Mad River Glen, VT: 12/22/09

After skiing 3 days in the brutally windy cold, riding gondolas and high speed lifts, skiing on man-made with no new natural snow, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to venture out another day in the negative wind chills, especially at an old school place like MRG with slow lifts and no snowmaking.

Mad River Glen

My dear old friend Jim, who lives in the MRV and is the GM of The Bridges Resort, a former snowboarder-turned-MRG-pinhead, who can ski any day, took the day off to ski with me at MRG, regardless of the cold and wind. He said it was going to be sunny and nice and the skiing will be good. I told him that if he was skiing, I was skiing, so out we went to the ski area that is just around the corner.

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Tree Skiing and the Big Jay Cut

Big Jay Cut
photo courtesy Vermont Life

Vermont Life just published an article on the effect of tree skiing on the woods.

I never thought twice about the impact of tree skiing until the Big Jay Cut. It’s definitely hard to face the fact that something that I live for, could be harmful.

Naturally occurring tree skiing exists in very limited quantities in the east. If you are talking about tree skiing on today’s alpine, AT or telegear. At today’s speeds. On most pitches, the spacing to ski at those speed just isn’t there.

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