Every Bald Mountain skier has seen them. Every local Bald Mountain skier knows at least one of them or one of their parents or one of their coaches. Every visiting Bald Mountain skier has watched and been warmed, inspired, or, in some cases, alarmed or perhaps annoyed by them. They are Baldy's beautiful bubbleheads, and they are the future of skiing.
Baldy is Bald Mountain, Sun Valley's crown jewel of skiing. Beautiful is in the eye of the beholder. The bubbleheads are the organized groups of 8- to 10-year old local boys and girls with the Sun Valley Ski School, the Hailey Ski Team and the Sun Valley Ski Team, who ski Baldy with an enthusiasm, élan and enjoyment that many more mature skiers would do well to note.
They are affectionately referred to as "bubbleheads" by some of their coaches because of the helmets they are required to wear. The helmets, though fitted to size, have the same quantity of protection as an adult helmet which sometimes causes 8- to 10-year-old bodies to appear to have outsized heads far larger than they really are. Thus, bubbleheads.
On some days there are around a hundred of them on the mountain. They are hard to miss, just as the future is impossible to ignore. Within the limits of the human condition, they are sponges for their coaches skiing wisdom. Within those same limits, they practice the rules of safety and skill as well as follow their coaches in an orderly line when skiing as a group. By the time they are teen-agers, today's bubbleheads will know more about Bald Mountain and skiing than most recreational skiers have the opportunity to learn in a lifetime.
Most skiers of this age, whether in organized groups or not, are sitting back on their skis in a stiff legged stance that makes them seem to have far less control over their immediate destiny than they really have. This is because children's ski boot manufacturers insist on making plastic boots in the mold of adult boots; as a result, almost all children's ski boots are too stiff. Eight- to 10-year-old children lack the strength or weight to push the front of the boot forward and stand on their skis with bent knees. The sight of a 4-foot tall, 80-pound skier with a huge head and straight legs in a 30 mph flying wedge on a crowded slope is alarming to the uninitiated; but, as the saying has it, not to worry.
At this level and age, these local skiers have skied enough to know the basics and to be comfortable skiing nearly anywhere on Bald Mountain, but they have not reached an age where skiing is anything except a great time with friends on the most intriguing playground in the Wood River Valley. They learn quickly at that age, but neither they nor their parents are yet filled with the comparative frenzy of competition, which demands everything of its practitioners. For some that will come, and for a few of those in 10 or 15 years (and for 10 or 15 years), there will be little else in their lives of such importance as ski racing. (Note: everything here could be written and said identically about snowboarders and snowboarding, but I know little of boarding or the boarders at any age.)
I coach 8- to 10-year-old girls for the Hailey Ski Team and have done so for several years. It is an age of skier that I can relate to, learn from, have fun with, and, you know, handle, as is the case with my fellow coaches, Dano, Heidi, Jamie, Nancy, Tina and Wally. We divide more than 40 Hailey Ski Team boys and girls between us and ski every Saturday all season and twice a week during the Christmas holidays. By the end of the ski season most of the bubbleheads know the mountain and their own abilities well enough that they are capable of navigating Bald Mountain by themselves if they want or need to.
So far this year my group—Lexi, Lili, McCall, Hayley, Haley, Samantha, Alexa and Moyo—have chosen Grandma's House as their favorite run on Baldy, a popular choice year after year among the 8- to 10-year-old set. If the reader hasn't skied or doesn't know where Grandma's House is, that's OK. It's a semi-secret, circuitous run requiring special skills and short skis and a sense of wonder for simple adventures in the woods that adults just don't get. I skied Grandma's House once a few years ago, but it is not a place for adults. Now I ski the girls to the top and take another route to the bottom where I wait for them to emerge, which, so far, they always have.
A couple of years ago my group somehow picked up the nickname of "Dick's Chicks," which everyone thought was cute and made the girls giggle whenever they said it. This year my group hasn't given itself an endearing moniker, but the girls are walking, talking, smiling, eating, drinking (during cocoa breaks in Lookout and the lodges) skiing manifestations of everything we mean by the word "charming." One of them made me an outrageous three dimensional Christmas card depicting a skier (me) crossing a finish line with no more than an 8 x 10 piece of paper, a small pencil, some glue, a few bits of colored paper, a couple of Popsicle sticks, some ribbon and cotton.
So far this year my group has skied every groomed run on Baldy from top to bottom without stopping. That's pretty good for an 8-year-old. Soon we will move into the bowls and other ungroomed runs, like Exhibition and Upper River and Inhibition, where the bumps are sometimes as big as the skiers. By the end of the season they will be tucking all of Round House Slope and all of Sigi's Face. They will have skills they will never forget. Most of Baldy's beautiful bubbleheads will ski for the rest of their lives.
They are the future of skiing.
The Bubbleheads await lift-off at the base of Bald Mountain. Photo by David N. Seelig
