It was 4:00pm as we pulled into the Keystone Ski Resort parking lot, usually a time for Apres but for us it was just the beginning of a 4 day ski bender that started with a little night skiing. With our legs still feeling like rubber from an early morning flight and a 1.5hr drive from Denver, we spill out of the car taking in a deep breath of that high country air and a big stretch to get our body ready for the abuse that is about to come. My first order of business now that we are here isn’t getting my gear on, or stretching, or even buying the outlandishly priced lift passes…it’s to get my head in the right place by firing a bowl up. Of course no more than 10 seconds after letting out a huge cloud of smoke, a family of 5 complete with young children are coming off the mountain and unloading their gear right next to us.
In most normal environments, the parents in that group would roll their eyes and mutter something to each other, but we are not exactly in a normal environment now are we? Instead of eye rolls the group starts talking with us about the conditions on the hill and one of the adults in the group came over to the side of the car where I was cleaning out my bowl and fired a bowl up himself and smoked me out. If this were the parking lot at a Dave Matthews Band concert, the idea of meeting new friends in the parking lot and smoking each other out is the rule rather then the exception…but to the outsider who doesn’t understand snow sports and mountain culture, it must be an alien idea to be smoking out before risking your life on a mountain with families with children everywhere.
Whether it be the mountains of Colorado or the flat local hills of the midwest, you can’t go 5 minutes without smelling pot or seeing people firing up on the slopes. So what gives? Why is cannabis so synonymous with snow sports and mountain life? What is it about cannabis that makes snow sports and mountain life such perfect pairings?
So I decided to do what I do best…which is talk with skiers and snowboarders about why they use cannabis on the mountain and why they think it’s such a big part of the lifestyle.
Speaking for myself, the reasons why I think cannabis and skiing go hand in hand is multifaceted. For one, I truly believe cannabis does change your energy and overall vibrations and getting high totally aligns my energy/vibrations to the mountain and just my overall mindset that I need to be in to ski big mountains. When flatlanders like us come out west into the mountains, it’s a shock to our system from a physical and psychological standpoint. The environment is literally the polar opposite of what we see and feel in our normal daily lives and that creates a ton of cognitive dissonance. Even when the change is good, the brain doesn’t like sudden change so I find getting high with good locally grown herb the best way to help my brain reduce that dissonance and feel more at home.
The second big reason why I love getting high and skiing is from a performance psychology perspective. I remember being in college blazing with a few of my friends who played football for Ohio State and after smoking a huge blunt, they both got up and said they were going to workout and hit practice. I could barely play Madden at that moment let alone do anything that required physical effort and yet they swore up and down it helped them have great workouts and practices. They busted my balls until I got off the couch and worked out with them and you know what? I had one of the best workouts that I have had in a long time.
Athletes have been swearing up and down how much cannabis helps them get into the zone and I am a true believer of that. That is why I love smoking out in the parking lot right before we go out for the day and right before the last run of the day. The type of skier I am is being fast, aggressive, and relying on feel and smoking out really helps me dial in to that zone. But there is a downside though…because I rely on feel so much, I have to be really careful on what cultivars I decide to smoke and how much I smoke. Anything too sedating and my legs feel heavy and just sluggish overall or if I smoke too much it can make me feel too disconnected from everything and just hesitant on the slopes.
And lastly…its ceremonial of sorts. Just like the Olympics have an opening and closing ceremony, smoking a bowl in the parking lot before and after a day on the mountain is like a ceremony to open the day and to close the day out.
But what about other people? What does it mean to them? Our friend that we met in the parking lot at Keystone had some great thoughts on the matter. He agreed with me that cannabis for him is about aligning his energy with the mountain. He said that it just helps him connect more with his surroundings, especially connecting with nature and feeling as though it made him operate alongside nature rather than just a dude riding on the mountain. He also added that because cannabis is about connection, he doesn’t like to be too high because it makes him feel disconnected so he only smokes in the morning with his coffee before he goes out to ride for the day and won’t smoke again until he is in the parking lot for the day.
While helping out at the Snow For Life Ski & Snowboard waxing event at High Side Brewery, I talked to several skiers and snowboarders about what role cannabis played in their mountain lives and all were quick to speak about the environment and how cannabis helps them dial in…to tap into the source of the energy of the mountains.
One couple that I spoke to who also happened to be in the cannabis industry really helped me understand that Cannabis has been infused into the fabric of mountain life for as long as they can remember. Just like rock and roll is celebrated for building cities, modern mountain culture was built on the backbone of the cannabis and counter culture
They implied that this is is the reason why cannabis is so synonymous with skiing and snowboarding because the very essence of what made us love this lifestyle was built by people who were stoners themselves and made it part of the community. Its like falling in love and marrying a single mother, when you fell in love with her, you fell in love with her kids too…they are all part of the package. Wealthy people are moving into the high country and trying to steal the mountain and surgically remove the parts they don’t want, respect, or understand.
I really love this take because they really couldn’t be more right. In the 60’s, many surfers and all around adrenaline junkies started heading into the mountains to work and play. Just like immigrants bringing their culture with them to the new world, they brought the counter culture to the mountain communities and symbiotically transforming the entire communities forever. This is why the corporatization of the mountain communities across the country are so troubling because the people who represent the culture that built these mountain communities are being pushed out due to affordability. With every departure, these people take a bit of that culture with them and it is replaced by some white washed bougie trendy thing that changes the vibe and energy of the mountain.
That is why it is such a big deal when you have people starting to complain online about things such as gondolas smelling like pot, loud parties in the parking lot, people listening to music on the slopes, etc. We joke around and call them Karens but in reality this complaining is a serious problem because it’s not about decency to other people, it is about a culture clash of people moving to an area who do not get the culture and instead of embracing it they judge it and want to change it without understanding the cultural implications. We try to do this with race, gender, sexuality, nationality, but we seem to not want to do it when the people look like us and its in our own backyard.
We need to protect this mountain culture in the same way we try to take care of the mountain environment and ecosystem. How can we do this? For one, I’m not buying $50 cheeseburgers at the lodge and reinforcing that this is okay. Second….I am lighting up every single time I hit those slopes, I am going to hoot and holler from the lift chair at people doing dope stuff on the mountain, I am going to turn my music up loud as hell in the parking lot, and gonna offer some good smoke to the people I share the mountain with. What can you do to protect this culture?