My first time Alpine skiing was at Cannon Mountain in New Hampshire in 1983. I was ten years old and my family had just moved to Littleton, NH, from Portland, ME. My parents were nice enough to sign me up for the skiing program at my new school, which aside from providing me with a lift ticket and lunch, provided me with really lousy rental equipment.
Back then, Alpine skis were straight, ski pants were tight, and helmets were non-existent. Tele skiers were unusual folks with beards, leather boots, and wool pants. Snowboarding was a few years away from being recognized as a national sport, neon was a few years away from ruling the ski fashion world, and the Old Man of the Mountain, which for 30,000 years or so had watched over the land from high on Cannon’s eastern slope, was 20 years away from collapsing. On my first day Alpine skiing at Cannon, after one lesson, I was instantly hooked, and so began my lifelong love of cruising downhill on snow-covered mountains, with or without great stone faces.
All I ever wanted to do after that first lesson was go to Cannon, yet my parents, who didn’t appreciate lift ticket prices and crowded lift lines, would often take me cross-country skiing instead. This never settled well with me after I learned to Alpine ski, and I still remember how miserable I was whenever we’d go to the touring center instead of the mountain. On one especially miserable occasion, they dragged me to trails that were directly across from Cannon, in plain sight of the hundreds of fortunate black dots making S-turns down those glorious groomers and bump runs. Kicking and gliding along, begrudgingly following my parents, and many years before growing up, all I wanted was to be one of those black dots.
Despite that particular day on the Nordic ski trails, I spent plenty of other days over the next 15 years as one of those black dots, making glorious S-turns with Alpine skis on my feet. At age 25, I had reached a plateau in my ability, and after holding out for many years, I decided to give snowboarding a try. I was reluctant at first, mainly because I was proud to still be a skier, while all of my friends had become riders, but also because I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of going back to the bunny slope. I was a regular at Sugarloaf, and considered myself a solid expert, and couldn’t imagine being humbled by trails like the Toll Road. But I swallowed my skier’s pride, took a snowboard lesson, and spent the rest of the day on the Toll Road getting repeatedly body slammed from repeatedly catching my downhill edge while trying to link turns.
Perseverance paid off, and by the end of the day, I had not only linked a few turns, I had once again become one of those black dots making S-turns, only this time with a snowboard attached to my feet. I had also severely bruised my rear end, banged my head countless times, and broken my wrist. Nonetheless, on my first day snowboarding at Sugarloaf, I was instantly hooked. For many years after that, I thought I’d never ski again.
That changed after I moved to Vermont. After a few winters of riding my board on some of Vermont’s finest terrain, I decided it was time to try tele skiing. We had started carrying tele gear at the shop, and I felt I needed to be a tele skier if I was going to try to sell the stuff to tele skiers. I took a lesson at Mad River Glen from my good friend Scottpelier, who is a fine tele skier and a great instructor, and with his guidance, I carved my first tele turn, and it felt amazing, and on my first day at MRG, I was instantly hooked. I’d love to say that learning how to tele ski helped me sell a lot of tele skis, but it didn’t. It turns out that when you’re selling tele skis at 50 percent off, tele skiers don’t care in the least if you are a tele skier, or for that matter, an alpine skier, a cross-country skier, a snowboarder, or a curling enthusiast.
These days, a quarter of a century after taking my first run at Cannon, I am still one of those black dots. I might have tele skis on my feet, but more often it’s a snowboard. For whatever reason, after all these years, I prefer cruising down snow-covered mountains sideways. As far as Alpine skiing, I’ll do that once every few years just to make sure I’ve still got it. As far as cross-country skiing, I recently went with my lovely wife, and after one day at Craftsbury, kicking and gliding along those glorious, rolling trails, many years after growing up, I was instantly hooked.
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