Bota Bag Lesson

My dad was not a big drinker, so why the ski season bota bag, I really don’t know. But I can see him with it, in a Nordic sweater, the wineskin’s cord looped around his head and one arm so the leather pouch rested low on his chest in front of the other arm, pointing slightly upward.   A giant, three dimensional comma, filled with wine.   Surely in his imagination he was the image of the quintessential European skier…but as he led a parade of three little kids,  hats and tiny skis askew, followed by our mom, he was in reality, a little less cool than he was in his head.   I can remember him showing us how it was done.  He’d tip back his head, begin to squirt the wine into his mouth, then draw the nozzle of the sack farther and farther from his face until finally the wine was no longer meeting its intended target and he had rich, red liquid dripping from his nose and chin.  My brothers and I would crack up; my mother would roll her eyes which only encouraged him to direct the stream of wine at her.  He’d laugh at himself and sling the wine-skin behind him—skiing off only slightly embarrassed; confident that his technique was pretty close to classic.

Today’s commercially available renditions of the bota are latex lined leather sacks stoppered like a sport drink bottle.  The ancient origin is lost to history but the iconic Spanish version has emerged as a legacy to traditional personal liquid transport.   Shaped like a curved drop of water the traditional bota was handmade from goat skin that was dried and treated with certain tree bark extracts and vegetable tannins.  It was specially sewn in such a way that the seam was tightly sealed, stitches were turned to the inside and the bag was rinsed with “pez” (not candy but a hot liquid form of juniper resin that creates a waterproof coating when swirled into the flexible bottle).  After a decorative red cord is attached the traditional wine-skin is ready for use.

Sweet fizzy drinks will do ok in the plastic lined version, but not in the traditionally created one.  A "real" bota is perfect for wine—like wine the bags get better as they age and some say the flavor of the wine is enhanced after it lives in the wine-skin for a while.

Dad’s bota eventually became dry and brittle.  The man just didn’t drink enough wine to keep it supple through the years.   So, through him I learned an important ski lesson:  the key to continuous coolness is to drink wine with regularity.  Keep your bota close, and refill it often! 

Winning, Women, and Poodles

Over 1000 dogs pulled on their booties and started running on March 5^th  this year, just like they have on the first Sunday of March since 1973.  They left Anchorage determined to make their humans proud--bringing the first musher into Nome on March 15 at 2:20 in the morning.  The second racer arrived less than an hour later.  The third place finisher had the decency to wait until most people were out of bed, sledding across the finish line at 9 in the morning.  Over the next few days 68 more mushers would cross the Iditarod's finish line, while 14 starters would be beaten by the race itself at various checkpoints along the way—Unalakleet, Kaltag, Galena, Ruby, Cripple, McGrath, Nikolai, Rainy Pass, and Skwentna.  At 23:51 on March 19^th, almost the 20^th, the last musher arrived in Nome and the widow's lantern was extinguished.   Dallas Seavey won the race, but as is so at sports banquets from high school through pro teams from volleyball to ping pong there were other awards presented at the Musher banquet too:  Sportsmanship (John Baker), Most improved (Noah Bumeister), Musher’s Choice (Matt Fador), Golden Clipboard (Nulato)…there were awards that mere skiers would not understand. 

My interest in the race is peaked by two types of competitors—Women and poodles.  As a young woman I swam and skied on men’s high school and college teams because there were no women’s teams at the time, and though competing was fun, winning was not an experience the “girls” would reminisce about.  So I am fascinated by the fact that in this sport women not only compete against the men, but they often win!  Susan Butcher was a 4-time winner (1986, ‘87, ‘88, ‘90) not just competing--but dominating the sport.  She placed in the top 5 in 12 of her 17 attempts. (Before the Iditarod she was the first person to drive her sled dogs to the summit of Mt McKinley!)

