Mohamad and the mountain
When I was around 8 or 9 years old, I learned to ski.
There was a place not too far from where I grew up that gave ski lessons and my mother was willing to drive me and my brother over for it that winter and the next few.
My aunt knew someone in Vermont who lived by a ski area. Somewhere around when I was 12 or so, she brought me with her for a couple of visits to this friend. They took me skiing at a place in Vermont that I remember fairly well.
As you faced it, a small slope for beginners on the left. Two much taller slopes on the right for medium skiers.
Up above that trails that led through paths in the woods that came out on either the beginner or medium slops.
I remember skiing one of those trails through the woods when there was no one else around and hitting a log buried under the snow. It sent me flying and I ended up on my back with my skies stuck straight up towards the sky. (It was the early 70’s, I didn’t have any kind of quick release on them…)
I don’t remember where my aunt’s friend lived. I do remember the snow on either side of her driveway was higher than the car we were in. So, that’s the only view I remember from the place.
I know it wasn’t in far northern Vermont or far southern Vermont as I used to visit both areas a lot due to connections with my father’s family.
In the late 70’s I gave up skiing. First because my mother wouldn’t drive me to the ski area any more. My aunt gave me some cross country lessons, but I never got too into that.
In the 80’s I lived on the east border of Vermont and it seemed very familiar to me. (It had only been 12 to 15 years later at that point. Much fresher in my mind.) I knew we drove through that town getting there, and it wasn’t too far of a drive after that.
I describe the place I went to several of the folks I worked with that I knew skied in the area, and none of them recognized my description.
Of course they were also very interested in telling me thrilling tales of how exiting their skiing was.
One coworker was always telling me he skied at a place called “suicide six”. Turns out he skied there because the beginner slope was free…
45 years after those ski trips our engineering technician Mohamad sits across the aisle from me at work. This summer he bought a vacation home in eastern Vermont, not too far from where I used to work back in the 80’s.
He was telling me about it the other day and mentioned that from his back porch you can see the signs of an old ski area on the side of the mountain just south of where his vacation home sits. He didn’t know how long it had been closed, but he knew it wasn’t open any more.
I took a look on Google Earth:
It had some of the features I remembered from 45 years ago. But, wasn’t quite what I remember. Still, it was closer than any of the others I’d considered over the years.
I put the name of the mountain and “closed ski areas” into Google and out came this image of the place in the 70’s.
That is almost exactly what I remember. The double slopes on the left, beginner hill on the right and wooded trails above leading down to both.
According to the records I found, it was open when I lived there 30 or so years ago. Maybe I just wasn’t asking the right questions, or didn’t describe it well.
But, I think this may well be the place I went skiing all those decades ago.
It certainly made me think of the saying “If Mohamad wont’ go to the mountain, the mountain will go to Mohamad.”
Although in this case it should be “Mohamad went to the mountain and brought the mountain to Frank.”