We've made it a tradition to ski on Easter for most of the past 10+ years, so found ourselves a little out of sorts this weekend. Took a little stroll down memory lane, and realized most of our biggest ski weekend frustrations can be blamed on one piece of equipment. I'm curious if any of you happen to have any components (or even ski buddies/partners) in your skiing operation that drive you nuts, but you can't seem to get rid of. Ours happens to be a Yakima Skybox. Affectionately known as Cletus (these past 2 years I'm beginning to think that Cletus might be mis-named and actually be a "she") the skybox joined our family about 10 years ago when we first saw the merits of owning a quiver of skis and immediately found Cletus on Craigslist for $150. (Apparently the previous owner didn't believe in full disclosure and failed to mention that Cletus was possessed.) Cletus is like that weird aunt or uncle that every family seems to have -- everyone generally looks forward to his/her presence and family gatherings wouldn't be the same if he/she weren't there, but at least once a year, you've got to hold Gramma back from lunging at him from across the table with the carving knife. Cletus generally makes our ski outings pleasant and run smoothly, but once each year w/o fail Cletus manages to let his dark side loose with zero advance warning, and it's usually at an inopportune time. Some of the more memorable ski hill parking lot events with Cletus include:
Anybody else have a love-hate relationship with something or someone that tags along for most of your ski outings?
- standing my 5 year old daughter on top of the cab in her ski boots so she could hand us our gear from the off-side opening because the on-side key/latch assembly seized up (permanently),
- me cutting two hand-sized holes thru the skin of Cletus with a mini-leatherman so I can get my hands inside to operate the latch releases manually when Cletus decided to hold all of our gear hostage on what was going to be the best mid week powder day all season, and
- me standing there with Cletus gripping my right hand like a bear trap on a 10F degree day, while I waited for someone else in the parking lot to walk by and operate Cletus' latch while I lifted the lid with my left. This one occurred this year, and I think was Cletus' revenge for the leatherman incident. (I had come back to the rig by myself late in the morning to swap skis, was hanging onto the edge of the open skybox with my right hand as I set my skis against the side of the rig with my left, and Cletus chose that moment to coax his rear spring into failure. I had a solid grip on Cletus with my right, so when the spring failed, the lid slammed down on my hand (no gloves) and split the plastic around my hand, allowing the latches to engage on either side of my hand and leaving jagged plastic digging into the top of my hand.) It hurt like hell standing there, but at the same time I couldn't help but marvel at Cletus' cunning and timing.
Anybody else have a love-hate relationship with something or someone that tags along for most of your ski outings?