Of Pachyderms And April Skiing

In what I thought might be my last hurrah of the season last Wednesday, March 8th, I enjoyed an afternoon of skiing at Sugar Mountain. The sun was shining as the high temperature clung to the freezing point. As the lifts shut down at 4:30 a number of tower guns began pouring the man-made snow onto an already formidable snow pack. On the way to the resort parking lot I literally bumped into the resort’s president, Gunther Jochl, on his way to survey the early evening snowmaking.

“You may have just skiied the best day of the season,” he said in an assessment I could find no fault with.

The next day in the pre-dawn hours a couple of inches of fresh snow fell almost unnoticed. As the day grew into a carbon copy of its predecessor, sunny and even milder, I canceled plans to wash the car in the driveway and went skiing again. Conditions were better still.

Then it snowed some more. Last weekend provided some of the best conditions of all time, but lest you think all I do is ski, let it be known I missed out and punched a time clock instead. Thousands of others missed out too, punching a calendar. With the pending change of seasons, recreational patterns change and in spite of the unprecedented March conditions, traffic at High Country ski resorts drops sharply.

That seems a shame, particularly this season, but to the victors go the spoils. They are the passionate devotees of alpine sports and for the next two weeks they will ski or board right onto the chair. It will feel more like a throne.

March’s last word on winter is nothing new. Old timers remember the winter of 1960 when National Guard helicopters dropped bales of hay to stranded livestock on St. Patrick’s Day. That was the year Boone’s Wade Brown, inspired by the Squaw Valley Winter Olympics donned a pair of surplus military skis and posed for a photo taken on the newly opened and snow covered Boone golf course. Brown sent that photo down the news wires proclaiming the High Country “Little Squaw Valley”, planting the seed for the yet born southern ski industry.

And what about the March Blizzard of 1993. That killer storm did little for the ski industry as survival was first and foremost for many. Instead of grooming trails, resort snow cats were on search and rescue forays onto state roads and highways, plucking stranded motorists from drifts as high as roof lines.

My favorite March ski story unfolded a decade earlier on Beech Mountain. Paul Bousquet was the resort general manager at that time and a real promoter. Most importantly, skiing coarsed through his veins. From the Berkshire Mountains in western Massachussetts, his family’s resort at Bousquet Mountain introduced the first rope tow to Eastern America. Bousquet was responsible for a lot of firsts at Eastern America’s Highest Town, including the introduction of the first parade of elephants to lumber down the ski slopes when he brought the circus to town in the autumn of 1984. But his biggest and most well-intentioned stunt fell the way of the best laid plans of mice and men.

It had been a sensational ski season more than 20 years ago and Bousquet was as bouyant as a balloon full of Champagne. The resort’s Winterfest celebration with its “Great Cardboard Box Derby” and “Bathing Beauty”contest had garnered national television coverage and the mountain rang with the spirit of the days of Carolina Caribbean in the early seventies. As April neared the snow pack approached six feet, a significant depth for the era. Filled with the largesse afforded him by a record season for revenue, Bousquet bought full page ads in the all the neighborhood newspapers to herald an offer you couldn’t refuse—FREE SKIING AT BEECH MOUNTAIN THE MONTH OF APRIL!

The promotion hit the newstands about the 28th of March, about the same time torrential rains announced the arrival of spring and a resounding end to winter. It rained so hard that by April 1st you couldn’t find enough snow to make a pail of ice cream. Bousquet shrugged his shoulders as if to say “wait ‘til next year”.

Not long afterward Bousquet left the High Country to take over the reins at the famed Loon Resort in New Hampshire. For those who knew him Loon seemed a perfect fit. I just wonder what he would be planning for April after a March like this.

Updates

Following a “weekend only” schedule in March, Hawksnest folded up the tent after Sunday’s session March 13. Appalachian Ski Mountain will operate through Easter Monday, March 28 and walk away from a base likely in excess of 100 inches. Ski Beech, presumed by many insiders to be closing Sunday, March 20, has yet to make a final decision on its last day of operation. But don’t be surprised if they go another week. And don’t be surprised if they don’t. Bet on Sugar Mountain to outrun everyone. If there’s a mountain manager willing to run into April he’s at Sugar Mountain. Even if the numbers don’t add up they’re likely to do it just because they can.

See You On The Slopes