A Bull and Beer Market

Debts paid properly.

There’s no such thing as a free lunch. So in the interest of preserving karmic balance, if a buddy does you a solid and saves you from a long afternoon of sitting in the lodge—say, fixes your bindings, donates his extra pair of gloves, or wrestles you from the jaws of a yeti—you’re honor-bound to do something in return. Problem is, a mere “thanks!” makes you look like a cheap-ass, and ponying up actual cash makes your friend feel like a prostitute—in the dirty, all-business kinda way, not the super-hot, Julia-Roberts-in-Pretty Woman way. Thankfully, the problem can be solved with beer (like most things in life). Here’s the proper repayment plan for your outdoor favors. And yes, if you take more than a year to pay off your debt, there will be interest.

One Beer
Performs an in-the-field equipment fix. If it involves unusual MacGyver skills, make it two.
Yard-sale gear retrieval.
Breaks trail or sets the skintrack more than half way.

Pounder
Lends spare gear when you forget yours.
Drags your hungover ass out of bed on a deep powder day.
While regaling cute ski bunnies with shredding stories, changes your ignominious, five-foot face-plant into a 20-foot huck with a perfect landing. If this leads to a hook-up, make it a 40.

40 oz.
Gives you a summit beer when you forget yours.
Plays après-ski wingman with your date’s super annoying chickfriend/dudebrah.
Deftly distracts your jerk ex-boyfriend, whose goggles you never returned, while you slip away undetected.

Six-Pack
Gets you a bro-deal discount on a pair of skis at his place of work.
Gets a sweet photo of you published in a magazine—especially O/B.
Drives from town to tow you out of a ditch (a low ditch, not a riverside precipice. Precipices are worth at least a cube.)

Cube
Spends more than an hour probing/digging for your lost ski on a powder day.
Watches your dog for more than a week. Double if said dog pukes in the living room.
Gives you a season-long gear loan.

Keg
Lies (or cries) to get you out of a traffic ticket.
Becomes injured trying to help you.
Buys a communal backcountry-access snowmobile.

One beer every time you have drinks, forever
Saves your life.