Cara's World: WINTER CAMP

My job as a liftie started a couple weeks ago and since I have been immersed in ski bum reality or Winter Camp as I like to call it. It is like summer camp only its during the winter and its attended by immature adults instead of children. It is really fun, I'm meeting a lot of really cool people and I am definitely spending my winter in Queenstown the right way.

Here are a couple things I have found ski bums do:

They talk about their lives in seasons instead of years.
Here are some examples that people have actually said to me: "This is my THIRTEENTH season in a row." and "I'm hoping to do seven seasons before I turn 30." These people never get to wear flipflops. They don't seem to miss it though because they are very wrapped up in their current reality. (I worked as a part-time ski instructor at Winter Park so when people ask how many seasons I have done I get to say "this is my second season" and not sound like a total rookie.)

A true ski bum can also talk ENDLESSLY about gear. Boots, goggles, skis, bindings, boards, pants, jackets, backpacks you name it. Gear. Gear. Gear. Boots and goggles are probably the most talked about though. They both have lots of features and doodads to discuss.

The Winter Camp reality is a bubble and it isn't exactly in the best touch with the rest of the world. Certain things like gear, alcohol, and the weather matter way more at Winter Camp and things that matter in the real world like having money and showering matter a lot less. The passion and just the gritty ski bum-ness is larger, more defined than it was when I worked in Colorado. Everyone has traveled a long way to get here and they lugged their sweet-ass anti-fogging, GPS, polarized goggles and their sexy custom molded, heated boots with them. There is no lack of commitment here. People have gone ALL in. They are ski bums and they are not ashamed of it.

To be fair though, not everyone is a crusty life-long ski bum. Most of the lifties this year are new and this is only their first or second season. Yet I doubt it will be some of the lifties last season. There are a lot of personalities on the liftie team. Everyone is so different and funny and awesome. Everyone gets along really well, maybe a little too well. There are starting to be to some romantic connections, I mean of course there are, this is Winter Camp after all.

Here are some pictures...