31st Annual NATO
Telemark Festival Coming Once Again To Mad River Glen
Wild winter
weather in the northeastern U.S. this season continues, but it
won't stop the world's oldest and largest telemark party, scheduled
for March 11-12
The base area during the 2003 NATO
Tele Fest. Photo: Mitch Weber
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February 20, 2006-- Vermont's Mad River Glen is a
special place for many reasons, among the most notable is that
It's America’s only cooperatively owned major ski area.
In an era when much of the ski industry is becoming homogenized,
Mad River Glen is bucking the trend, remaining independent and
controlled by fewer than 2000 share holding skier-owners who
are committed to preserving a brand of skiing that exists almost
nowhere else. How committed are they? Well, let's just say that
only a few months ago more than 80 percent of the shareholders
voted yes to spend a projected $1.5 million to restore, rather
than replace, the ski area's historic 57 year-old single
chair. While most resorts have been for years scrambling to replace
their aging lifts with quad chairs and even six-packs, Mad River
is keeping its single chair.
And it's really not just
respect for tradition or history that is behind the move. The
owners/skiers of Mad River Glen simply want the resort to remain
different than the rest, they want to go their own way. Mad River's
character is an expression of the attitude of the people who
ski there. And that is how they want things to remain. Telemark
skiing is easily the most individually expressive of all the
snowsports, so is it any wonder that tele is such a
big part of the culture at Mad River?
From the time North American
Telemark Oraganization (NATO) founder Dickie Hall opened America's
first telemark ski school at Mad River in the late 70's, the
ski area has been an important part of the telemark scene in
the northeast. As home to NATO's annual Telemark Festival, now
in its 31st year, Mad River has been a kind of touchstone for
thousands of freeheel skiers, and the place where many got their
start.
Just as the tele turn is
seen by many as being more of a challenge than the norm, sometimes
Mad River seems to face some unique challenges of its own. This
year it has been the weather. Checking the resort's webpage over
this last weekend to see if conditions had improved after some
recent snow in this, one of the wackiest winters many skiers
are saying they can ever remember in the northeast, I found the
following report:
After warm temps with sunny skies and
some of the nicest spring-like conditions you could have imagined
on Thursday, things turned ugly (again!). What a difference a
day makes. On Friday the temps plummeted from the 50's at 8 AM
to below 20 by noon. We saw an onslaught of rain and a tremendous
wind storm, with 80 mph gusts that took out power for the entire
day. The rain turned to blowing snow around noon on Friday and
we have picked up an inch or so of new snow. We lost a fair amount
of base during this weather event and things are certainly wicked
firm this morning....
I'm pretty sure I have never come close
to reading a ski report as grim as the above. A lot could change
between now and March 11-12, the weekend of the NATO telemark
Festival. Conditions at Mad River are almost certain to improve,
and yet one has to wonder, what will the festival be like if
the snow only improves slightly?
By way of prognostication, all I can offer
is my own experience, having attended the festival in 2002 and
2003.
My first year the snow was bleak, to say
the least. A warm rain storm swept into the northeast in early
March, washing away as much as four feet of snow at some resorts.
Mad River Glen was left with a mountain that was, perhaps, 70%
covered with snow and ice, the other 30% dirt. The usual gray
ice was scary, but the clear ice was truly frightening.
I could see right through it to the rocks and dirt below! The
weather wasn't all that great either.
But that didn't stop the New England tele
crowd. Not only did they show up in droves, they apparently came
with every intention of having a great time too. Hundreds of
tele skiers were out on the mountain, laughing, smiling... I
was amazed and kind of shocked. What was wrong with these people?
Were they just being stoic? Enduring the conditions for some
reason I didn't understand? As the weekend wore on, and as I
talked to dozens of skiers, I came to realize that they were
all making the best of things, and in the process having nearly
as much fun as they would have had if the snow had been better,
and the weather more civilized. It made me feel really good to
see this side of New England ski culture, and I went home to
California feeling fortunate to have experienced something really,
really different. There was a sort of skiing Esprit de corps
on that trip that I had not experienced before... or since.
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The following year, 2004, the snow was
great.
The weather was terrific and once again
I had a fantastic time. I remember standing out on the snow at
one point in not much more than a T-shirt, late in the afternoon
on Sunday. It was like being back in Cali. That was fun, no doubt,
but as strange as this may sound, my trip to the NATO Tele Fest
in 2002 was far more memorable.
So what's it going to be New England? Are
you going to rally once more? Is that tele skiing Esprit de
corps going to carry the day again, no matter what? My guess
is that it will. At least I wouldn't bet against it.-- Mitch
Weber |
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Thinking about all of this
over the weekend, I decided to go through our video tape archive
and pull out some footage I shot at the NATO Festival in 2003,
a really fine snow year. Time has a way of flying by and lot
of this footage never quite made it though the editing and posting
process. I'm thinking y'all out there, particularly in the northeast,
might just enjoy seeing it about now.
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..TeleVision
rating: "G" ..Running time: 00:07:28 |
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