Mad River Glen:
Skiing in the Moment
Susan's not the first to let the mountain's rolls, trees and ledges lead her skis to this fresh stash of snow at Mad River Glen.
Just like a Grateful Dead concert, skiing Mad River Glen is improvisation at its best.
It’s the same mountain, but it always skis differently. The ski area, preserved pretty much in its natural state, relies mostly on natural snow, so it’s up to Mother Nature’s whim as to what you’re going to find.
Fortunately, skiers often find the ski area, high in Vermont’s northern Green Mountains, draped in powdery goodness and dripping riffs of inspirational skiing.
Powder-encased trees soundproof the mountain and silence greets you, except for the a cappella "woo-hoos" from skiers around you. Stop and you hear the beat of snow plopping off trees. Move and you hear the swooshing of your skis slicing through the snow.
Mad River Glen
Vermont
Address: 62 Mad River Resort Rd.
Waitsfield, VT 05673
Ski area phone: (802) 496-3551
E-mail: ski@madriverglen.com
Internet: www.madriverglen.com
Rocks, cliffs, steep bumps, trees, stumps, icefalls, creek beds—wear it like a badge of courage. Or shut up and go home. The adventure is in seeking out the untracked lines, letting the mountain reveal where it holds snow the longest.
You can discover plenty of entertainment sticking to the named trails and glades, and you should start there to learn the rhythm of the mountain. But the best places to explore are not on the map and the names are enticing: Nineteenth Hole. Twentieth Hole. Octopus’s Garden. Cantelope Chutes. Falldise. New Frontier.
Zipping through the tight trees gets the adrenaline pumping soon enough. Low-hanging tree branches in the way, duck! Fallen tree, swerve around or go under it! Tight trees, make yourself a skinny minny and squeeze through! Boulder or tree stump, suck it up or launch it! Icefall, drop it! Cliff, huck it and throw in a trick! Unexpected icy patch, smear that turn!
When you get to the bottom and look around, you can’t help but laugh out loud. Tree branches stuck in helmets. Snow-covered beards. And grins. Big grins, all around. On a powder day, it can take 45 minutes just to load the Single Chair, yet you’ve never seen so many people happy to be standing in a line.
But sometimes Mother Nature pulls a Jerry Garcia and forgets to snow.
While Mad River Glen averages 250 inches in a season, like most New England resorts, snow can be a challenge at times: even in epic seasons, you can still find no snow, sparse snow, ice, or even grass and moss. The ski area sometimes closes after major meltdowns, hoping to preserve any snow they have left so they can quickly recover. Usually all it takes is a hearty nor’easter to restore the mountain to its former snowy beauty in no time.
Rocks, cliffs, steep bumps, trees, stumps, icefalls, creek beds—wear it like a badge of courage. Or shut up and go home. The adventure is in seeking out the untracked lines, letting the mountain reveal where it holds snow the longest.
In the meantime, Mad River Glen skiers accept what Mother Nature throws their way. Skiing is like a jam session, the more you practice the better you are. Great musicians will tell you to play the music differently every day, the way your soul tells you to. The same goes for skiing at Mad River Glen: Let the mountain touch your soul and tell you how to ski it that day.
Two-thousand vert of bulletproof bumps the size of VWs, no problem, Mad River Glen skiers love them. Moss, hey, it’s better than granite. Waterfalls, that’s OK, they’ll freeze back up soon enough and you can always pick your way around them. Above all, skiers in the know realize that natural snow, even when it’s icy, holds an edge better than any manmade snow ever could.
Like the faithful Deadheads, you just have to take another hit and it’s all good. Because a day of skiing here, no matter the conditions, is always better than doing just about anything else.
That’s fueled by the kinship skiers find and embrace at Mad River Glen, which first welcomed skiers in 1948. Unlike the Grateful Dead, who unintentionally promoted a sense of community among their fans, Mad River Glen’s “community” was planned from the beginning.
Bring on the Groupies
Roland Palmedo, Mad River Glen’s founder and an original investor at Stowe, believed that "…a ski area is not just a place of business, a mountain amusement park, as it were. Instead it is a winter community whose members, both skiers and area personnel, are dedicated to the enjoyment of the sport."
Mad River Glen, affectionately called MRG by its loyal followers, is still guided by this vision of community as the core of its foundation.
A friendly and unpretentious vibe thrives at the mountain. Skiers travel hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles to ski here. Many grew up skiing here, moved away to pursue careers, but still come back to relive their childhood memories and introduce their loved ones to a ski area that shaped them into who they are today. Others hear about it through the grapevine and come to see if it lives up to the hype.
A friendly and unpretentious vibe thrives at the mountain. Skiers travel hundreds and sometimes thousands of miles
to ski here.
Wait. What hype?
