“Is everybody ready"? cried the starter looking up. Our hero feebly answered “Yes” and then we stood him up, He started booming down the trail, but his bindings were unhooked…” (to save the faint of heart, I have listed full lyrics to Gory Gory Hallelujah at the bottom of this blog)
Certain things ran like clockwork in my family, supper at seven, Sixty Minutes on Sunday, church, and weekends at Mad River Glen. Dad was one of the originals. Born in 1930 he would regale us about the sacred pilgrimages they would take driving-up from Princeton with the boys in the 1950s, trying to convince the Smith girls to join them and then weaving north before there were interstates. We moved to Singing Bridge because they needed a doctor and it was within striking distance of Mad River Glen.
Saturday mornings Dad would load up the navy blue Volvo station wagon with rust around the fenders and we would pile in wooden skis, woolies and newly knitted hats and mittens by our grandmother each season. Always full of the wiggles, my mom would generally kick us off with Rounds (no not ammunition, songs) to get my sister and I to bounce up and down not bruising each other with our side-to-sides. “Down by the Banks of the Hanky Panky” generally got the giggles going, which helped to get all the parts holding their own and we would loop round from there: White Coral Bells, Dona Nobis Pacem, Alleluia, Alles Shweiget Nachtigale, Kookabura, Frere Jacques, Hey Ho Nobody’s at Home, Scotland’s Burning, Row Row Row your boat with our own made-up lyrics at the time and then we would veer off with the Fox went out on a Chilly Night (my kid’s favorite lullaby explains a lot ; )), The Magic Flute, Broadway tunes if we had time, but as we crossed from Route 100 to 17 dad would give us the look and take us through all three verses of “Gory Gory Hallelujah”. Mom without fail would exclaim “Oh Tom is this really necessary! What if something happens to the girls!”, which would just make us relish the intestine part pronouncing it louder to mom!
Let me be clear that there are a few things that speak to me more than fresh powder and crisp mountain air. The way the snow blankets the ground, creating a pristine landscape that is so quiet and peaceful, is truly remarkable. It's as if the world has been hushed, and all that remains is the soft crunch of snow beneath your feet. But 90% of the time this is NOT what MRG had in store for us.
“Good morning, doc” the ski patrol would greet Dad as we waddled along behind. In the early days picture Make Way for Ducklings as we unloaded and trotted lock step with dad. “How are the conditions up there?” Dad would engage with a twinkle. “Pretty bulletproof on the top after that wind last night” (meaning not even the most razor sharp edges could cut it). “The Chut’s bit technical today under the lift, but we got rid of that big glare ice patch and all that crud.” Even if there were only rocks and ice on the trails, Dad and the guys could always find the good and had a way to make us feel cool. It felt like the atomic bomb of gratitude had just gone off between them and melted any worry left in my Mom as we parked our picnic in the base camp and the flurry of buckles, zippers and the safety straps would be fastened on as we kids were released with the key visual of the picnic lunch mooring us back to family.
Mom was the provider of picnics, which looking back now were an art in themselves — fresh baguette, gooey fromage, cornichons, sausage … and always a side of the MRG chili and hot chocolate. Somehow those picnics still remain etched in my mind as most delicious and nutritious in the world. And they seemed to go on for miles with enough to share with both new and old friends gathering there. If you look hard enough around the table to the left of the stairs you may still find a chunk of Mom’s old baguette or a Saucisson or a sweaty old sweater you can still smell in the air.
Sunnyside called us up the mountain first before the single chair. We knew mom would be on the Ps in the morning: Porcupine, Perwinkle and we would be trying to lose Dad in the woods by taking-off into the tree islands always to see his steady straight skis gliding along beside us with an almost effortless German precision. No big flashy signs or mega-mountain groomers, instead we got to know the trees — the birch groves opening into a beautiful bump run, the islands of hemlocks with just enough space between them to offer an off-piste island, the beech boys with an outstretched arm signaling the way, still standing strong and welcoming us back each time. Filling our lungs with that crisp mountain air I can still feel the weightlessness that comes with each turn, floating into a billowy glade of powder — it's like nothing else in the world. It's a reminder that nature is truly an artist, and when we open our lungs we drink a deep breath of pure, unadulterated life. On those first morning runs we found our ski legs, cleared our minds and confirmed we were the luckiest people alive skiing on top of the world.
