Everyone knows Scooby. He's been a fixture on the Whistler scene for the last three decades. Easy-going, always-smiling — and with a good word for everyone — the RMOW's heavy equipment operator appears to be the most unstressed guy in town. But don't mistake his calmness for indifference. On the mountain, in the valley — at parties, gatherings or official functions — Scooby always finds a way to be where you most need him. He's not flamboyant. And he's certainly not loud. Still, Whistler wouldn't be Whistler without people like Scott Paxton.
Here's a little story to illustrate that point. It's the winter of 1990. A huge Pacific storm has dumped a metre of snow on the mountain overnight. And not the light snow they know on the other side of the Coast Range. No — this is thick and dense and thoroughly Pacific. It's going to be an epic Whistler day. The gang has assembled at Creekside. There's Jimmy and Peppy and Vinny and Double and... We're all on snowboards of course — the era's still-skinny nose-pickers hold no appeal in this snow — and we're feeling pretty smug about it.
The call is simple: Franz's run to the valley. Non-stop — see you at the gondy. But just before we push off, our old friend Scooby shows up at the top of Red. And he's wearing the weirdest pair of boards any of us has ever seen! Very fat and surprisingly short, his new Atomic powder skis have us all hooting with laughter. "Fat skis for fat folk," says one wag. "You might as well strap 'em together and make a snowboard," says another. Scooby doesn't rise to the bait however. He just smiles. "You'll see,"says his eyes.
And we all push off at once. Yeah baby. The snow is so deep it rises over my head in the very first turn. I let my board find its own path. So magical. So sensual. But my fun is soon interrupted. There's no more path to take! I'm stranded. Too much snow! Can't move forward to save my life. And like my companions I'm reduced to dragging myself through the snow, wiggling and waggling and duck-walking to the next pitch.
The only guy who is still moving is the one the gang had so much fun heckling earlier. You got it — it's the man with the ski poles. And he's enjoying life to the fullest right now. Talk about getting hoisted on your own petard.
Now Scooby could have just laughed at us and continued down to the valley. Given the abuse he'd suffered over his choice of gear, it would have been totally justified. But that's not the way the man is wired. Rolling his eyes at our stranded-seal theatrics, Scott simply put his head down and set a track for us in the unforgiving snow. And thus we hopscotched our way from pitch to pitch — with our man Scooby breaking trail all the way down the mountain. I can still remember just how relieved I was to hit Dusty's that morning. I'm not sure I ever thanked him properly for that...
He laughs at my story. "I remember that day so well," says the 51-year old. "And I remember those skis too. Got them in the summer of '90 — just in time for Summer Camp. 'Whoa — these skis are out of control,' I thought. And I quickly realized they were not suited for the hard salted courses on the glacier..." He chuckles happily. "But when I ventured into the junk and corn snow, well... that changed everything."
He takes a long breath. "Since then – well, we've all seen what's happened with ski and board design." A pause. "Still, from that day on," he adds, "my attitude to gear totally changed. Didn't matter anymore what you had on your feet — it was all about what you did with it on the snow..."
I couldn't have put it better myself. And it's a sentiment that perfectly reflects Paxton's relationship to the mountains. Born and raised in Richmond, Paxton was introduced to sliding on snow early in his upbringing. "My dad loved skiing," he recounts. "As a kid, I remember family ski trips with my two brothers to Manning Park and Forbidden Plateau..." As for Whistler, he says: "My dad would dump us all off at Rainbow Ski Hill so he could take off and ski the big hill."
It was in the winter of 1972 that Scooby had his first big mountain epiphany. "I came for a ski week," he remembers. "Stayed in Alta Vista I think." On one of his first days up the mountain, the 12-year old happened to ride the chairlift with a local pro patrol. "I figured that had to be the coolest job in the world," he says. "I think that's when I decided that I too wanted to spend my winters skiing full-time."
