When I picked up In Search of Powder, I was spoiling for a fight. The description and reviews promised hypocritical romanticism of the past. Romanticizing yesteryear while avoiding our own present impact is dangerous territory; and a difficult angle from which to present an argument. In Search of Powder reads best when it digresses into simple stories about people and their lives. It does worst when being judgmental (which is thankfully not too often). Despite spoiling for a fight when I picked up this book, I enjoyed the read–but came to a different conclusion than the author.

The book focuses on ski bums found at some of the most well known resorts in the United States including Vail, Mammoth, Heavenly, Park City, and Telluride (all corporate resorts owned by Vail, Intrawest, and POWDR). This limited sampling is problematic and may have led to conclusions that are only true for major resort towns. Being a New England skier, I found it difficult to relate. It begs the question that if ski bums are disappearing because they cannot afford to live in a resort town, then why don’t they pick a different ski area to bum at? To quote Myles Rademan from the book (p. 73):

“But that mentality now of ‘I just finished school and I want to live in Park City,’ it’s like tough shit. When people say to me now, ‘I want to live in Park City and I can’t afford it,’ I don’t know what to say to them exactly. On the one hand, I want to say ‘Go find some place that’s not famous and make something of it. We worked hard to make this place nice. Don’t come crying to me now because you can’t afford to live here.’ On the other hand, if we don’t have any new people coming in, we’re dying. What these regions do is they hollow out your town. It’s no longer an economic issue. It’s the soul of your town you’re fighting for, because nobody lives here anymore.”

So we can eliminate cost as a reason ski bums are disappearing except at the most expensive resort towns. Now we need to address this issue of ‘soul’. The ski bums interviewed are not multi-generational descendants but rather transplants that created their own culture on top of mining communities in decline. What makes their culture any better than the modern resort weekend jet set culture that is now replacing the ski bum at major resorts? Does a ski bum that lives hardscrabble on the cheap to maximize ski days have more soul than a family that flies into a resort every weekend to enjoy skiing from their second home? Hardly.

It’s like Yogi Berra said, “Nobody goes there anymore. It’s too crowded.” Oh, Really? We are all at the mountain for similar reasons. Ski bums have met the enemy and it is themselves as they would have been had they not become a ski bum. We complain about how “it isn’t like it used to be” due to development and resort build up. But the reason this happens is because of demand. Demand driven by the same love of skiing and mountains that draws non-resorting purists and ski bums to the mountains. Don’t like the resort? Is the resort too expensive? Then pick a different mountain.

I do not enjoy resort culture but that is my preference. My preference is no more or less valid. And considering that the ski industry is financially driven by big spending weekend vacationers and their real estate purchases, I find it difficult to question and judge that situation as it subsidizes those of us that ski on the cheap. And as previously noted, there are a significant number of quality mountains without resort culture or related expenses. Or as Rademan puts it in the book:

“The towns you are writing about are a clear reflection of what we believe in and who we are as a country.”

So the disappearance of ski bums is not due to pricing nor soul. There is always someplace else to go that more closely matches your values. Continuing resort expansion speaks to the demand for that lifestyle. Resort going increases while ski bumming declines, so we should look towards motivation and cultural issues instead of financial issues and soul. To the author’s credit, this is exactly where the book leads despite only addressing it as a symptom rather than the fundamental reason: a massive cultural change.

Youth of today don’t want the hardscrabble ski bum lifestyle and baby boomers want more resort lifestyle. The very generation that created the ski bum lifestyle has turned to comforts and amenities since they stopped being ski bums and started making and inheriting money. Those that created the ski bum lifestyle are also those that abandoned it. Evans’s interviewees also suggest increasing college and credit card debt reduce bumming opportunities. But in my opinion, it isn’t about the money. Ski bumming never was about the money. Those that truly want that lifestyle can make it happen, no matter what. The lifestyle just is not desired as much now as it was in the past. Another quote from Rademan (who’s interview was the best part of this book):

“…the drop-out mentality isn’t there anymore. It’s a different world now.”

And Colorado College professor Sarah Hautzinger says:

“A real disillusionment has leached some of the glamour out of the ski bum lifestyle.”

The book later takes a departure from the past and looks towards the present. Evans evaluates the professional athlete as a ski bum. After a thoroughly enjoyable history lesson of Jackson Hole, the author picks on professional ski movies and globe trotting ski athletes as not having the soul and lifestyle of true ski bums. You can almost hear Evans sigh at his perception of ski bumming moving from a way of life to a way of profession. The historical writing and interviews are incredible. The Op Ed less so.

In Search of Powder is a great read and extremely well written. The interviews and historical writing are superb and made me interested in places that I have never considered skiing (Crested Butte) and got me even more excited to finally get out to Jackson Hole someday. But the content is limited by selection of corporate resort ski towns, and especially those towns that developed massive second home owner mountain communities far exceeding what is typical.

The author heavily laments the disappearance of ski bum culture and provides occasional commentary that you may or may not agree with. This book is a good companion to Instant Karma by Wayne Sheldrake which is a fine memoir of a ski bum. In Search of Powder borrows heavily in spirit from Downhill Slide by Hal Clifford which is at times helpful and at others detrimental. Unlike many skiing books, this title is exceptionally well written by a professional writer rather than an athlete. It is worthy of a read in the off season while dreaming of powder.