George Anatiotis was a kid from Cheyenne when his church youth group loaded up for a ski trip to Snowy Range Ski Area sometime around 1985.
Like most of his fellow beginners, he showed up in blue jeans.
"Yeah, it was a rough day," said Anatiotis, now the owner of Rock on Wheels bike and ski shop in Cheyenne.
The moisture from his body soaked into the denim. Then it froze. The jeans crinkled and hardened like wet laundry left out on a clothesline after a blizzard blows in.
"And then as we got older and got into the ski business, we understood why," Anatiotis said. He advises against donning denim for a day on the slopes. Unless it’s for a good cause.
The event features $35 lift tickets, rental discounts, a mechanical bull, live music and après-ski celebrations that promise to look like a gathering of Jim Croce fans in Teton Village.
Participants must walk through a black arch outside Café 6311 at Jackson Hole Mountain Resort between 8:30 a.m. and 3 p.m. to be included in the official count.
The goal is for more than 3,320 skiers and snowboarders in jeans to turn out and beat the world record set at JHMR last December.
Cultural Divide
What is it about skiing in jeans that makes it both a punchline and a point of pride?
James Robertson, a ski tech at Fast Haus in Laramie, said the phenomenon carries complicated feelings.
"I think there's a couple different aspects," Robertson told Cowboy State Daily. "In Jackson, and I guess Steamboat (in Colorado) does like their cowboy week as well. I think there is kind of a tribute to the cowboy culture, Western culture."
But there's another dimension. Robertson noted that skiing in jeans is sometimes associated with beginners — or "Jerrys," as they're known on the mountain.
“You think of a Jerry as like somebody wearing their helmet backwards and their goggles upside down," he explained. "The joke part of that might be categorizing jean skiers with those folk."
Bumper stickers declaring that Dick Cheney skis in jeans circulated during his time as vice president. Similar stickers have targeted Donald Trump.
Is it a put-down or a badge of honor? The cultural messages swirl together: cowboy authenticity, nostalgia for simpler times, and 1970s denim style.
"I think that a lot of people like it and I like it. It's cool,” he said.
Robertson himself owns a pair of baggy Levi's he'll wear for jeans skiing day. He's even skied in jean shorts — known as jorts — which he acknowledged is "aggressive."
Frozen Stiff
The practical problems with denim on the slopes are well-documented by those who've suffered through the experience.
Tanner Stull, a senior at Natrona County High School who races competitively, learned his lesson during night training at Hogadon Basin Ski Area near Casper four or five years ago.
"I forgot long underwear and gym pants at home and forgot to pack them," Stull said. "I was like, ‘Oh shoot.’ I was going to ski in my underwear, but it's too cold for that. So I was like, ‘OK, I'm going to go jeans.’"
He pulled the jeans on under his snow pants.
"It was probably one of the worst feelings ever because you had your snow pants compressed in your legs the whole time with your jeans, and you could not make a turn like how you wanted because of all the different feelings you had with your legs,” he recalled, grimacing.
Still, Stull sees the appeal when jeans are worn openly as a statement.
"If you have a big old belt buckle and your jeans and you're up and down the hill, I think that's pretty cool," he said. For the authentic look, he recommends Wranglers, Levi's, Lee, or Cinch — "the true Western jeans."
Dan Hundere, who works in Jackson and lives in Driggs, Idaho, remembers his first time on skis — around age 12 at Welch Village in southeast Minnesota.
The temperature was around minus 20. He wore white waffle-style cotton long johns under his jeans, topped with an old-school face mask with eye and mouth holes — "the bank robber mask," he called it.
“That was so cool," Hundere recalled of watching the moisture freeze on his cotton layers. Even though the lift ride was short and the runs were no more than 200 vertical feet, he could only stand the cold for one or two runs at a time.
If he was going to sport denim, what he needed was a proper denim ski bib made for harsh conditions.
Years later, when Hundere moved to Driggs and went out thrift shopping he happened upon his Holy Grail of denim ski wear.
It was a pair of vintage Levi's ski bibs. One was made of denim, the other of brown corduroy.
"They're badass," Hundere said, and they were only about $3 each.
"I wanted to buy them both, but I couldn't afford it," Hundere said. "I didn't buy the brown ones. I just bought the jean ones."
Those same denim ski bibs live on, passed down to Hundere’s daughter. As for not buying the corduroy pair, Hundere said, “I regret it to this day.”
Contact David Madison at David@cowboystatedaily.com
David Madison can be reached at david@cowboystatedaily.com.
