Member-only story
Two river guides left Nepal on different days, planning to meet the following week. They didn’t see each other again for eighteen years and their farewell, “Bangkok on Tuesday,” became a catchphrase for Sobek guides whenever they parted. You never knew when you might actually see each other again.
The winter of 1989–90 Mike Pratt took me under his wing in Vail, Colorado. He secured me a job as a waiter at Lancelot, a prime rib restaurant where he worked as a bartender. We shared a condo, skied, worked, played together, and became brothers. I skied over a hundred days, following Mike Pratt’s fluid telemark turns, and climbing the steep learning curve to master that odd, free-heel, knee-dropping turn of old Norway.
I’ll always blame it on the thunderstorm. On the last day of skiing, April fifteenth, I was as fit as I had ever been in my life. I felt power in my legs and grace in my hips. Hero snow lay everywhere, spring corn that made every turn easy and perfect. I bounced from one turn into the next with an endless supply of strength. I followed Mike as we sailed off Rasputin’s Ridge to land…