MRG’s groupies have plastered the famous “Mad River Glen, Ski It if You Can” stickers all over the world. As heralded in an old MRG press release:
The ‘Ski It If You Can’ bumper sticker has been spotted all over the globe (and above it!), a fact that certainly contributes to its fame. Skiers relaxing in General Stark’s Pub after a day of skiing will notice a collage of bumper sticker photos and a world map with pins marking these sticker sightings. The photos range from shots of a sticker on the canopy of a US Air Force F-16 to the tram at Jackson Hole. Other highlights include photos from the World Elephant Polo Championships in Nepal, the Great Wall of China, the DMZ in Korea, the Galapagos Islands, the gates of the Guinness Brewery in Dublin, the Tower of London, Madagascar, various South Pacific and Caribbean islands, bars in Vietnam and Kosovo, the summits of Mt. Kilimanjaro (there’s more than one there) and Mt. McKinley, along with dozens from ski areas from New Zealand to New Jersey. The most famous without a doubt is the one of shareholder (and astronaut), Cady Coleman, from inside the space shuttle.”
When Betsy Pratt decided it was time to pass on the ski area to a new owner, she knew the best would be a skier who cherishes MRG’s uniqueness. Before you could shake a stick, a Cooperative was formed, allowing the skiers to take ownership.
The Co-op holds “town hall” style meetings where members vote on management issues of the ski area and of the Co-op itself. Since 1995, thousands have purchased $2,000 shares in the Co-op, with an explicit mission: “…to forever protect the classic Mad River Glen skiing experience by preserving low skier density, natural terrain and forests, varied trail character, and friendly community atmosphere for the benefit of shareholders, area personnel and patrons.”
Mad River Glen is especially proud of not widening trails, instead keeping them classic New England—narrow, with curves and character. Trails are enhanced by natural snow, not faux-snaux from guns.
And that mission makes Mad River Glen the Northeast’s Haight-Ashbury of the skiing counter-culture movement.
You won’t find a mega-resort focused on real estate and lodging here. MRG is especially proud of not widening trails, instead keeping them classic New England—narrow, with curves and character. Trails are enhanced by natural snow, not faux-snaux from guns (just two snowguns blow snow on the lower part of the mountain). Glades are prudently thinned, and in places where trees were over-trimmed or simply removed, the ski area has planted new trees and roped off the areas for reforestation efforts.
None of the five lifts are high-speed. When the historic Single Chair was showing its age in 2007, they opted to restore it, instead of putting in a conventional double. A double would have cost $300,000 less than the restoration, but it would have increased traffic on the trails and removed the iconic symbol forever.
Not to be overlooked is MRG’s reputation for being honest in their snow reporting, as well as having a bit of irreverence: Where else would you read a snow report calling rain “premature snow” and warning skiers that it’s not worth making the trip?
No doubt about it, Mad River Glen targets the best skiers. That includes the best skiers with kids—you can’t have a community if there’s no kiddie stoke. It also includes skiers who want to be better.
MRG is groovy, and snowboarders know it. They want to join the party so badly they poached the mountain
en masse during the 2007 celebration introducing the
restored Single Chair, begging to be included.
All this means you don’t have to be an advanced or expert skier to get your groove on at MRG. The ski area does make snow on its beginner trails and some of its intermediate trails, and groomers do a fine job of tilling the snow into corduroy. The trails are fun, winding around the mountain, pulling you willingly into a mode of exploration. Birdland, midmountain and with its own chair, is a delightful refuge for beginners to learn the ropes before sharing the mountain with more skilled skiers.
Skiers of all abilities find themselves members of one big, happy family. This sense of community might just be what irks snowboarders the most.
MRG is groovy, and snowboarders know it. They want to join the party so badly they poached the mountain en masse during the 2007 celebration introducing the restored Single Chair, begging to be included. They even created a sticker “Mad River Glen, Poach It If You Can.” The effort was to no avail, although many MRG skiers have this collectible item, including us.
After poaching en masse, they handed out donuts to the crowd and then went into the cafeteria and ordered, what else, but “35 poached eggs, please!”
It’s not that Mad River Glen skiers hate snowboarders. Back in the 1980s, when snowboarding became too popular for ski resorts to resist, snowboarders were welcome at MRG. However, they were prohibited from the Single Chair because of safety issues caused by the flat unloading zone. Somewhere along the line, then-owner Betsy Pratt had a blow-up confrontation with unhappy snowboarders, and she simply banned them from the mountain.
Shareholders continue to believe that being a skier-only mountain is the best course for MRG. It sets them apart from every single ski area on the East Coast. And it sure hasn’t hurt their reputation. Just as Jerry Garcia was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Mad River Glen can stand proud as a member of the best ski mountains in North America.