Seventh Hour

Top of Ten Tom was a very special old school friend from lifts. His nickname came from the position he held with Snowmass Lifts as the top operator of the Elk Camp lift, T10. He'd been driving that lift for a while before I started on '93. I got lucky early in my first season while working the bottom of the Big Burn. The top operator, who's locker was next to mine, said dude I'm moving to ski school and I could hook you up and recommend you for the top of The Burn. Said it was the best job on the mountain and for me at that point in my life he was right. I'll elaborate later on this later, but for now this post is about Tom, Tom Van Amberg.

One of the critical jobs for top operators in lifts was to disseminate information from ops, ski school, patrols, anybody really who needs to get a message on the message boards of all the lifts. The call would start at the top of Elk Camp and Tom would call four top operators and we would call our bottom stations and call 4 more top operators and so on until every lift top and bottom got the message. So many times a day my phone would ring and I'd answer, "T4 Andy." And he respond, "Hi T4 Andy. It's Top of Ten Tom!" With maybe the nicest, friendliest, calmest, sincere, authentic and smooth voices you can imagine. He skied like the wind. Played guitar. Was friends with anyone he ever met. He was a music lover and had an amazing sense of humor. At the time I was a bit of a joey from the city and a rookie skiing in a bomber jacket and jeans and still he let me hang out with him. He was one of those guys who by being his friend made you instantly cooler. Because I was friends with Tom I easily became part of the Snowmass Posse most notably Bill & Justin, Dagerous Dave, Crash, Yo Bro, Just Torre, Lionel, Odie, Taka. Proz, Adam, Josh, Keaton, Sabrina & Sussie...just to name a few.
So anyway, Top of Ten Tom joined a band called Seveth Hour and they played a lot during 20 Saturdays. I will share a short clip of Tom singing at the Acme to give you a sense of his talent.