“Skiing Like Sixty at Sunapee!”

Sydney M. Williams
March 15, 2012

Note from Old Lyme

“Skiing Like Sixty at Sunapee!”

“It is better to go skiing and think of God, than go to church and think of sport.”

                                                                                                           Fridtjof Nansen (1861-1930)

Sixty degrees that is, not sixty miles per hour! Generally, when the temperature gets into the 60s the last thing a New Englander thinks of is skiing. The soil softens (will mud season be early this year?), robins appear, snow drops sprout and the breeze brings a promise of renewal.

Yet, a week ago found me, three sisters – Betsy, Charlotte and Jenny – and one brother, Willard at Mt. Sunapee. By mid-day the thermometer, both at the base and the top, read 61 degrees.

The surprise was how good the skiing was. Generally, when the temperature is as warm as it was, conditions become mushy and the skiing intolerably slow. But the mountain faces north; the base was solid and the trails had been groomed impeccably. Of course, snow has the benefit of being white, so reflects rather than absorbs the sun, warming the skier, and not so much the slope. A lack of crowds, combined with the conditions, made for perfect cruising. It was not particularly challenging, but for one of my age and this late in the season it was great fun whistling down the slopes.

Mt. Sunapee is owned by the State of New Hampshire, but managed by Tim and Diane Mueller, owners of Okemo Mountain Resort in Vermont. In 1948, the Society for Protection of New Hampshire Forests turned over to the State of New Hampshire 1,185 acres, which included both peaks of what is now Mount Sunapee. On December 26 of that year the new ski area opened, managed by the state, with a 3,300 foot chair serving three trails. Over the years, new trails were cut and new lifts installed. Fifty years after its inaugural, management of the facility was turned over to the Muellers’, whose success has been notable.

The first time I skied at Sunapee was either fifty-nine or sixty years ago. On weekends, because of the crowds, we bought books of tickets – twenty runs for $4.50. On weekdays – my father was an artist and so often took us out of school – he would buy a full day ticket for the same price. Children paid less. Money was a scarce commodity in our home. So we always packed our lunch, but might get treated to a hot chocolate; and we learned to slither under bathroom doors, because toilets cost a nickel!

The single chair of those days carried us to the top of the two steepest trails – Flying Goose and Lynx, both of which are unrecognizable today. In the 1950s both trails were narrow, steep and filled with turns. Ironically, despite the narrow, twisting trails, skis, which were longer in those days, did not have the turning radius they do today, with trails much wider and more conducive to sweeping turns. My brother Frank and I, in our early teens, once made twenty-two trips down Lynx, turning only when the trail did, and then cutting in line, so to quickly get back to the lift for the next hair-raising run. On another occasion, I recall a race on Flying Goose. The trail had to be climbed, whether out of sadism or because our coach thought it would give us a feel for the terrain, I never knew...but I suspected the former! At that time, downhill races had two gates – at the start line and at the finish – what you did in between was your business. Noting that some of my competitors were marking trees, so to cut corners, made me realize that my racing days were coming to an end.

Memories, both sweet and sour, always come flooding back at Sunapee: My father meeting former army comrades who wore the insignia of the 10th Mountain Division; Skiing when it was so cold, that horsehair blankets, available for the ten minute chair ride, were welcome; My sister Mary, a year before she succumbed to cancer, getting “air” on Hansen Chase.

Of the original nine siblings, eight are living. We live different lives, ranging from a dressage rider, riding instructors, a ski instructor, an artist, a retired professional fund raiser, to a bookseller and a couple of stockbrokers. Yet we have a common heritage: We were raised by the same parents, in the same house and we carry the same genes. Coming together at Sunapee allows for a special couple of days, when each of us exits our individual orbit and re-enters a bygone era. Because of the age difference, some memories of events do not overlap. But we know we are of the same flesh; the camaraderie is fun, as is the skiing. And this year, sixty degrees on slopes still fast was an added bonus.