So Glenn, and Phil, and I went Snowboarding this weekend.  We went up to Mt. Tremblant to check out the half-pipe.  We drove up Saturday afternoon in a rented Ford station wagon.  We could have taken Phil's car... But Glenn is afraid of Phil's driving.  Glenn thinks that Phil will get us killed.  So just to make Glenn more comfortable we all forked over wads of cash to rent a car.  Ironically, I am actually far more afraid when Glenn is behind the wheel.  See Glenn doesn't even own a car and has hardly spent any time behind the wheel of a vehicle.  It was a strange thing to be paying money to be afraid.  I equate the experience to blowing cash on a roller coaster, only in this case... The Humplik Coaster is indeed quite unsafe.

Glenn was getting razzed about his inexperience behind the wheel on the drive up.  It's about a two hour drive.  We got to the motel at about 5:00p.m. and checked in.  I hid in the car while Glenn and Phil checked us in.  We only wanted to have to pay for two people...  If we had been honest and said that there was three of us it would have cost an extra 10 bucks!  TEN BUCKS!

We went down to the village and ate some smoked meat sandwiches and Phil and Glenn also ate Quiche.  Phil and Glenn love Quiche.  After that we went and checked out the local bar had a few beers and then went back to the hotel to sleep.  Our room had a single and a Queen size bed.  Glenn Humplik didn't want to sleep alone.  He gets lonely when he sleeps in a single bed.  So he told Phil and I that he would pay for the gas for the whole trip if he could sleep between us in the double.  We reluctantly agreed because we didn't want to pay for the gas...  So the single bed stayed empty.

(Okay so that isn't true... what really happened is Glenn paid for the gas so he could get the single to himself.  Phil and I then took the double)

Phil seemed a little bit uncomfortable sharing a bed with me.  He seemed like he thought it was a pretty strange thing to be doing.  I wasn't too worried about it... It was a really big bed.  Plus when we went to Mexico to shoot...  Ray and Derek and I got into these situations quite frequently.  Often there was no room in Mexico to accommodate three people... (we were in the middle of the desert)  So we often shared beds.  I preferred sleeping with Ray over Derek.  See sometimes Derek would make a pass.

So we rented a car - $90.00...  We got motel room $90.00.... Gas $30.00.... Overpriced Mt. Tremblant Meal $60.00  Beer $45.00

So the three of us had spent some money today.  All because tomorrow we were going Snowboarding.  We set the alarm for 6:30 a.m. and went to sleep.

6:30 a.m. and it's pouring rain

I heard the rain hitting the roof of the motel before I opened my eyes.  I got up from bed. opened the door, and started laughing.  The cold air and light pouring into the room woke up Glenn and Phil.  "Holy shit that's fuckin hilarious"  somebody said.  I wanted to go Snowboarding in the rain, but Phil was saying no way.  This was comedy.  We had rented a car and blown about a hundred bucks each so we could go to bed early in a shitty motel room and then drive home in the rain.  We went back to sleep.

9:30 a.m. and the rain has slowed down

This time when I woke up it was hardly raining... It was a drizzle.  We had woken up originally at 6:30 because we wanted to take our time and get a delicious breakfast.  It wasn't raining anymore.  We could still go...  Phil didn't want to go at first but after a few minutes of me selling it we all jumped in the car and sped down to the hill.  It was raining, but we no longer gave a shit.  We were hard-core.  We bought our lift tickets at $48.00 a piece and got on the lift.

The Edge and How Glenn Was Lost

Phil wanted to check out this section of the mountain called The Edge.  You snow board about half way down the north side of the mountain.  Then you get on another lift which takes you up to the top of a different mountain.  So we did this.  We got to the top of The Edge and started boarding through the glades.  Glades are basically woods, but about half the trees have been cut down so it's easier to snow board between them.  We had been going down for a couple of minutes and the conditions started getting shitty in the Glades.  "Let's cut through the woods here over to the run!"

So here's what happened.  We saw a path going through the thick brush.  Ski tracks.  We figured if we followed the ski tracks through the thick brush we would hit the main ski run.  So we all went.  It was pretty thick the woods but Phil and I were doing okay, Glenn fell.  I saw the main run ahead of me though the trees so I hit it and Phil followed me.  We got out onto the run and Glenn wasn't with us... he was still in the woods.  We yelled!  "Glenn!!!!"  He yelled back "Yeah!!!"  We yelled again "Glenn!!  We are over this way on the run!!"

We waited a few minutes and still Glenn didn't emerge out of the trees.  I yelled again.  "Glenn!!"
He called back again "Yeah!"  But this time his voice came from much further down the hill.  We yelled again "Where are you!"
Humplik didn't respond.  "Glenn where are you!!!"  No response.

We figured that he had gotten out of the woods down below us and had skied to the bottom of the hill.  We were wrong but we didn't know it for at least another three hours.  We got to the bottom and Glenn wasn't there.  We waited for about twenty minutes and he never showed up.  Now we were starting to realize that we may never see Glenn again.  We took the lift back to the top and skied through the woods, keep in mind Mt. Tremblant is a huge mountain.  By the time we got back to the place we last saw Glenn about an hour had passed.  We yelled his name into the woods.  There was no response.  So we boarded back down to the bottom...  We gave Glenn's description to the lift operator and told him to tell Glenn to meet us at the top of the mountain.  It was about noon.

But we figured that Glenn was just out Snowboarding looking for us.  So we went looking for him.  We went to all the different lifts and gave the lift operators Glenn's description... We even posted signs at each lift, they were written with marker, they said... GLENN HUMPLIK... MEET US AT THE TOP AT 1:30....

Phil and I were starting to get worried.  We had lost Glenn five minutes into our first run.  It was raining.  We hadn't seen Glenn in over three hours.  Was he just lost?  Could he have fallen in the woods and hit his head on a tree?  Could Humplik be dead?  We started to think the worst.  We decided that if Glenn didn't show up at the top by 1:30, then we would go back to the woods with a search party and look for Glenn.  It had been three hours.  It was 1:30....  Glenn came wandering out of the restaurant at the top of the hill...  He was soaked... He was embarrassed.  He had been stuck in the woods for two and a half hours!

WHAT!

"I uhh... I got lost in there...  And then I fell in this creek.... Uhh.... and I couldn't find the run...  Uhh... So I followed these animal tracks for a while and then I got stuck in about six feet of snow... and I couldn't get out... and it was scary.  And I can't believe it I was stuck in a hole in the snow for an hour...  I couldn't get out of this hole for an hour!!!"

So anyway... Glenn is all right. He dried off and we all went over to the half-pipe and killed ourselves.

Oh yeah... On the way back to Ottawa Glenn got us pulled over by the police.  He was driving too slow in the fast lane.  The police officer gave Glenn a warning and told him that if he was going to drive slow, that he should keep out of the passing lane.  I told Glenn not to worry.  He hasn't driven that much in his life, so he doesn't have that much experience behind the wheel.  I told Glenn that these are the kind of situations that we learn from.  And that the police officer was just being helpful.  And that the more Glenn drives, the more of these situations will occur.  Eventually Glenn may be a really good driver.  Keep it up Glenn!  You can do it!

See ya later.

Tom