
buddy Mike and I went on our first ever
out-of-State ski trip. We were two 17
year-olds from Los Angeles, wide-eyed,
excited, and ready to try our hand at the
famed Colorado Champagne Powder we
read so much about in the ski magazines.
Leaving our fleabag hotel in Downtown
Denver, we hopped a bus that eventually
dropped us in a sleepy Salida, gateway to
the awesome Southern Colorado ski area
of Monarch Mountain..
Upon arrival, bleary-eyed, a strange silence
surrounded us: there was no one
around. Not a minute passed when the
silence was shattered by an old blue
Datsun pickup screeching around the
the corner and then slamming to a stop
in front of us. It was Brian, my childhood
friend from Los Angeles, and recent resident
of Salida, this humble town next
to the Arkansas River. Soon we were
ensconced in Brian’s apartment, skiing
powder at Monarch by day, chain-drinking
Coors beer and eating frozen burritos
from the 7-11 across the street, by night.
Back in Salida in December 1979, Iran
was very much in the news. And all of a
sudden, very much in America’s collective
consciousness. The US backed Shah
was in exile and the Imam Khomeini
had returned. The Shah was a puppet of
the West, the Ayatollah proclaimed; and
America, the Great Satan. Brian, Mike,
and I watched the Iran Hostage Crisis
on TV every night aprés ski, while empty
Coors cans filled the corner in a growing
mountain. Nowadays, the United States
has the highest number of Iranians outside
of Iran. Hundreds of thousands. But
unlike my parents, most migrated immediately
before and after the 1979 Iranian
Revolution.
Los Angeles
One day many years later, hanging out
with my dad and some of his friends, the
subject of skiing and mountains came
up. Sohrab, a kind of know-it-all Persian
friend of my dad, proclaimed with
certainty that Iran’s Mt. Damāvand is
‘one of the ten highest mountains in the
world!’
I told him, ‘dude, you’ve been smoking
too much taryak; no way is Damāvand
one of the ten highest in the world.’ We
went back and forth for awhile but in
the end, Sohrab piqued my interest in
Damāvand. Researching it later I read
that Damāvand sits at a respectable 5610
meters, somewhere around 300th highest
in the world, and that it is the highest
volcano in Asia. But my dad quashed all
thoughts of Damāvand with a ‘they-willthrow-you-in-the-army’
warning if I ever
got to Iran. Later still, I saw a picture of
Damāvand: it looked like the perfect ski
mountain.
Switzerland
Life moved on and I became disillusioned
with Los Angeles. While the mountains
and beaches of California were fantastic,
and I got out skiing and surfing as much
as I could, the metropolitan driving,
amongst other things, started to get to
me. Driving in Los Angeles sucks. It was
bad back in 1990; it is much worse nowadays.
I needed something more. Having spent
a season in the Alps some years before, I
realised what the ‘more’ was. I dreamed
big mountain thoughts and thus I left
Los Angeles on a one-way ticket to Switzerland.
I had a thousand dollars cash.
Five pairs of telemark skis, a snowboard,
my Klein mountain bike, sleeping bag,
tent, climbing gear and winter clothes.
The whole thing, up and leaving just like
that, was scary for sure. Kind of like what
my dad did in 1958.
Within two days of touching down in
Europe - mid-October 1991 - I had sorted
out the difficult task of finding a hidden
flat spot in the forest adjacent to Verbier
to pitch my tent. Mind you, camping
wild in the forest is strictly forbidden,
so I was happy to find my little niche behind
a rock away from prying eyes. I met
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