GMD DISPATCH: Week four—enjoying the good life
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On Saturday morning, after I raced down from my breakfast shift at Alta’s Goldminer’s Daughter restaurant, I was elated to see that patrol still wasn't letting people load the chair, despite the time nearing 10 o'clock. I hadn't missed anything yet, though the lines for Wildcat and Collins were so long they morphed into each other and pushed skiers to the fringe of the parking lot. It started snowing on Thursday, and didn’t end up slowing down until Sunday. With just two chairs open skiers had lengthy lift lines all morning, but with waist deep turns and whoops heard all over the mountain, the energy at the mountain was vivacious and the wait well worth it.
This is the good life. We get to do this every day. I can make it from the mountain, to my bedroom to change, and up to work in less than 12 minutes – sometimes with enough time to have a beer before. I can also hitch from Snowbird just 15 minutes shy of the beginning of my shift. As most of my shifts are from 3 to 9, during which time I prep and make food for the fine guests of the GMD, my routine is pretty consistent. There is coffee and breakfast in the café, and then I ski until 2:48, run to the locker room, drop off the skis, move to my room on the G-floor, tear off my boots, throw on my black chef pants and sprint up the three flights of stairs to the kitchen. After we close up, I join my friends for bullshitting and beers. And then we do it all over again the next day.
Most first year employees live on the G-floor. We are the serfs of a small community ruled by the bourgeois living on the upper floors. Amid our routine of skiing, working, drinking and general hegemonic suppression by the ruling class, we lose a lot of things, namely sophistication. Personal health becomes an afterthought. While we eat poorly (mostly Sysco hot dogs and mac n’ cheese), good/sober sleep is rare, showers even more uncommon, and clean laundry unheard of. The result is skiing with very crusty socks and a general fragrant mix of sweaty ski clothes and stale beer and bong water that permeate the entire floor. The G-floor is not a place you would bring your mother in law, not that any of us would have one.
But we are not here for savoir vivre; we are here to live our own dolce vita. Every day I get to drink a cup of coffee with friends, and then ski, work and drink 3.2 beer with them. For most of us, a bunch of young guys (and a couple of girls) in their early twenties that just graduated from college, this is as sweet and fulfilling as life could get.
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