Soft snow gives Kerry a workout

While the Democratic presidential contender braves the slopes on his Idaho vacation, reporters stand and count the falls.

KETCHUM, Idaho - Plunging into a vacation filled with extreme sports, John Kerry is tumbling and sweating through mountain conditions that even ski experts say are challenging.

"The snow up there was the worst I've ever seen," Kerry said Friday after spending more than three hours on a backcountry mountain. "I've never seen the snow so soft."

Kerry, his snowboard strapped to his back, hiked past 9,000 feet on Durrance Peak, then snowboarded down the mountain, taking repeated tumbles. Reporters counted six falls, although Kerry was out of sight for part of the descent. To be fair, other skiers tumbled as well.

"There are very marginal conditions," said Scott Douglas, a ski instructor from nearby Hailey. Unseasonably warm weather the night before left the snow soft and treacherous. "It's a potentially dangerous scenario this time of year."

None of that was deterring Kerry, who is seeking to escape from the pressures of his Democratic campaign for president. He often complains that the campaign doesn't leave him enough time for exercise. He was making up for that by taking to the mountains with a vengeance.

Kerry is spending his vacation at the family's Ketchum home along the Big Wood River, emerging daily for mountain sports.

Tim Cron of the Sun Valley Ski Patrol guided Kerry up the mountain on Friday and warned that conditions would be challenging.

Kerry set out up the slope with Cron, personal assistant Marvin Nicholson and three burly Secret Service agents. They picked their way to the top before skiing and snowboarding down.

A normal 10-minute descent turned into 45 minutes. Nearly everyone tumbled repeatedly and often stopped to catch a breath. Even the agents struggled, and a couple gave up and donned snowshoes for the final stretch.

After getting off the slope, Kerry put on snowshoes for a 200-yard trek across flat ground. Even with his snowshoes, he often sank up to his thighs. He was clearly fatigued as he reached the bottom of the mountain.

"It's a great workout," Kerry said. "The view up there was spectacular."

While the candidate was vacationing this week, his chief foreign policy adviser, in response to criticism, said that Kerry will not seek or accept endorsements from foreign leaders.

"This election will be decided by the American people, and the American people alone," Kerry adviser Rand Beers said in a statement Thursday. "It is simply not appropriate for any foreign leader to endorse a candidate in America's presidential election. John Kerry does not seek, and will not accept, any such endorsements."

The statement came after former Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, an outspoken leader in the Islamic world, told the Associated Press on Thursday that he endorsed Kerry in the presidential race because he believed the Massachusetts senator would keep the world safer and listen to other opinions.

President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have demanded that Kerry identify the foreign leaders he says have privately offered him support. Kerry has refused.

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