Known to customers as the tall, quiet guy in the ski repair room, and to local racers as the tall, quiet source of sophisticated race tunes, Zach Yates is an integral part of the Footloose family. He started working in the rental shop in 1995 and now owns the shop with Silver Chesak.

If Oregon’s Mt. Hood Meadows ski area had rented snowboards in the 80s, Zach’s path might have been different. But they only rented skis.

“We didn’t grow up in a ski family,” Zach says. “I was skateboarding a lot, and if anything, I wanted to snowboard. But my mom got a job at Mt. Hood so we got free rentals. They didn’t rent snowboards at the time, so that was it.”

He got a job as a busboy at 14 and saved up all winter to buy his first pair of skis. “K2 Extremes,” Zach says. “207s. I slept with them for a while.”

At Mt. Hood, powder days were few and far between, but it didn’t matter. “Skiing is skiing,” Zach says, whether it’s in the rain or on ice. Zach became a certified instructor at 15, taught at Mt. Hood through high school, then moved to Kirkwood where he met Silver, a fellow instructor. At Kirkwood, Zach got his first chance to ski technical terrain with heroes of the time like Glen Plake and Darren Johnson. But it was short lived… they got kicked out of Kirkwood for partying too much in employee housing. So they want to Mammoth.

Moving to Mammoth

“I always thought your skiing should do the talking,” Zach says. In the early 90s, he didn’t have much to say. When he moved to Mammoth, it was a hotbed in the early era of modern freeskiing, and the local rat pack that dominated the mountain included legends like Plake, Johnson, Davey McCoy and Jason Moore. Up-and-coming locals like Nathan Wallace and Christian Pondella were on their way to lifelong careers as elite steep-skiing specialists. But it was obvious that this tall kid from Oregon was in a different league.

Zach found a niche for himself… backflips off huge cliffs. Corked-out 720s in the backcountry. Straightlining the entire upper mountain. Obscure 70s-era freestyle tricks at 40 miles per hour on 215 DH skis. And he did it all with total composure and perfect form, hands low and forward, eyes up. Skiing with Zach was embarrassing for everyone else, but it was better than watching a ski movie.

Even though Zach excelled at cliff hucking and high speed skiing, he saw a bigger picture.

“I always aspired to be a diverse skier, someone who could step into different roles — racing, bumps, powder, steeps, trees — that’s what sets the great skiers apart.”

Going Big

After successful trips to Alaska for scary early-era heli-skiing and Chamonix for steep skiing, things were crystallizing for Zach. “I didn’t have the personality for it,” Zach admits. “I’m not good at selling myself — but I wanted to make a career out of being a pro skier.”

Armed with a gear sponsorship from Atomic, with the support of Footloose’s owners who encouraged Zach to travel, he went on his first big ski media trips. He scored the opening spread shot in Freeze Magazine with his backflip off a massive cliff over rocky exposure. He started hitting bigger descents in the Sierra, and he put his nose to the grindstone in what was then called the snowboard park.

Ski gear was changing at the time. “We brought long DH skis to Alaska in 1999 and John Morrison had a pair of fat Volkl Explosivs and he was just railing on them,” Zach says. “We came back knowing we needed fat skis. My first game changer was the Rossignol Cut 11.5 (after the late Bandit XXX). It changed my skiing. We went from a lot of turns to big GS turns and going fast in powder with all that floatation.

Having to Adapt

Zach was tuning skis at Footloose in these years, but things changed during a backcountry photoshoot in the Mammoth Lakes Basin. He augured in while guinea-pigging a hand-built quarter-pipe and spiral fractured his tib-fib, which required surgery and a plethora of plates and scres.

“Getting hurt was awful,” Zach says. “I never wanted to be in that position again. It kind of broke me mentally.”

But Zach didn’t give up. His shin was too painful to wear ski boots, but he rebuilt himself by switching to backcountry snowboarding. He got good enough to tackle terrain like the Powerhouse Chutes off Mt. Dana and the formidable Pete’s Dream on Carson Peak above June Lake.

“Silver and I both got into it,” Zach says. “We wanted to be able to snowboard all the backcountry lines that we skied.”

The Zach of Today

These days Zach is back to skiing and still works at Footloose. Learning with Footloose vets like Tony Corsaro, Dennis Ashe and Ken Cramer, Zach became the go-to in Mammoth for ski racing tunes… think sidewall planing, custom base structures, and progressive multi-radius edge bevels hand polished with three grades of ceramic stones…

But he doesn’t apply these techniques to his own skis, a pair of 10-year-old Volkl GS boards that would sell at a thrift store for $50. Why doesn’t he tune his own skis?

“They’re awesome,” Zach says. “I don’t tune my own skis because I do it for a living. I have some good new skis, a pair of Rossignol Black Ops, but mostly I’m skiing with my daughter, Dakota, so they work great for that.”

For the future, Zach’s ready for a new backcountry skiing chapter.

“I can’t wait to go for our first skin together with my daughter. To share that passion with her. She doesn’t even know yet…”

And he says he might even tune his own skis for the occasion.

After more than 30 years dedicated to the ski life - as a busboy, a lift op, a groomer, a ski instructor, rental shop staff, a sponsored freeskier, and a skilled ski tech, Zach now co-owns Footloose, which is something no one would have predicted when he was a skinny punk rock kid with blue hair back in 1995.

What’s the best line you’ve ever snowboarded?

Mt. Tom (a 13,000 foot peak above Bishop) with the late Scott Sederstrom and Sierra backcountry snowboard pioneer (and former Footloose employee) Martin Kuhn. I used to think of Mt. Tom as an old man’s ski, but it’s incredible. Dropping into the Elderberry Headwall at dawn with alpenglow and knee-deep powder for 8,000 feet. No wind. I’ve skied Mt. Williamson and other rad peaks, but Mt. Tom is so big and sustained to the valley floor. The terrain is so amazing.

Why have you stayed with Footloose for more than 20 years?

What really kept me here was the owners, Tony, Andi, and Corty. They gave me the flexibility to pursue my skiing and still work here. They looked out for me. (A few years after this interview, Zach & Silver bought the store!)

What’s your best ski trip you’ve taken?

I skied Alaska, all over the Western U.S., Europe, but no joke, one of the best ski trips I ever had was to Wisconsin. I was on a trip for Freeze Magazine and they sent us to Tyrol Basin in Wisconsin. The locals there would ski bell to bell, all day, on a little ice mogul. Some of the nicest people and just hardcore skiers. Kind of puts things in perspective for me.