Ski bum Warren Miller carves a trail others should follow
Standing in a small group of locals in the foyer of Orcas Center one recent night, Warren Miller's smooth, folksy tone rises above the clamor and in an instant brings back all the warm images of cold days: fast skiers, nutso snowboarders, big mountains, deep powder, corn snow, corny jokes.
He is the Godfather of American skiing, and a lot more. In a filmmaking career perhaps unequaled in American entertainment, Miller's monologues have been nothing short of the warm, witty soundtrack to global fresh-air adventure.
But this night — mere moments before Miller's 54th annual snow-sports film, "Journey," makes its world premiere — the voice wanders straight to another, more vital, topic.
"Have you seen the skateboard park?" Miller wants to know. "It's 600 yards that way — right next door to the medical center. And even closer to the cemetery!"
Warren Miller, a movie icon and everyone's favorite ski bum, is 78 years young. He has been there, skied that, seen the world and lived, by his own admission, a dream life. His name will be emblazoned on a monstrous, posh lodge at Yellowstone Club, the private Montana ski resort for which he currently serves as "Director of Skiing."
Yet listen to him for a few moments, and it's clear this obscure concrete skateboard park on little Orcas Island — Miller's home in semi-retirement for 10 years — ranks among his greatest lifetime accomplishments.
As he describes the place, and the way local kids have embraced it, adopting it as their own, his eyes twinkle.
It was built with $225,000 — all donated — in a campaign he spearheaded but likes to share credit for. Designed with the aid of local riders and built by Mark Hubbard of Grindline, a Seattle-based skate-park builder, it's considered among the top parks in the Northwest. And for Warren Miller, it serves a specific purpose.
Years ago, he was a father in Hermosa Beach, Calif. — "pretty much the drug capital of the United States back then," he says.
When surf beaches closed, kids took to their skateboards on city streets — an illegal activity.
"Young kids grew up breaking the law," he says. "Which law do they break next?"
Orcas, by comparison, is idyllic — at least on the surface. Island youth are as restless as kids anywhere else and have fewer outlets for excess energy. A county health survey showed high schoolers — many of them latch-key kids — using drugs and alcohol at a rate twice the state average.
The natural-high alternative seemed obvious to Miller, who doesn't think competitive youth sports do it as well. "Every Little League game ends with nine kids going home losers," he notes.
So he and a few island cohorts, such as Hobie Cat inventor Hobie Alter and Ray Clever, a local deputy sheriff, took up the cause. They phoned, cajoled, dreamed out loud and got the island talking. Then they sat back and watched money and in-kind donations flow in.
In the end, 30 builders on Orcas and in the Seattle area pitched in, as well as hundreds of Orcasites. The skateboard park, on school district property just outside the town of Eastsound, opened a year ago on the Fourth of July and has been an unqualified success.
It's free and open to all willing to obey the rules: No smoking. No drinking. No drugs. No loud music, bikes or swearing. Helmets required. Its proud owners and caretakers — the dozens of local boys and girls who spend every available moment there — have taken up the cause of self-policing, says Ross Smith, father of a skateboarding son and daughter and volunteer tweaker of the park's Web site, www.skateorcas.org.
On an evening every other week or so, an exhibition is held. Riders of a designated age group show their best stuff on the 15,000 square feet of undulating concrete. Moms and dads and friends sit in bleachers and cheer them on. At the end, everybody gets an award.
There is talk of another fundraiser — to cover the whole thing with a roof for year-around use.
Warren Miller watches from the background and savors it all — reward enough for a guy who is still out on skis every winter but can't remember the last time he caught big air on his own.
Don't expect to see him on a board anytime soon.
"My wife says if I do it and break my hip, she won't change my diapers," he quips.
This autumn night, he introduces his new ski movie (it opens in Seattle theaters Oct. 30) by telling a couple-hundred island neighbors that he's had a decade to see what they all do for a living and just thought he'd return the favor.
But in truth, it's only a limited glimpse. For the full picture, they'd need to walk a few blocks to the skateboard park to watch Demitri Pence, 6 — a spry youngster whose skate helmet and protective gear look two times too big for his body — catch three feet of air, land squarely, thrust his arms skyward and shout, "YES!"
That's what Warren Miller does for a living. It's all about freedom, and where you find it, he likes to say. And even in semi-retirement, the man just can't help himself.
Imagine what the world might be with just a few more like him.
Ron C. Judd's Trail Mix column appears here every Thursday. To contact him: 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com