Let the Record Show…

This is why magazines are important.

Canadian ski legend Eric Pehota remembers skiing this face, but not really. “It’s Cloudburst Mountain,” he says, “late spring, huge cornices, sometime in the 1990s. Maybe early ‘90s, maybe later. I’m not sure what we were doing there, but I remember we took a good look at that vertical face over by Tricouni on the flight home. You know, the one you see from the highway that doesn’t always fill in.”

Photographer Paul Morrison offers slightly more beta, but again…not really. “We were shooting for Rossignol, or maybe Quicksilver. I think Eric is right about the ‘90s, and for sure it’s late in the season to get a cornice like that. Jai Condon was the guide; he might possibly remember something…”

Jai Condon: “That was a long time ago. I barely remember what I did yesterday.”

So, there we have it. This is why magazines like Mountain Life serve an important purpose—we’ve captured and recorded 18 years of key local history in these pages. And that’s a direct link back to the romanticism of those days before all the posting, scrolling, liking…and then forgetting when the next “epic” thing beams in. Back when this picture was shot, people would just head out, have fun, probably go for a beer after, then do it all again the next day. And no one would be the wiser.

Until maybe one day, the following winter, someone would tear a photo like this one from the pages of a magazine and tape it to the wall of the bathroom they shared with four other ski bums in a notorious party house where dozens, maybe hundreds of people would see that shot over the course of the winter. Let the record show: those kinds of “likes” still count for way more.