Where did après ski go? BY BRIGID MANDER
ILLUSTRATION BY KELSEY DZINTARS
One snowy evening a decade ago at Wyoming’s Jackson Hole ski area, local skiers piled into a favorite hole-in-the-wall gathering spot, the Village Café, celebrating another massive powder day. It was a spot near the tram that for decades was a piece of the beating heart of local ski culture and passion. Just then, tourists from Chicago discovered the hidden staircase down to the bar and joined the party. Swept up in this immersion into Jackson local life, one of them climbed onto the bar, raised his arms and shouted at the top of his lungs, “THIS! IS THE BEST! BAR! IN AMERICA!” He then rang the bell and bought drinks for every cheering skid in the place. Skiing as a pastime has always had a festive, ridiculous punctuation to the end of a ski day. According to the Journal of Ski Heritage, the tradition of hot food and drinks after a cold day of skiing began in Norway, right around when skiing evolved from an over-snow hunting and travel method to recreational fun. This later became known as … après ski! As a ski town local, you’re one with fat everyday planks, take wholly unnecessary and gratifying risks, and live amongst a community of like-minded individuals. At 4 p.m. daily, you glide into the base area at a casually inappropriate rate of speed 70
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with a few ski buddies, screech to a halt, click out of your skis and survey your world as one of your fellows cheerfully throws a beer can from some ski-bum approved bar. Yes. This is tradition. This is your tribe! Here, industrious folks driven by that unquenchable passion for sliding on snow collectively eschew the societal pressure to spend daylight hours in offices or jostle for material status (alas, someone always has a newer jet!). Après caps that enriched, visceral existence, thanks to pointed life choices. For those who managed to find the party, it’s been open to all. And hey, if a tourist makes it through another day without finding the nearest MRI machine, that’s deserving of a beer or two! It’s guaranteed that the Chicagoan and his ski buddies still talk about their memorable après session at the Village Café, too. But when they return, they won’t find any such place or community. Instead, they will find a big parking structure-like building, which cost $100 million and bills itself “a spectacular earthly phenomena [sic]” according to its press release. In skiing, this phrase should never apply to egregiously over-designed hotels, rather reserved for seven-day pow storms that close airports and roads.
