Dale Berg, owner of Berg's Ski and Snowboard Shop, coordinates the mid-week "Hooky Bus," a long-standing tradition of the shop.
They huddle under dim street lights and chatter in the early morning night. The crowd is of the senior variety and they are more than well-equipped for the journey. With sleeping blindfolds, coffee thermoses, and neck pillows, this mountain ride is for the warriors—the seasoned riders looking for a mid-week kick. Some fidget with their watches while others look toward the road. The bus is ten minutes late and that means ten minutes behind fresh tracks. They’re getting restless.
Answering to the mob is Dale Berg, owner of Berg’s Ski Shop in Eugene and coordinator of this morning’s trip. He moves from patron to patron, reassuring each person that the bus is en route.
“Yeah, he’s just running a little bit late. He should be here any minute,” Berg says with a grin. “Any minute.”
He answers a flurry of questions about the daily conditions, new equipment, and whatever other odds and ends that life may throw at one. He concludes his replies with “Yep, yep, yep,” or “nope, nope, nope” as to echo his response for those that may have overheard the question but not the answer.
The snarl of a diesel engine silences conversation and all eyes direct to the street. Out of the fog roars a jumbo bus with “Experience Oregon” written in italics on the side. A small cheer is in order.
The popular 6:30 am rendezvous is called the “Hooky Bus”, a Wednesday bus ride to Mt. Bachelor for a mere 49 buck lift ticket. The event has been a tradition of Berg’s Ski Shop for the past 40 years and Berg, age 69, takes the bus every chance he gets.
“Every week that I’m in town I take the bus up to the mountain,” says Berg. “It’s a chance for me to relax and chill out with some good friends of mine.”
After securing the cargo in the cool twilight, Berg climbs aboard to the warm encomium of familiar faces. The trip to his seat is in small increments. His point and smile invites conversation and he only makes it a couple of feet before the next chit-chat ensues. Of the 53 passengers who pack the bus this early morning, you would be hellbent to find someone that didn’t know the man in some way, shape, or form.
As the owner of Berg’s Ski Shop for more than five decades, Berg has had the opportunity to watch several generations of skiers shop at his store. “The best stories come from people who have been customers for a long while,” says Berg. “They bring their kids in and say ‘this is the stuff I use to ski’, and then they bring their grandchildren in and get them started in the sport, and I have two or three generations of skiers that walk through my doors.”
The brown and red brick mega-shop located on the corner of 13th Avenue and Lawrence Street is equipped with everything from avalanche shovels and wigwam socks to snowshoe rentals. It’s a 12,000-square-foot gear utopia with ruby red shag carpet, retro couches, and handmade signs dangling from the wood panel ceiling. In the workshops in the back, employees fill scuffs and scrapes in skis and snowboards, giving the place a slight haze and the smell of wax.
Although it is the largest ski merchandise store in Eugene, Berg’s Ski Shop arose from a humble beginning. Before its transition in 1955 to a Nordic shop, the building took the shape of a small gas station owned by Berg’s Norwegian father, Alfred Berg. Alfred ran the Shell gas station with his two sons, Dale and Paul, until one day when he had an idea.
“My dad came home one morning and said, ‘we just bought the house next door and I think it would be a good place to put a ski shop’,” says Berg.
With a strong client base from his dad’s service station, which he’d operated since 1940, the ski business took off right away. Because demand was so high for both businesses, the ski shop and gas station operated in the same space until the family eventually decided to stop selling gas in 1985. “It was booming from the get go,” says Berg of the shop when it opened. “People would go up to Willamette Pass, to Hoodoo, and there was a pretty good population of skiers at that point.”
The shop specialized in what little downhill and cross-country ski equipment was available at the time. Alfred’s employees consisted of his two boys and his wife. Dale and Paul, who were 16 and 13 at the time, both worked at the shop after school. They sold goods like skis, and boots while Emma, Dale’s mother, would fit customers with winter outerwear.
To this day, brothers Dale and Paul still work together. Along side them are their sons Svein, Jarl, and Tory, who continue the tradition of a family owned and operated business. Old traditions die hard at Berg’s Ski Shop and the annual Wednesday “Hooky Bus” is the holy grail of traditions. Where credit is deserved, Berg fills in the blanks. “I didn’t come up with it,” Berg says to a man sitting in the seat ahead, “The idea came from five attorneys’ wives who wanted to go skiing but didn’t really have any way to get there, so they put together this bus.”
After three hours on the road, we are almost there. Fifteen minutes before arriving at Mt. Bachelor, Berg jumps to action. He gets on the loud speaker to give the newbies the rundown—times, where to be, where not to be, how you may be subject to a boo if you choose to suck. He spouts out numbers and temperatures, but the story is unfolding out the window. On this Wednesday morning, Mt. Bachelor stands without a cloud in sight. The white and silver contours carve a majestic outline in the blue sky. The sun is giving off enough heat to make it slightly below 50 degrees.
“We’re looking at a beautiful day on Bachelor,” Berg concludes at the front of the bus.
Upon arrival, Berg funnels the crowd to the ticket line while keeping everyone smiling. He reminds folks to take full advantage of the continental breakfast, pointing to the tables right of the kiosk. “We’ve got quiche today!” Berg exclaims with a look of astonishment, “Get some quiche!”
After getting tickets, they cut everyone loose to bomb down the mountain as many times as possible for the next seven hours without killing themselves. Just meet back at the bus before four. It’s really a beautiful thing. The lift lines are almost nonexistent and there is no trail traffic. Weave and wonder with plenty of time and space to do so. Most remember to pause a moment and take it all in.
As the sun-baked faces begin to trickle in at 3:30, some with shortness of breath and others with laughter, there is a shared sentiment passing through the crowd. The verdict is out: Today was awesome. There are smiles and double high fives.
An old man with bottle cap glasses maneuvers through the crowded isle. Grant Sider, age 85, is the oldest rider on the bus. He has been riding the Hooky for 12 years and the last trip was almost the last day he skied. “I almost quit the last go round. It was too much. But I decided to come up today and things went pretty well. I’ll probably come next week,” Grant says.
With the descent back into town wine corks pop and beer cans snap—laughter, friends, and food. A locomotion of trays and Zip Lock bags debut time-honored recipes for all to enjoy. “Never have I had such impure thoughts about my day job.” said one rider with a chuckle. As we dip under the fog and head toward Bend, the sunshine fades and the dream that was Bachelor Butte is gone. From the back of the bus Grant chimes in “Looks like it was a kind of lousy day in Bend.”
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