Ski Bum

[skifishbum]

Whats the term mean to you. Qualifications? Maxium earnings. Minimum amount of skiing days? Is someone who dawn patrols 4 or 5 days a week before heading to a decent paying "real" job still a ski bum? Is someone like Paedde who spends his winters traveling around skiing all over a skibum?
Or is it someone renting a house with other 4 or 5 other guys working at a resort or a menial night job eating ramen?
To me it's more about a passion for skiing and doing what it takes to do it as much as possible.
I'm sure there is probably a thread on this somewhere in the archives but mad interweb skills are not one of my ski bum qualifications.

[fallguy]

i'm with you. it's about the passion and commitment to just be out there doing it. it doesn't make you more core to scrimp and eat ramen than the guy with the "real" job who hikes before work for turns and has a house payment and family. whatever works for the individual.

[DoWork]

Word. Being a ski bum means you throw things that others deem "important" to the wayside in order to persue your dream of skiing every. damn. day.

I know rich ski bums that STILL blow off huge shit when it's snowing. Others call it irresponsibility. I call it rad as fuck.

Being a ski bum means you're willing to sleep in an iron maiden as long as it's somewhere up BCC or LCC. It means you'd eat Ramen noodles every day for a year to save up for an AK heli trip. It means you think just so-so girls are smokin' if they can ski switch or huck their meat. It means you will talk about winter in July. It means you will sleep in your car four nights out of the week and still be down for a fifth night if the snow is falling.

[Hart]

1). Lives in a town with a ski area. Not a town near a town with a ski area, that shows lack of commitment.

2). Has a pass. If you don't understand the value of a pass and haven't figured out how to get one, you are not a ski bum, man.

Just because you meet these 2 qualifications doesn't make you a ski bum, however.

[Lawless]

I kind of think that skiing has to be your main priority in life. If you take a job that doesn't allow you to ski most days all day, I feel like that means that making money becomes more of a priority. If you have a family and skiing is your number 1 priority, then I think you're a different kind of bum.

I also think that there has to be some financial hardship involved with it. That's the bum part of ski bum. Otherwise, you're just a skier. If you had millions in the bank, and travelled the world skiing, but living at the four seasons, you can't be considered a ski bum.

For me, it's the guys/gals that pound nails or landscape in the summer and then become under-employed in the winter in order to ski every day.

[Ski pod sticker hero]

1. Having a ton of stickers on your car and ski pod from all the sickter places I have been.
That proves you have been there done that.

2. Making tons of cash in a city out east and showing up at JH on the biggest pow day of the year. That's how I roll.

3 Thousands of posts on TGR forums.

2 out of 3 aint bad, I'm working on the 3rd. It's just crazy how much I have in common with a lot of you guys. Ski bums unite !

[VC]

You collect unemployment all winter, oh wait, I think that just makes me a bum.

[rsknight1]

I think US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart's comment about obscenity/pornography applies: "I know it when I see it".

[DeeAre]

Whatever gets you cred from the alpha bro scene.
I cut my hair and work in an office, so I probably have none and am not a ski bum.

[DeeAre]

Good thread, SFB. Curious to read ensuing thoughts.

[Skidog]

I have a passion for skiing. Do I consider myself a ski bum??? Probably not. I have a "9-5" job, house, wife, kid, furry kidS, etc..

Do I do EVERYTHING WITHIN MY POWER TO SKI?? Yes 100%. Do I think about it from the last turns of the season to the first turns of a new one? YES....

I got 86 days in for the 07-08 season... 96 for 08-09 and hoping for even more this season.

"ski bum" is about passion and doing everything to get out and ski thats humanly possible.

Thats my take.

[geo039]

All I know is K2 is the ski bums brand

[elotrolado]

getting hooked up with new ballet skis every year. and i don't need no stinkin pass either!

[skifishbum]

2). Has a pass. If you don't understand the value of a pass and haven't figured out how to get one, you are not a ski bum, man.

Calling bullshit on that one
This guy to me pretty much = the poster child for true skibums no pass necessicito
http://www.wowasatch.com/

[jon gaper]

but what is a ski-fish-bum?

[Duker]

I think you know em when you see them. Skifishbum you are definitely as ski bum.

[dookeyXXX]

i prefer the glorified and romanticized version:

somebody who gives up everything to ski. they scrimp, and scrape, and save and work a couple of low paying jobs (liftie perhaps in the day, restaurant/bar at night) and ski as much as they can.

a bum, by definition, is somebody without money, so if you are rich enough to own several ski houses and travel the world skiing at expensive resorts, does that really make you a ski bum?

so, i would say if you are doing dawn patrol 4-5 times a week and then hitting a "real" 9-to-5 job or if you are rich and just skip around the world skiing, you are not a true ski bum, but merely somebody who is passionate about skiing. there's nothing wrong with that and i applaud anybody who lives for their passion, but i think by definition (and the original meaning of the term), a ski bum is a bum (i.e. person with little or no money, no established/permanent place of residence) who likes to ski.

[Gripen]

How many people here consider themselves to be "ski bums"?

I consider myself one, but certainly don't fit some others criteria here.
Personally I think its about passion and commitment. That's it. If you love skiing, and put it before 99% of other things in life and it is truly your passion, then you qualify.

[Lone Star]

paging Encore......

[Ted Striker]

A guy with a pass that he paid for with his own money is not a ski bum. A guy who even has money is probably not one either.

Bob Athey is.

[dk_alaskan]

so would a ski bum be someone who worked 90+ hours a week for long stretches at a time, knowing they will most likely be laid off at some point in the near future and because of this, saved all the money they made in order to ski wherever they chose be considered a ski bum?

[JONg Doe]

^^^ I would have to agree to with dookey's definition. It's those guys that you see/know living out of a van in the parking lot, eating what tourists leave on their plate in the lodge, drink PBR because it's cheap - not trendy, that use duct tape on their gear because they need to....

I quit a decent salaried job to live in the mountains and ski a lot, but also choose to have a little better paying job at/near the mountain that allows me to live in a nice place, eat well and have a little money for fun things off-mountain. I still get in a lot of skiing, but not as much as I would if I could truly live the ski-bum lifestyle. My hat is off to those guys - I couldn't quite make the sacrifices.

[MakersTeleMark]

Cool red wine.

[Benny Profane]

Trustafarian.

[Ale_capone]

I'd agree that you have to be near broke to be a bum. I give it to Tony Detmer...Stevens pass tree house man.

old article...

http://news.google.com/newspapers?ni...g=5140,4057153