Author: John Giuffo

It happened too fast to process. One moment I was carefully navigating frozen boilerplate on Upper Tamarack at Stratton, and the next I had hit a patch of sticky fresh manmade snow beneath the bellowing guns. I was tossed forward off my skis and into a trailside tree at almost 30 miles per hour.

I was dimly aware of my body wrapping around the trunk sideways, getting boomeranged back and sliding ten feet further down. I was screaming louder than I’ve ever yelled in my adult life, certain that I’d be carried off the slope on a stretcher. I felt things break inside. But as I spun to a stop, I realized that my cries were inaudible beneath the roar of blasting snow guns – not that there was anyone to hear me.

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Ask most dedicated skiers what prevents them from skiing all the time, and money is usually near the top the list. Ours is an expensive addiction, and there’s often a direct correlation between the cost of any given ski trip and the ability to afford more ski trips.

Smart skiers start looking for ideas to save money wherever possible early on in their addiction, yet it took me almost three full seasons until I finally decided to try my hand at ski tailgating.

With the exception of one rowdy affair in the Shea Stadium parking lot before a Mets-Yankees game over a decade ago, I’d never been to a tailgate party, and I’ve never hosted my own.

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