Lou’s News # 16 — Scheduled release of memoir, and two interesting books
Hello All,
The closer we get to releasing my memoir, Avalanche Dreams, success seems to jump just out of grasp. Still, the wily prey retreats less each time, until (I hope) we pounce on it like pumas, and BAM, the ebook and paperback will be there on Amazon.
In detail: We have a completed, proofed manuscript. We’re waiting for a few advance readers to finish, maybe in about a week. After that I’ll submit to the ‘Zon. Then, more delays as it sits in the publishing queue. So at this juncture, we’re looking at the first week of March as the release window.
Meanwhile, I’ve got a couple of excellent new books I’m feeling the call to review. Jay Cowan’s Going Downhill Fast is a 487-page behemoth, better termed the “Illustrated Encyclopedia of Modern Skiing.” And bestselling author Eric Blehm’s The Darkest White explores the short yet robust life of iconic snowboarder Craig Kelly, who died by avalanche in 2003 during guide training in Canada.
Erich Blehm’s The Darkest White & Jay Cowan’s Going Downhill Fast. Worthy books of the snow sliding variety.
First, Eric Blehm. As with most classic biographies, The Darkest White begins with Craig Kelly’s roots: fraught parenting and the first BMX bike, all paralleling the near-spontaneous debut of snowboarding as a sport.
The story soon shifts to Kelly’s domination of competitive riding, along with a juicy industry-insider conflict: Sims vs. Burton. While I found the comps interesting, the business content held my attention. The intersection of art and commerce, never perfect, often as rough and abrasive as refrozen spring snow.
Then, Kelly steps away from the spotlight — called by the snow of the wild. So begins The Darkest White’s middle, where instead of half pipes and race gates, snow may fall, and not from the sky.
The first splitboard soon shows its face.
“You couldn’t pay me enough to ride this thing,” Kelly says, during his first in-person examination of the split.
The irony is inescapable. More than one person had said that about a snowboard during the origin days of the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Three years later, Kelly was enjoying his first splitboard runs. And the Burton company’s splitboard project soon becomes Kelly’s “new mission in life.”
The call of the wild quickens. Kelly decides to become a certified mountain guide. The industry tales continue, as do the avalanches.
Now we segue to part three, roughly 150 pages, most of which covers the well-known (famous is too uncomfortable a word) Selkirk Mountain Experience avalanche tragedy of 1993. A guided group of 21 skiers (including guides), thirteen caught, seven killed.
While I’ve never been entirely comfortable with doing so, I’ve always felt that dissecting avalanche accidents was a good way for backcountry skiers and riders to improve their safety — so long as we found at least one takeaway. Here we have many, and they’re not about blame or judgment — just obvious practicalities.
What leaped out at me in 1993, and still does, is the crucial yet often ignored problem of gang skiing. Pay attention to this when you read The Darkest White. After you turn the last page, you’ll remain friends with your backcountry comrades, but fewer at a time, and farther between.
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Jay Cowan’s new tome, Going Downhill Fast, relates its share of danger, including avalanche mayhem and chairlift accidents. But on the whole, this amusing keep-around is as appropriate to a library reference section as it is to a ski-condo coffee table. In a word: fun.
At nearly 500 pages, 2.5 pounds, trim-size 8×11 inches, this is possibly the biggest book about skiing to ever spit from a printing press.
And it needs every page.
Jay’s conceit is simple: divide skiing into its disciplines (or most of them, as they’re nearly infinite), seek images far and wide, research it all, especially the numbers, and stick it under two covers.
Gamut is a weak word for Jay’s division of the sport into eight sections and 43 chapters — illustrated with countless images.
Here you’ve got “Going Big,” detailing the world’s greatest hucks, and you’ve got “Going High and Long,” which of course includes Mount Everest. And you’ve got your “Crazy” (lift accidents, cartop skiing). Oh, and you’ve got your “Wild” (icefield treks, traverses, more.) There’s also the avalanches and plenty of skimo. And the steeps. And… I could go on, maybe forever.
Okay, one more: section four – “Going Deep.” Ever wondered where to migrate should you win the lottery and want the deepest snow in the world? Or, where and when were the biggest snowstorms? Read.
This thing is a blast. I’ll be stocking at least one copy at our mountain cabin, and what a cool gift (so long as the giftee has a reinforced bookshelf).
Along with my chuckles about the size of Going Downhill Fast, I found myself grinning at the fact that Jay missed a few of skiing’s more important disciplines. Bump skiing for one, telemark skiing for another. But I think the most egregious oversight was a chapter covering après hot-tubbing. I mean, the burbling jacuzzi has everything, doesn’t it? Volume II?
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Both books are available from Amazon (Blehm’s as preorder for a few more days).
