My brother Mark, age 30 or so. Gone but not forgotten. About a year after he died I saw him in a dream up on today's ski runs.
I skied
Mark’s Ghost today. It’s an area that offers great skiing but it is reluctant
to reveal itself. It is not shy, but it is neither showy or seeks attention. You
ski it on its terms, not your own. If you go, hope that it accepts you and if
it doesn’t, it’s best just to cut your losses and get the hell out.
I named it
for my late, great brother, Mark Mathias Reeder, who took his own life in the
spring of 1994. His passing destroyed me on more levels than I’d like to admit,
and the thought of his tortured mind can bring me to tears even two decades
later. Perhaps to ease my mind, maybe because he got tired of hearing my whiny
thoughts calling to him due to his suicide, he appeared to me up there on the
crest of the drainage that bares his name. I saw him there about a year after
he died, bringing me some peace after a long, hellish year of mourning.
Mark was my
first, original friend. He was fifteen months older and the center of my
earliest memories. He was bold and fearless while I am reserved and timid. Even
as preschoolers, I would hide in his shadow while he threw punches at the
neighborhood bully, several years older, and we walked away with that
loud-mouth kid crying in a heap on the ground.
I knew then to never mess with my brother Mark.
As grade
schoolers he was tough and athletic and loved football. In defiance of my brother I chose skiing, first,
because I loved watching it on Wide World of Sports, and second, because Mark didn’t ski. I ached to be better than him at something. Anything. I thought
skiing would be it. A year after I learned to ski Mark took it up and, in just
few days, he had it nailed. He could out ski me after just a few runs, even while I
had over 2 years on him.
By early
teens we were leaving each other, he with the toughs of the town, me with my
carefully selected friends. We still skied together often and I was in awe of how
he could fly through the bumps on Silver Fox while I would flail. He was
naturally gifted where I had to work for everything. By high school we rarely
spoke to each other, our lives were just too alien. That said, on occasion we
still skied together. I feel bad that he
was the one searching me out. I never asked him to go skiing with me, thinking he didn’t like me, but once or twice a year he'd push me to go ski bumps with him. So we’d go ski bumps at Snowbird or Alta and, while riding the lifts, I noticed how obsessed he was with the skin tracks across the canyon. Turning 90 degrees on the chair, he couldn’t take his eyes off
the back-country skiers hiking to virgin snow. By noon he’d be bored and suggest
we quit for the day. Resort skiing just did not excite him. By the time he
graduated high school in the late '70's, he was a full-time back-country skier, only relenting to ride lifts once or twice a year when he'd ask me to go ski bumps. He was ahead of his time.
Mark was a
naturally great skier who had no patience for bullshit, the reason his
resort skiing days were very short lived. He was blessed with lightning quick
reflexes and the endurance of God, and he could rip top to bottom through bumps at
full speed when the rest of us did the five-turn-and-done shuffle. I was
gasping at mid-slope while he laughed at me at the bottom.
A month
before he died he called me to go skiing. At the time I was just entering my back-country-infancy
while he was unquestionably one of the hard-men of the Wasatch. But, going easy on me, he relented to go ride lifts with me. We skied bumps under the Wild Cat lift and, even out
of practice and using skinny '80's-era-tele-skis, he could still rip it like no other. Yes, I was better than
my high school days, but I still couldn’t compete with Mark. While riding the lift Mark would talk of his ski days in Cardiff, Day's and Silver Forks. At the lift summit he pointed out Hogum, Maybird and the Pfeiferhorn, and told me how great the skiing was over there. He said it was a shame that Collins, Peruvian and Gad Valleys were now compromised with ski lifts. He said he wished he could have skied the Wasatch before any development. It took me awhile, but I finally caught his vision.
When Mark
died his widow gave my brother Joel his back-country rig. Joel knew my heart and
knew I longed for those skis, and, without my asking, he gave me Mark's skis. It
was a transformative move by Joel as I’ve never gone back wholly to resort
skiing. I still own those skis and hold on to them like a portal to another
life. Literally.
A year after
Mark died I was still very troubled, wondering what I could have done to help
him. One night in particular I went to bed overwhelmed with grief and cried
myself to sleep, hiding my sobs from my wife. Later that night I awoke, not in
my bed but high on Bountiful Ridge, hiking with Mark just like when we were
kids when hiking with our Dad and brothers. Mark, never one to follow in the
outdoors, was just ahead of me. Like my Dad, Mark never talked much, especially
to his brothers, but communicated through looks and gestures. Almost telepathic,
if there is such a thing. We hiked and skied together a lot in competitive
silence. In my dream we hiked along for miles in brilliant, glorious blue-bird sunshine,
not saying a word, but happy. When we reached a small saddle just below Blacks
Peak, Mark turned around and smiled at me, a supremely happy smile conveying a mixed
message of, “why are you such a pussy,” like only a brother can give, but also another look of “I’m
glad you’re with me,” like only a lost brother can give. I woke with a start.
It was as real anything I’ve experienced. I don’t think I went back to sleep
that night, but my sadness was lifted and it has never again been so deep.
I try to
take off every Friday to ski but sometimes responsibility gets in the way.
Today was a responsibility day and I went to work in the morning for a meeting,
I was told the meeting was required, but when I arrived I found it had been
re-scheduled. Damn! If that flaky sense of commitment works for management it
should work for the rest of us. Time to go skiing! I tried to get out of the
building as fast as I could but got caught before I could escape. So I got
sucked in and it was nearly noon before I could walk away.
But walk away
I did and I headed up to Mark’s Ghost, a hidden drainage on Bountiful Ridge
that is rarely visited. It is mostly ignored because there is great skiing
closer, lower and less work well before reaching ‘the Ghost.’ It is further up the
ridge than most like to hike and, if hiking that far, most will just keep going
for Burro Mine with it’s steep, true-north shots. Also, it doesn’t look great
when viewed from the top of the main ridge: it is heavily timbered up high and
the open, fun glades can’t be seen until fully committed. After skiing it,
one has a long slog out. In short, it is work to
get to, work to get out and, from the top, it doesn’t look ski-able. But don’t be
fooled, it has much to offer.
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