With a little luck I would ditch my sister in Birdland with my Mom — she had a tendency to jump off the lift into the chicken wire before her skis hit the ramp — sooo embarrassing!! This became quite legendary and some naughty cousins tried to swing off the lift when it was low to the ground so Mom took the trouble makers and I got to ski with Dad. After running the bumps in Canyon and feeling the burn we would head for the Single Chair. It felt like Christmas when they would toss a red woolen blanket over Dad’s forest green Johnson Woolen Mill pants and up we would go as the music and murmur of the lodge faded and we would be alone with our own thoughts and the whispers of the wind. This was OM time — slowing down to sit with oneself on the chair.
Antelope still visits me in my dreams — solo and silent weaving through the narrow stretches of hemlocks — with peek-a-boo pitches and vistas that stop one in their tracks. In fact I could be perfectly happy still skiing upper Antelope and Catamount all day without a skiier in sight. Dad introduced me to Paradise and Fall Line early in life before the fear set-in. I realize now he was my age skiing these in his long wooden boards as my respect for him and the mountain grows with age. “Take a moment” he would remind me as we would gather ourselves above the waterfall. And there, in that moment time stopped. “Just be” the wind would whisper. Just we, the trees the magnitude of this place just stood and breathed.
There is so much more to say, but the Single Chair is calling and some things still remain the same.
A special thanks to the Mad River Keepers protecting what is sacred and true for generations to come.
For the uninitiated, Mad River Glen’s Single Chair is the only one remaining in the continental United States; it has been running for 75 years. Mad River Glen is the only ski area on the National Register of Historic Places. Unlike modern ski areas, still it remains un-groomed, with many of the runs formed by the original skiers.
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Gory, Gory Hallelujah Lyrics to belt out in the car
"Is everybody ready?" cried the starter looking up
Our hero feebly answered, "Yes" and then we stood him up
He started booming down the trail, but his bindings were unhooked
Well, he ain't gonna ski no more
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Gory, gory, what a hell of a way to die
Well, he ain't gonna ski no more
He felt the wind, he felt the cold, he felt the sudden drop
He tried to stem, he tried to check, and then he tried to stop
A sudden bang, a terrible crash, a horrible rush of blood
Well, he ain't gonna ski no more
There was blood upon his bindings, there were brains upon
his skis, Intestines were a hanging from the highest of the trees
We scraped him up from off the snow and poured him from his boots
Well, he ain't gonna ski no more”
Day after day, I am completely blown away by the beauty of your writing. I envy your ability to have such granular recalled of childhood memories. And you were so lucky to have been able to do so many things as a family.
My dad woke up in an iron lung with polio on his 38 birthday in 1954, just a month before I turned seven. When he finally got out of hospitals 2+ years later, he was able to walk with a full body brace under his clothes.
I fell in love with ice hockey when I was eight years old, and only started playing competitively when I was 12. I played through my years at Choate, was good enough to make the freshman team at Dartmouth, and then twisted my Achilles tendon during preseason my sophomore year. That’s when I started majoring in play-by-play broadcasting for WDCR. It was enormous, fun and great pleasure for three years, often skating with the team in pre-practice warm-up. Unfortunately, it was not a for credit course of study.
As a consequence, I never did take advantage of the marvelous start Dartmouth skiway, and learn that sport, while I was still young and fearless.
It was only 10 years later when I was in Park city, Utah (filming a “do you know me“ commercial with Jack Nicklaus, and his family for American Express) that I finally, at age 32,, learned how to ski. And for the next five years I skied a whole lot, but entirely at Vail. I thoroughly enjoyed the beautiful conditions and the Rocky Mountains vistas as I cruised the green and relatively easy blue trails.
In 1984, I joined a group at Okemo. Ouch! The trails were twice as steep, half as wide, and icy instead of beautiful packed powder. All I could hear was the joyful voices of Vermont teenagers as they came bombing down the mountain screaming past me.
I made two trips to Sugarbush in the late 1980s. The last one followed my first severe neurological attack. I took a couple of runs on the bunny slope, and then rode the chair to the summit. I had planned to cruise my way down, but immediately found that I could only ski about 10 yards before I fell down. I would get up, and then it would happen again, and again, and again. Eventually, the ski patrol would come by and offer me a ride to the bottom, which I pigheadedly refused to accept. Several hours later, I finally made it to the base Lodge, soaking wet with perspiration and utterly exhausted. That was my last time on skis.
I am really enjoying these posts Celina! So nice to read about happy memories while you create new ones.❤️🌈