Dropping In: Charlie Keckemet’s Life on the Mountain

By Nate Booth

SEATTLE- Three, Two, one… dropping. He had called his drop, and all that was left to do was to commit and send it. With every second, he got closer to the 20-foot cliff. When he got to the lip, he popped and set his body into a clean shifty, keeping him steady through the air. He looked down, spotted his landing, and stomped it into the foot of fresh snow that fell overnight.  

Ever since Charlie was a kid, he has been involved in skiing and been around it.  

His first memory as a child was “skiing at Mission Ridge with [his] mom and [his] uncle.”  

With skiing always being a part of his life for 14 years now, he likes it more than any other sport, which includes sailing, mountain biking, and tennis. He skis this because he thinks it is fun, and he likes getting better and learning new things. 

Community can mean many different things, but for Charlie, skiing is where he finds it most.  

He thinks of it as “a bunch of like-minded people that ski and provide input and experience on stuff.” 

 Each mountain has its own kind of community special to that place, but they are all a part of the bigger ski community. Even though the meaning varies from place to place, it still conveys the same idea: people who ski just like to ski. 

A big part of his growth as a skier has come from being on the Stevens Pass freeride team for 3 years now. Being surrounded by skiers who are faster and more skilled than you pushes you to improve. He likes to chase better skiers around so he can improve and learn new things from them. The freeride team, in itself, is a smaller community on the mountain within the larger ski community of Stevens Pass.  

The sport of skiing is very seasonal, so everyone really has to cherish it and make the most of it. Charlie loves a good powder day and constantly yearns for more snow to fall. The excitement levels of everyone on a powder day are through the roof, and it tends to multiply after it has been long-awaited, like this year. With the days on the slopes come the chairlift rides.  

Charlie says that he “has met a ton of interesting people on the lift rides,” along with meeting people while skiing.  

Just the other day, Charlie was planning to ski on the deepest day of the season when the resort lost power. Everyone who also planned to ski started hiking, and he met these super cool people who were trying to make the most of the day, given the situation.  

When it comes to where he skis on the mountain, he prefers freeride over park skiing, but over the last year, park skiing has grown on him. Big powder days come first, with bluebird spring park days close behind. But more than anything, though, he loves pushing himself, learning something new, and last of all, that satisfying feeling of landing something cool that you have not done before.  

For Charlie, skiing is more than just a sport. He has grown up with it being a big part of his life. Every season may be shorter than we think it is, but the experiences he gets to do, the people he meets, and the progression he has is what make it worth it to him.