I was waiting for my 7 year old in the old Tenth Mountain Lodge at Granite Peak ski area in the middle of Wisconsin. Within striking distance two guys were having a nondescript conversation about the blah ski conditions of central Wisconsin in December. My curiosity was peaked when I heard the man standing ask, “So what brings a guy like you to Wisconsin?” I tuned in like a 14 year old watching Pamela Anderson run down the beach to save a drowning child. The voice was unmistakable, old school California surfer dude, lovin the winter time, “Just hangin out with my wife visiting some local spots that most of the big guys don’t get to ski.”
It was Glen Plake. The smile gave it away underneath his Black fleece, ear flapped hat, with a purple mohawk which resembled a muppet character. He didn’t have to dawn a 3 foot orange mohawk to get my attention. I began skiing during the extreme skiers rise to power and I felt like a kid meeting Brett Favre for a rare autograph session before a super bowl season. I don’t normally like to be a “Jock Sniffer” and bother celebrities but Plake has always been a hero to me.
I introduced my self, shook his hand and looked to make an obscure exit from his glowing presence. Glen broke my obscure escape by walking with me into the main room of the lodge. He asked me where I was from and how long I had been skiing at Granite Peak. I tried to down play the moderate to boring setting of skiing in Wisconsin. Turning the moderate to major and the boring to happening, Plake could only brag about how cool skiing in Wisconsin has been. He had just been at Mount La Crosse two days earlier, and now he was heading through Wausau on his way to Ski Brule in Upper Michigan. Plake and his wife were on a “Down Home Tour” of small local ski areas. He was honest and sincere and believed any minute spent on frozen water skiing any vertical whether 10000 feet or merely 1500 hundred feet was a special time. He patted me on the shoulder like long lost brothers and said he would “Ski me on the slope.”
Plake walked to the door and out into the sun leaving me standing in front of my family and friends. My friend, that I teach with, Chris asked, “Is that a friend of yours?”
I excitedly said, “No man. That was Glen Plake.”
“Who?” Chris slowly asked.
I quickly gave a run down of the Warren Miller movies that I had introduced to him and his wife over the past two months. Once again he questioned, “Who?” It was like dealing with a raven sitting on my door sill saying never more. Chris had no clue along with the rest of my family. My daughter was worried about me talking to Strangers. My wife felt the stress of an upcoming surgery had finally broken me down. Chris once again asked, “Who?” Then in a final jeopardy tone my son says, “Is he the guy that was playing cards on the movie?”
“Yes!”
We saw him a couple of other times on the hill, just like any other person. I briefly talked to his wife in a lift line. He gave my family an autograph poster and talked to several other fans that knew of his importance to the grand scheme of skiing.
An old guy in a carhart jacket that was screaming “I AM A RENTER” asked, “What’s the big deal about that guy.”
I simply said, “He’s the Brett Favre of skiing, the heart and soul of this sport.” I felt this simplistic description of Glenn Plake would satisfy the curiosity of any other cheese head, and he nodded in an impressive manner. The renter got it.
Glen Plake is the model of what a skier should be just like Brett Favre is to the game of football. I wanted to follow Glen Plake to Ski Brule the next day and maybe follow his tour from now until he returned to Chaminix. Reality came crashing down around me as my daughter ripped her skis off at the top of a Black Diamond and began crying that it was scary. Glen shredded away into the woods through the sparse Wausau Powder. I thought I was watching a scene from a Warren Miller flick. A camera man chased after him followed by the few skiers that dared to ski along his line. I helped my daughter to the bottom of “Superstition” and watched Glenn ski off and out of sight to continue is Down Home Journey of Packer Fans and fried cheese curds.
