Prologue

rec.skiing.alpine is a newsgroup with varied attractions for skiers on the internet.
It’s pretty lively, can get rough, is often funny, and heaven help new people who haven’t lurked a bit before joining in!
There is quite a bit of socialising among posters, as most are from the USA.
I’m not sure if I’m the first foreigner (Aussie) to join in the socialising, but hopefully there will be more of it.

My first trip, to Canada and the US in March/April 1997, is covered in some detail on another website http://www.geocities.com/Colosseum/1298/ .
This was a solo trip, which became a roadtrip when Two Buddha (Scott) joined me and we prowled the Pacific Northwest together, meeting several other rsa habitues` on the way.

The Utah trip was a whole different prospect. Utah seemed the place to go, on account of the many ski areas so close to Salt Lake City, and the veneration with which many skiiers approached Utah.
There was the strong possibility that other rsa people would join us in SLC, and there seemed to be a large concentration of local rsa people also.

The timing of the trip ended up being February, to coincide with Nadine’s pilgrimage to Utah.
Several other Australians expressed interest in clubbing together to rent a "condo" in SLC, and then several Americans and an Englishman stuck their hands up.

Picture is looking down to our condo balcony from carport.

One of the Americans, Mike "Tigger" Wilde conducted some research from his base in Pennsylvania, and found us a palatial condo in Sandy, which is nice and close to the Cottonwood Canyons ski areas, and an Australian, Craig Wilkes, volunteered his credit card as we had to payfor the whole month up front. So, we were all set for some serious skiing, semi-serious drinking (Utah is Against full strength beer) and meeting the bodies that belonged to the names we’d been chatting with, insulting, conspiring with, and gossiping about on the Internet for so long. This is a four-part tale, with copious illustrations, of what ensued.

"Tigger" Wilde, and Good 'Ol Ed