Norman Ollestad recounted his childhood driven by his dad to succeed on skis and in the surf in his bestselling memoir, CRAZY FOR THE STORM. Here he recounts a ski trip with his son, Noah, where they shared moments that shaped their own father-son relationship. Pictured: Norman with his father, Norman Ollestad Sr., in St. Anton, Austria.
The chairlift swung back and creaked. I twisted around to shield my son’s face from the screaming wind and pecking snow. My son and I leaned against the forward pitch of the chair, suspended for several seconds by the gale-force wall of wind, and the slope below shrank farther away.
“I hate the wind!” cried my son, Noah. “I wanna get off the chair. Get me off this (expletive) chair.”
That Noah’s little 8-year-old arm was wrapped in a deathlock around the cold metal bar was almost as notable as that expletive pealing from his mouth with such competence. Clearly I was not going to win Father of the Year.
“We’re almost at the top and I got you,” I called through the gravel-grinding sound of the wind, securing my arm tighter around his shoulders.
At the top, the gusts pinned us to the chair and we had to clamber out of our seats and immediately duck, as the chairlift grazed my spine, then Noah’s helmet. I towed him by ski pole across the cat-track to the slope’s precipice. The wind clawed at Noah’s fleece neckgator. He yanked it up with his teeth and I cinched it over his nose.
“My cheeks sting, Dad,” he squealed. “I can’t take it.”
“Follow me to those trees,” I called back, pointing to the far side of the windswept slope.
“They’ll block the wind.”
“I just want to get down.”
“Easiest way is through those trees. Come on,” I cheered, setting across the hill."
“I don’t want to ski powder…just want to get down, Dad.”
Seconds later, I brushed past a limb and into the enclave of trees. The gale dissolved behind me and I heard it shrieking up in the treetops. Powder covered my ski boots. I traced it downward, quantifiable now, like a white quilt aglow in the quiet forest. Noah came astride me and I kept my mouth shut --- wanting the tranquility of skiing in the trees to be his discovery.
“Through here,” I exulted, gliding into a crooked finger of powder between the burly fir trees.
Ten swishes later, I stopped. Above, Noah was fighting the powder, struggling through his turns, and then he toppled over next to me. I lifted him by the armpits.
“Told you, Dad,” he lashed. “Should’ve just gone down the regular run. Now I’m stuck…snow in my jacket…hate the trees.”
As I cleaned the snow out from under his jacket, I tried to illuminate the silver lining. “See, no wind in here, and good visibility.”
“I don’t care,” he seethed.
On the long drive back to Los Angeles that afternoon, Noah was restless in the backseat, complaining about all the play dates he’d missed. I reassured him that he’d get to play as much as he wanted this coming weekend. He grumbled and jammed a movie into his DVD player.
Why go through the whole struggle? I asked myself, cruising the straight desert highway. It’s such a grind: the five-hour drive to Mammoth Mountain almost every Friday, and then two days later coming right back, from November through May. Furthermore, we could have easily not gone out in that storm. Skiing in a blizzard when the mountain seems to be all yours is such an esoteric thrill. Why burden my 8-year old son with it?
Because one day he’ll get it, I told myself, not exactly certain what it was he would get. Or, I worried, he won’t ever get it, and he’ll resent me for pushing him.
The following ski season, Noah was 9. It was another stormy day with fierce winds. Surprisingly, three of his ten Mammoth Mountain Ski Team buddies were present, bundled up, prepared to brave the unseemly conditions with their coach. Noah put up resistance and I told him that if he didn’t like it, he could hang it up after one run. I’d check his locker every 20 minutes to see if he was waiting for me.
“Let’s get a quick hot chocolate before you go out,” I suggested.
Upstairs in the cafeteria, we stood at the window and Noah was sipping his hot chocolate, eyeing the foamy abyss gyrating against the glass, when a large stroller rolled up beside us, nudging the windowsill. I did a double take on the plump kid lounging in the stroller eating a cookie --- he looked 10 or 11-years-old. He was swaddled in chic ski gear, like the heavy-set man pushing his stroller. The boy and the man stared out the window at the thrashing storm; their identical frowns and the way both their cheeks pinched up under one eye with disgust convinced me they were father and son.
I checked my watch; it was time to go.
“All right, Noah Bear,” I sung. “Time to hit it.”
With a grunt Noah threw away his cup and pushed open the double doors. I followed him. As we passed the window, I saw the father and son squinting at us. Their faces were still sour, and their narrowed eyes tracked us --- evoking disdain for the two lunatics heading, of their own free will, into the storm. I guessed the blizzard was ruining their weekend in the mountains.
Noah was not at his locker 20 minutes later, nor any time before lunch, and I had a fun morning slithering through the trees. The team came in at noon, four strong, and Noah was the last inside the door. His facemask and the brim of his helmet and jacket were rimes of ice.
“How was it?” I asked optimistically.
He lifted his fogged goggles and yanked down his facemask, revealing bright red, wind-scathed cheeks and parched cracked lips. Uh-oh, I cringed.
“Let’s hit the road,” I said, relieving him of the need to fend off any coercion. “It was gnarly out there. But you hung in. Come on, I’ll help you get your stuff off.”
“No way, Dad. It’s awesome in the trees right now,” Noah declared. “I’m going back out after lunch.”
Then he faced me, studying me for a moment, and before he rushed off with his teammates, I saw it --- the ecstasy burnishing his eyes. He paused an extra beat, his eyelids widening and his chocolate-colored irises reiterating their message: I, too, know the thrill of gliding inside a storm. And I imagined him slithering through the quiet trees, floating on the powder.
I watched him charge up the stairs to the cafeteria. The father with the stroller was coming down, hefting the stroller with his son still reclined in it. When Noah passed them he stopped, glanced at the boy in the stroller and then turned to see if I was looking. When Noah saw me, he shrugged and grinned, the glow still flashing in his eyes, and then climbed to the top of the stairs. It was impossible not to make a comparison: while that father and son were trapped and dismayed by the blizzard, Noah and I had ventured into it, snatching ecstasy from its cold, foul jaws. And we’d shared for a second time, with just a look, the elemental satisfaction of our stolen moments in the storm --- its very nature binding us.
On the long drive home, Noah was talkative and asked many questions about each town and roadside attraction, never complaining about the “boring” ride or missing play dates. Then, abruptly, he was sprawled out, asleep. I glimpsed his peaceful abandonment in the rearview mirror and realized that Noah’s adventure today, the tranquility he’d discovered in the trees, was entirely his this time --- and therefore a beautiful act of independence. He’d gone into that abomination of wind and snow as one thing and come out as another --- a bit wiser and subtly enchanted. I turned my attention back to the highway, confident now that our peculiar struggle was well worth the toil.
Norman Ollestad’s memoir CRAZY FOR THE STORM: A Memoir of Survival is available now wherever books are sold.