And he didn't wait long to make it happen. "I started working at the Richmond Keg in 1973," he explains. "And by the time I graduated from high school in '78, I'd become a cook there. A friend of mine — a waiter at the restaurant — had a semi-completed cabin at Whistler that he was willing to rent out to me, but I needed to find a roommate." He stops talking. Smiles at the memories. "My buddy Jimbo (another Keg waiter) was keen on Whistler too. So we joined forces, paid for the cabin in advance, bought our season's passes and got jobs at the old Keg down at Adventurers' West." He laughs. "We were ready for powder!"
Anyone who spent the winter of 1978-79 in Whistler will never forget the dismal nature of that season. "It was terrible," moans Scott. "The mountain opened for a week in December and then promptly closed down again. There was no work, no money and no fun." He sighs. "Fortunately, we'd already paid for our lodging and our skiing. So we endured..." It was tough, he admits. A hand-to-mouth existence. "But everyone pulled together," he says. And when the snow finally did come in mid-January, Scott and his buddies took full advantage of it. "I don't think I missed a day until the mountain closed on May 24th."
But another decision was looming. "I remember the manager at the Keg asking me what I planned to do that summer. And I told him I'd probably head back to the city. 'That's a shame,' he said. 'Summers up here are pretty cool. You should stay.'"
That was good enough for Scooby. "What the heck, I figured. I'm here. Might as well check out the summer. So I went halfers on a Windsurfer One-Design, kept my cook's job at the Keg and just took it day-to-day." Like so many others of that era, Scott was soon to discover just how magical summers could be at Whistler.
"It was a lot of fun," he admits. "In those days, the Summer Ski Camp crew all ate at the Keg. So I got to meet the whole gang, you know, Wayne Wong, Floyd Wilkie, Greg Lee..." Scott must have made a good impression. For it wasn't long before the young cook was invited up to the Whistler Glacier to check out the scene. "That was very cool," he says. "I could definitely see the attraction of working up there." Little did he know just how much that Glacier scene would come to mean to him...
The years passed. In 1982, Scott became a volunteer with the Whistler Mountain race department. "I worked on the ski machine on the Orange Chair," he tells me. "And in those days everybody raced." He laughs. "And I mean everybody. So it was a really busy place."
But it was the next year — when downhill maestro Dave Murray retired and became Whistler Mountain's Director of Skiing — that life cranked up another notch for young Scooby. "I started off as a volunteer with the Murray camps," he explains. And laughs. "In those days, the Atomic rep would pack up a whole mountain of skis to the race hill. Well, one day Mur just said 'Heh, that's something Scott can help out with." More laughter. "And that's how I became tech rep/gatesetter/starter for Atomic..."
The near iconic figure of Dave Murray still looms large in Scott's life. "Mur was the real thing," he explains. "I mean, just to be associated with a guy like that — the kind of person he was, his integrity, his sense of fun — it had a big impact on me."
Life was good in those days. And Scooby took full advantage of his circumstances. "Yeah," he says. "At the end of the ski season I'd take a break and head down to the Columbia Gorge for two or three weeks of windsurfing. Then it was back to Whistler for summer camp, and then maybe another trip to the Gorge for August and September." But no matter what, Scott was back in Whistler for November. For him and his buddies, the new season's Opening Day was like Christmas, Easter, and Halloween all rolled into one.
Still, it's his summer glacier stories that really resonate. "When the snow started to melt later in the summer," he recounts, "a big pool of water would form on the backside of Little Whistler." He stops. Tries to keep his mirth in check. Fails. "Well, ol' Greg Lee would love to take his campers pond-skimming there. And of course, there'd be crashes. I remember one day when this well-known camper — Art from Manitoba — wiped out while trying to cross the pond and lost a ski. Greg had no choice but to undress, swim out in the still-freezing water and retrieve the lost ski..." He sighs. "We laughed and laughed and laughed..."
Next Week: from Alta Lake barge parties to sky-diving mishaps, from bulldozers to ultra marathons, Scott's adventures continue to reflect he best of Whistler life.
