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Andy
Rooney nailed a verbal bulls-eye when he said, “Computers make it easier to do
a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to
be done.” This is especially evident as I approach hour five of sitting at my
desk, before two notebook computer screens, gathering ski reports from ski
areas I have no plans on skiing at this year.
Getting a mountain report used to require
dialing a phone number and then listening to a contrived, cheery voice detail
how much new snow fell, how many runs were open and, without fail, describe
conditions as “packed powder.”
But according to Jack Hanle, the public relations
director for Aspen’s Mountain Division, Web cams are fast becoming the
prevailing choice for ski condition updates. Locals, Hanle told me, champion
the live shots for checking snow cover and visibility, while future visitors
favor the strategically placed cameras for heightening anticipation. On
average, Hanle added, Aspen’s Web cams receive almost 25,000 hits a day.
It’s an astounding number to grasp, until you
visit Aspen’s interactive Gondola Cam, as I did four hours ago, and realize the
attraction.
This camera, located at the base of Aspen
Mountain, possesses the addictive qualities of a video game. Through the use of
your computer’s mouse you can zoom, tilt, pan and even adjust the camera’s
brightness. And because there’s usually a waiting time of three to four
minutes, you’re allotted only 60 nerve-anxious seconds to capture and frame
your desired shots, heightening the draw-factor.
When my turn came to play director my
selfishness shocked me. Instead of respecting the camera’s true touristic intentions
I adopted the mindset of an art-house film director, focusing on a stack of
cinder blocks wrapped in cloudy plastic from an adjacent construction site. I
then tried to instigate some action-drama by zooming in on the curtained
windows of a second-floor hotel room—The Little Nell, I think—hoping there’d be
some guy inside watching, prompting him to storm out the door jacked with rage
and menace, and heave a complimentary facial bar towards the camera. My
directorial debut playing investigative reporter would end by framing a
close-up shot of two women and a guy, all victims of horrible hat hair,
gobbling sandwiches and drinking dark draft beers at an outdoor patio table
directly below Gondola Cam.
Most Web cams aren’t as entertaining as Aspen’s
Gondola Cam. Takamagahara in Japan, for instance, features a time-delayed Web
cam photo, snapped through a crooked window blind’s beige-colored slats,
overlooking a three-bay garage and a closed ski lift. It’s the ski area
equivalent of Nick Nolte’s mug shot.
Whiteface’s Jump Cam furnishes an impressive
view of the ski jump used in the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Olympics. But staring
at it is like staring at Mount St. Helens—you keep expecting for something to
happen but nothing ever does. Consequently, after four minutes you’re left
feeling bored and cheated.
Vail’s seven Web Cams all shut down at 3:55 p.m. in the afternoon, leaving you with the same shock and disbelief as discovering a closed Taco Bell drive-thru at midnight. What Vail officials don’t realize (or maybe they do and are simply trying to cloak trail grooming secrets) is that Web cams, especially the interactive ones, are just as entertaining at night.
Killington’s K-1 Cam allows you to zoom in on
the illuminated interior of an empty restaurant, fostering the tense illusion
of being a night watchman, with thick ankles and a heavy Boston accent, looking
for spring break hooligans crazed on Genesee Cream Ale.
Squaw Valley’s Uber Cam, at 8,200 feet, casts a
murky night picture, creating the high-drama sense of operating an
extreme-depth oceanic camera, minus, of course, one of those Cousteau boys
barking directions.
But as I’m learning now, in my fifth hour of
mountain Web cam surfing, the original appeal factor of having instant access
to unlimited ski information eventually becomes secondary to the euphoric sense
of being omnipresent. Not in a deity-type way, like I should be writing
parables about mustard seeds. But more like an astronaut, with powerful
binoculars, looking down from the Space Shuttle, while taking a needed break
from studying the anti-gravitational effects on argyle socks.
I’m especially reminded of this now as I observe
three skiers adjusting their ski pole wrist bands in one of Bear Mountain’s
four Web cams. As I eagle eye them a blizzard of hard questions storm through
my brain: Who are these people? Where are they from? And, ultimately, do they
harbor any clue that they’re being spied upon by an unshaven rube dressed in
green flannel pajama pants and a Santa Cruz Surf Museum T-shirt from two time
zones away in a snowbound cabin in the Colorado mountains?
Probably not. Because if they did they’d wave,
make a face or exhibit some other manner of half-witted acknowledgment. For as
a species we are incapable of passing a camera without innately switching into
king-fool mode. Football games and the Today Show are high evidence of
this. I imagine it’s only a matter of time before every skier and boarder
becomes self-consciously aware of mountain Web cams and feel compelled to
react. I know I will.
Next time I ski I’m going to stand before a Web
cam and wave twice, just before carving a turn, no doubt, on “packed powder”
conditions.
Jeff
Wozer (www.jeffwozer.com) works as a nationally touring stand-up comedian based
out of Denver, Colo.
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