We sat around the grill in a dirt parking lot, squinting up
into the sunlight. Strung along the crest of the final descent of a ski trail
named Gondolier were a line of figures, waiting. Behind us, the Fourrunner Quad
chairlift stopped spinning just after 4 p.m., and the band, stationed on the
deck of the Mountain Operations building, played their last licks. Every minute
or so one of the figures from the line on the diminishing crest of snow would
break free and begin to describe a series of languid S turns, carving out the
final runs of the ski season at Stowe Mountain Resort.
It’s a competition, of sorts: a cohort of snaggly skiers
linger as the shadows creep across the slopes, vying for the honor of being the
last one down on the last day of lift-serviced skiing. The free-heel skinners
among us scoff at this grade-school ritual, knowing that we can come back
tomorrow and invest a couple of hours of sweat, then poach a later line. The
truth is that there is always someone who will come after you and steal your
glory; there’s always a bigger fish.
The philosophers among us wondered if that line of skiers in
the fading afternoon light were but a symbol, another metaphor for the changes
about to grip Stowe like the nostalgia of a warm afternoon in April. We usually
don’t think of spring as a time of endings, but we are mountain folk, obsessed
with winter, always sad to see it go, and the closing of the ski area for the
season is a touchstone of our culture, an occasion to be marked, feted, and
remembered. This year, as the beer and the wine warmed in the afternoon sun, as
the sausages and burgers gassed plumes of summer smoke, as the Frisbees wafted hitherly
through the air and the burble of a thousand happy voices made a joyful noise, there
was more than a little musing about the end, beautiful friend, as Stowe begins
its biggest transition since Perry Merrill lifted his gaze to the forested
sides of Mt. Mansfield and said, “Here we will ski.”
And now, Vail is coming.
When we came to Stowe 17 winters ago, it was a different
place. Rusticism dominated the area, and history could be heard in the
squeaking of the Spruce Peak double chairlift, affectionately/malevolently
known as the Big Pig, as it made it 20-minute ascent. Ancient green school
buses, piloted by jovial/crusty drivers, lurched between Spruce and Mansfield
bases, hearkening/presaging isolationism. The theme of the three base lodges
(Mansfield, Spruce, and Midway) was cafeteria & cubbyholes. Though the
perception of Stowe even then was posh, a better word would be “community.”
Now, it’s different. Not better, not worse. Different.
Much was made about Stowe’s transition from that rustic
reality to its new, shiny, Aspen-y Spruce Base development. Obituaries were
written, including one by me in my 2014 memoir A Brief History of Innkeeping in the 21st Century. I prophesied Jersey barriers across Route 108 just
after the Matterhorn, and helicopter landing pads on the Toll House Plaza. It
may come to pass.
But Stowe won’t be the same, nor should it be.
Infrastructure needs to be updated and maintained, new innovations and ideas
tried, and new customers wooed. All these things were bleeding into the final
afternoon of skiing at Stowe this year.
When we pulled in to the ski area parking lot just after 11,
we saw a Stowe Police officer chatting with a ski resort security officer. They
were relaxed, laughing, and we saw only one other officer, when we pulled out
several hours later. It might have been the same one, but it’s worth noting the
extremely tolerant attitude of the ski are. Folks were allowed to imbibe
openly, at a facility that is licensed by the Vermont Department of Liquor
Control, which means that technically, the only place a beer can be opened is
at the bar, by the bartender—never mind the faithful folks honoring George
Washington’s legacy as a hemp farmer.
And that’s where the apprehension gets mixed with excitement
around the transition to ownership by Vail—aka MTN to stock wonks. We at Stowe
have been spoiled by decades of ownership by an insurance company who treated the
area like a favorite child, asking only that the locals run it faithfully and
not too noisily. Will new ownership do the same? Will one of the biggest ski
companies in the world look at the Ski Capital of the East with the same
loving, paternal gaze as its predecessor?
We finished our feast at the bottom of Mt. Mansfield with
pie, a fitting nod to the quirky Lynchian motif from Twin Peaks, an apt motif
that seems a distraction in the show, a distraction in the same way we were
distracted from our reverie by the impending sequitur/non sequitur of MTN.
In the end, we don’t know what the next moment will bring.
We only knew, sitting together as the sun bent down behind the mountain, that this
was the moment we had, and we were glad.