Published in Washington Post 3/17/16, courtesy John Suter

And as a dog-mom to my Standard Poodle Picabo (yes, named for the great world class skier Picabo Street) I take vicarious pride in the fact that while Susan Butcher was winning races, John Suter was running somewhere in the middle of the pack with a sled pulled by poodles.  With three poodles on his team in 1988 he placed 38 out of 52 in just over 18 days.  A year later, with an all poodle team, he finished in only 14 days.  He continued to race his fluffy dogs through 1991.  Although poodles did “kick husky butt” they are now banned from the race with all dogs who are not considered “northern breeds.” There is no question that even as they took on the drive to run in the snow from the huskies they were raised with, the poodles retained their generous spirits. In a recent Washington Post interview (March 17, 2016) Suter described their combination of win and wag this way “If you fall off the sled, the huskies will keep running down the trail, [while] the poodles will turn around to see if you’re there and do a U-turn and come pick you up.”  During the era of Susan Butcher and John Suter Sport’s Illustrated reported that it was a time when “Women win the Iditarod and men mush poodles.”

For U.S. skiers March often offers the best downhill hurdles of the season.  But as we gather après ski, conversation turns to the March phenomenon happening in our most northern state—kudos to the men, women and poodles who love to race across the snow!

Jumping for Joy; soring beyond the K Point

There was one cold weekend in the northeast this winter—and it coincided with the Salisbury Winter Sports Association’s annual Jumpfest. That’s Salisbury, Connecticut.  And yes, that’s Ski Jumping.  The SWSA’s website proclaims that ski jumping is as close to flying as you can get.  They say it is fun, and “surprisingly safe” as the “second safest snow sport after cross country skiing.” (And who hasn’t twisted a knee doing that?)

A northeast US map of ski resorts at onthesnow.com shows 109 alpine ski areas (granted they stretch the northeast with some Pennsylvania hiccups).  In the same region those who want to hurtle down a steep narrow ramp in search of flight have a choice of only six club hills.  There are three in New Hampshire--Andover, Hanover, and Lebanon; and one each in Vermont, New York and Connecticut—Saxtons River, Lake Placid and Salisbury.

A poster or short announcement in the local paper is all it takes to fill youth soccer teams to capacity and create a waiting list of players.  But the US Ski Jumping Team doesn’t fill its junior roster so easily.  Their recruiting video  Invitation to Fly was produced to entice new participants.  And their Jumping in the East slide presentation proclaims that the only skills you need are Balance, Flexibility, Strength…oh, and enough “Ski Skill” to turn and stop after landing.  Anyone can do this!

Today the four basic elements of a jump—In -run, take off, flight, and landing—are performed on plastic and porcelain surfaces for year round training but there was a time when snow ruled the sport.  In Salisbury, it was Norwegian immigrant brothers John, Olaf, and Magnus Sartre who livened up winter by bringing jumping to town.  Brother John demonstrated their hometown sport by skiing from the peak of a barn roof and flying 30 feet in the air before landing safely (or so the legend goes).   The town was hooked and the brothers formed the Salisbury Outing Club which hosted its first ski jump competition in January of 1927.  In 1933 the National Ski Jumping Championships were held in the otherwise quiet Connecticut town.   With only brief interludes the town has been jumping ever since.  In 2011 a new, 65 meter jump and steel tower was completed thanks to donations from over 500 people and the hill again became a site for national competitions.

But back to Jumpfest 2016.  In a winter of extreme warmth and diminutive snowfall, the weekend of the Jumpfest saw 2 days of subzero temperatures while wind whipped the flags on the jump tower.  The bar start was moved low on the hill so that competitors were not blown off their landing.   No observer would detect that the fans risked certain frostbite to congregate at the base of the hill.  Bonfires and hot toddies sweetened with pure maple sugar kept the cowbells of enthusiasm ringing as the jumpers flew, soring to land beyond the K-point.  The original extreme sport tradition offered thrills and inspiration to all who gathered to watch.

The SWSA website claims that “ski jumping builds courage, confidence and character.”  Flying through winter will do all of that for sure!