The Throne

There’s something funny about skiers, snowboarders and furniture.

Is it a throne? A statue? A commemorative piece to equipment past?  Can we not bear to throw away pieces of equipment that we probably dropped thousands of dollars on over the years? Sadly thinking, is my ski chair the most expensive piece of furniture I own?

From my neighbour’s ski fence to my other neighbours’ ski bench to our new store’s Chairlift Benches, there is some sense of worship and pride about furniture (and property enclosures). I remember my first chair- I collected about two dozen straight as can be skis from friends, ski shop trashcans and whatever of my own quiver I could stand to saw up. I remember it being like cutting $100 bills in half.  I bought a porch chair kit from the hardware store, discarded half of it and assembled my domestic pride…now a cottage porch chair.

Perhaps we look upon those with house and homewares made of skis and snowboards as the truly dedicated to the sport. Could anyone really doubt that a guy who’s fence is made entirely of skis, one snowboard and 3 cross country skis as being anything less than a truly passionate lifelong skier? Or is that we feel the need to display our past – from long skinny race skis as bench slats to a flirting affair with snowblades as arm rests? Or maybe it’s just easier to pay homage to thousands of dollars of equipment that we just can’t bare to put them in the dumpster.  Like our wedding photos and college diplomas hung on the wall, our porches display our proud pasts.

However, if there’s anything more admirable than ski furniture, it must be the chairlift furniture. A double chairlift made into a porch swing? Pure gold in terms of ski culture credibility. Quite simply, it means that you were in some way so engrained in a mountain community that you scored a chair…you stuck around long enough for one to get removed, you worked for the mountain, you won it from the mountain, you knew where or who to steal it from, you had a ski buddy with enough muscle to help you move the bloody thing, you had the know-how to weld on legs and deal with a hanger arm. Quite simply, more than others around you, you knew what you were doing. Eye on the prize, dear ski furniture fellows.

Through this summer and fall, Red Lodge Mountain Resort is gently taking down your beloved Midway Express (are chainsaws gentle?). Before you all ask ‘BUT WHY?!  WE LOVE THE MIDWAY EXPRESS!’ – yup, yup, we hear you. The Midway Express would cost more than 8,333 memberships to Foster and Logan’s beer club to bring up to code to actually run for you loyal skiers and boarders, so alas, she’s gotta go.

Anyway, back to the chainsaws. There are 42 chairs on the Midway Express, 2 have been made into benches for our downtown store and about 5 more are destined for bench-dome, a couple for charities and the rest for the peeps. The first one will be given away the July 4^th and 5 p.m. from our Downtown Location. How to enter? Just purchase anything in the store from July 1 (try to pull yourself away from your Canada Day celebration) through July 4^th and we’ll hand you a ballot to win.  Like the cereal commercials say, ‘no purchase necessary…..’ but you’ll have to find the ballots elsewhere. Check out our website for some ideas!