Skiing
Monday February 24, 2025
I spent the weekend at my dad’s in Vermont, just watched the Celtics beat down the fraudulent Knicks, and Lindsay is watching Real Housewives of Orange County so I’m finding it hard to focus. I skied this weekend, so what the hell: Skiing.
My dad has lived in Warren, VT for almost a decade now, about a mile from Sugarbush Resort. It’s a good thing for me because I might not ski anymore if it wasn’t part of the experience of visiting my dad.
I learned to ski when I was 4. I took a snowboarding lesson around 10. True to form, I stuck with the sport that came easier. (And honestly, skiing is just plain better than snowboarding.) When Dylan and I were young, ski trips were a regular part of our winter. We’d stay at the Mad River Barn and ski Mad River Glen and Sugarbush or live right on the slope at my aunt and uncle’s condo at Okemo. When my brother got competitive and went to Carrabassett Valley Academy in Maine, we’d broaden our mountain horizons by attending his events.
By the time he graduated high school and I entered it, however, I was much more into basketball than skiing. My mom isn’t that into skiing, my dad was mostly living in Washington, and none of my friends ever invited me to go. I don’t think I skied more than five times from 2007 until the huge LA ski trip to Big Bear Mountain in 2016. Since then, I’ve managed to hit the slopes two or three times each season, thanks in large part to my dad’s proximity to Sugarbush.
Fortunately, it’s a bit like riding a bike. Once you can do it, you don’t really forget, but it sure as hell isn’t easy or immediate to learn, as Lindsay can tell you. (My disastrous attempt to teach her at Big Bear in 2018 might have destroyed any chance of convincing her that winter can be fun.) You’re probably not going to get any better if you don’t regularly push your comfort zone on more challenging terrain, but I’m not sure you ever truly lose the skill. I am sure as shit not going to push my knees any further than they can comfortably handle, but I’m good with being a B/B- skier.
Coasting down a hill, carving clean turns, cutting through icy wind, warming up with a cold beer, the aprés, sitting by a fire or getting in a hot tub to recoup your sore muscles… the ski experience is awesome. There’s some strange magic in saying confident nonsense like “Let’s go left off the lift, cruise down Jester, hit lower Organgrinder, and cross over Downspout to get to Heaven’s Gate.” Feeling completely at home exploring the side of a mountain is intoxicating.
Unfortunately, skiing has become exclusively an upper-middle-class sport and is moving towards decline. Lift tickets have become absurdly expensive, with good mountains like Sugarbush charging $180 for a weekend day and great mountains like Aspen Snowmass charging $250+. The only way to save is by booking multiple days or getting an Ikon or Epic Pass, which are basically season passes for different resort groups. That’s just the cost of entry. Equipment rentals will run you $100/day, lodging is at least that, plus the food and gas necessary for a weekend trip. A weekend ski trip for a family of four costs a minimum of $1,000 now and could be $2,000+ by the end of the decade with how prices have increased in recent years.
Most skiers and boarders today grew up doing it and are willing to splurge because it’s part of their identity. They’ll instill the same love in their children. But how many will be able to afford to teach their children? How many people who didn’t learn as children will attempt to do so in adulthood? Why would any adult spend hundreds of dollars to pizza, french fry, and eat snow all morning? How are volume ticket discounts sustainable if there’s a declining number of actual buyers? Especially when there are fewer mountains and fewer skiable days. I know the numbers say skiing is growing in popularity (barely), but I just don’t buy this model’s sustainability.
Whether it’s 10 years or 30 years away, there’s a crisis coming for the ski industry, and much of it is self-induced by monopolistic practices and price gouging. It’s only going to get less accessible, so get your ski weekends in now.
One Hollywood: Hot Dog: The Movie
The ‘80s were a strange time culturally, and one of the touchstones of this era is the ski movie. Hot Dog: The Movie is an excellent example of these weird comedies that breathe life into the mountain through manufactured stakes, gimmicks, and tropes that make skiing look like an escapist
One Book: Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver
This has nothing to do with skiing, but it’s what I’m reading now. It was a co-recipient of the 2023 Pulitzer Prize. It’s good — really well-written and a heartbreaking portrayal of the opioid crisis in rural America.
One Song: “19-2000” by Gorillaz (Soulchild Remix)
One of my favorite songs to ski to.
One Food: Heady Topper
A Vermont right of passage is drinking a Heady Topper, the flagship beer of The Alchemist, one of America’s greatest and cagiest breweries. They only very rarely distribute outside of Vermont and in the early days after releasing Heady Topper, Vermonters would literally follow distribution trucks to get cases the second they hit shelves. It’s much more available now (although almost exclusively in Vermont), and is considered one of the best beers in the country. Enjoying one on the mountain is like eating a loaf of serotonin-infused bread — it fires you the hell up.
My dad and his girlfriend, Amy, print a lot of The Alchemist’s apparel, so it was pretty cool getting three beers for the $4 employee price at the brewery on Friday.
Between The Alchemist, Lawson’s, and Hill Farmstead in Vermont, Tree House and Trillium in Massachusetts, and Bissell Brothers and Maine Beer Co. in Maine, New England is by far the best beer region in America. It’s one of those situations where if you have a different opinion, you’re wrong.
One Game: Musical Flip Cup
In early 2017, we got 30 people in an incredible ski-in/ski-out Airbnb in Big Bear, CA. It was by far the best ski trip I’ve ever been on, and the highlight of the weekend (besides displacing just about all of the water in the hot tub with body mass) was the huge games of musical flip cup.
Musical flip cup is basically musical chairs, but with drinking. Music plays, everyone walks around a table and, when it stops, you have to drink and flip the cup in front of you. The last person to successfully flip their cup is out. So on and so forth. Highly recommend.
One Place: Big Bear
Hey, what the hell, let’s give Big Bear a plug. Big Bear’s about two and a half hours from Los Angeles and it’s on par with good Northeast mountains. You have to go 5+ to get to the best non-Tahoe mountain, Mammoth, so Big Bear is a great alternative.