Mount Baker slalom draws a crowd — of cops

In the foothills of the North Cascades, it's become an annual tradition:

The Legendary Banked Slalom, a famed snowboard race at Mount Baker Ski Area, draws the world's top talent for a February get-together.

When it's over, everyone drives back down the mountain and right into the teeth of the Legendary Cop Shakedown.

A push-pull between board riders and badge-wearers has been going on in these parts for most of three decades. But it reached a crescendo last month, when police descended in such force on the Mount Baker Highway that slalom-watchers and hapless bystanders began cursing about harassment.

As many as 14 patrol cars from various police agencies were counted at a single time around Glacier, a tiny burg halfway between Bellingham and the mountain, where, on an average day, you might not see 14 cars, period.

The cars came from the Whatcom County sheriff's department, the Washington State Patrol, the U.S. Forest Service and the Washington State Liquor Control Board. Everyone short of Homeland Security and the Minutemen, in other words, was patrolling a lonely stretch of highway that rarely sees a blue light.

And all those cops were busy beavers. On the slalom weekend, Feb. 9-11, 127 people were issued warnings, many for walking alongside the highway, or crossing it improperly, police records show. And 108 other citations, ranging from speeding to impeding traffic to failing to possess proof of insurance, were issued.

The serious-crimes list was short: 12 misdemeanor offenses, including DUI, reckless and disorderly conduct, driving with a suspended license, or marijuana possession.

Nevertheless, all those sirens got noticed. And not in a good way. Business owners in Glacier squawked about an oppressive presence. Incendiary letters to the editor began pouring into local newspapers, prompting memorable headlines: "Tourists, Yay! Let's Arrest 'Em."

And Duncan Howat, who on regular days is about as close to a sheriff as you'll find at Mount Baker Ski Area, was wondering what it'll take for local police to catch up with society.

"I was embarrassed, really," says Howat, longtime general manager of the ski area. "There were a lot of really angry people. If someone was driving up there with their family, they must've thought a murder had taken place."

The problem, acknowledges Howat, who was one of the first to welcome snowboarders into the mainstream ski world in the early 1980s, is that the Banked Slalom has a reputation as a major party event which, 20 years ago, it was.

"It isn't that way anymore," Howat says. He's right: The race, once a hometown affair, now draws Olympic gold medalists and top competitors from all over the world, and today's larger crowd is filled with more families than felonious punks.

But the police, Howat believes, still have that ne'er-do-well image firmly implanted in their brains.

"They've never gotten over it."

Howat has called Whatcom County Sheriff Bill Elfo and county executive Pete Kremen, hoping for a sit-down meeting to appeal for a more measured future response. Here is what he's likely to find:

The cops, at some level, know it looks like overkill. And that's sort of the point.

Those big parties of past years do still weigh on their minds. And if one of them gets out of hand, people get hurt or crimes are committed, it's tough to do much about it with one or two deputies or to reassign others to get there before it's too late, says Jeff Parks, the Whatcom County sheriff's chief criminal deputy.

Police are trying to prevent that scenario by "taming the event" with a substantial presence, he acknowledged.

Complaints about such a noticeable show of force in a rural area are expected. And they are "typically from some of the locals who really don't want to see law-enforcement up there, to be honest," Parks says.

Interesting: In the foothills of the North Cascades, just like in the urban jungle, crime and its prevention are all about perceptions.

Howat and some local residents point to the lack of major criminal activity as evidence that the cops are making something of nothing. The cops point to the same reports and conclude the opposite: Their strategy is working.

What's a local snowboard fan to do?

Easy: Don't let the police phalanx keep you from attending the Baker Banked Slalom. It's one of the Northwest's unique competitive events. Where else can a local guy, in this case 18-year-old Lucas DeBari, of Glacier, knock off an Olympic gold medalist in the pursuit of a coveted duct-tape trophy?

If you go, wear your seatbelt, watch your speed and keep that long hair under your hat. Nobody wants any trouble up there along the Nooksack.

Ron Judd's Trail Mix column appears here every Thursday. To contact him: 206-464-8280 or rjudd@seattletimes.com.