b JIMINY MAGAZINE • 2011-12
JIMINYEXPERIENCE
IN AWHOLE NEWLIGHTWHY LOCALS LIVE FOR NIGHT SKIING
WHAT A 1-HOUR
REFRESHER LESSON
CAN DO FOR YOUR SKIING
ART ON A GRAND SCALE
MASS MOCA PUSHES THE
CONTEMPORARY ENVELOPE
MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR FAMILY VACATION
THE INSIDE SCOOP FROM JIMINY’S GROOMERS AND INSTRUCTORS
PAYING TRIBUTE TO A LOCAL ICON SKI WRITER JOHN HITCHCOCK
4 EASY WAYS TO REDUCE YOUR CARBON FOOTPRINT
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KINGS OF THE HILLA few of Jiminy’s other ski and ride programs to help you master the mountain.
First-time skiers of all ages are fitted with Guaranteed Easy Turn skis, which encourage effortless carving due to the shorter ski length, in this 90-minute lesson.
This 90-minute lesson for beginner riders teaches snow-boarding basics using Burton equipment, tailored by age and ability to maxi-mize each individual’s learning potential.
Certified instructors teach daylong ski or snowboard lessons for students up to 14 years old in this new children’s program, which replaces the SKIWee and
Explorers programs.
Adaptive coaches from STRIDE Adaptive Sports, based in Rensselaer, New York, provide ski and ride lessons at Jiminy for students of all ages with physical, cognitive, or developmental disabilities. Visit Stride.org for more information.
Lutes follows as his pupil works on those “railroad tracks” – smooth, parallel turns that carve through the snow rather than spraying it with each turn.
pose, but it definitely helped me break the habit of sitting back on the ski tails.
As I schussed down Riptide employ-ing those visual cues, I could hear the call, “Ski with pride!” – Lutes’s way of telling me to straighten my upper body.
Gliding back to the lift, Lutes and I used the shadows from overhead chairs as a moving slalom course, weaving between the dark shapes to get me think-ing about smoothly engaging my inside ski for a turn versus muscling into it like I would on my straighter planks.
Fortunately, Lutes and I met early enough in the morning to beat the rest of the spring skiers heading to Jiminy that Thursday. I say “fortunately” because I found myself thinking – knees, ankles, wrists, hips, inside ski, toilets – and not
always watching where I was going. Consider this an open apology to anyone I may have frightened with a near miss that day.
After the lesson, I held on to the shaped 150s for a few more hours and worked on what Lutes had taught me – the main lesson being that nobody is beyond a refresher. The new gear gave me the freedom of paying less attention to the skis’ functionality and more to the finer points that Lutes imparted during our time together; a sport I have loved for years felt fresh. And I could only hope that as I shot down Upper Exhibition, someone in the overhead chairlift was watching and thinking, “Hey, that guy looks pretty graceful.”
Our writer, from nearby Pittsfield, keeps pace with the community of locals and midweek warriors who have turned the mountain’s second shift into something as different as, well, night and day. By Amanda Rae Busch
About 360 metal halide lights illuminate Jiminy’s trails so brightly you may be able to read a book by them; (below, left to right) an outdoor fireplace warms up the patio at JJ’s Lodge; ghosted silhouettes on the Berkshire Express; skiers and riders aren’t the only ones working the mountain at night.
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ven before the sun has disappeared behind the summit of Jiminy Peak on a frosty afternoon, several constellations twinkle brightly against the dark blue sky. At least that’s what the 360 metal halide lights dotting the face one of the largest ski area in Southern New England look like to a visitor approaching the entrance. The daytime mob has mostly dispersed, but soon a new wave of enthusiasts will be arriving, ready to reap evening runs. As a Pittsfield native and lifelong Jiminy patron, nighttime has actually become my prime shredding time, a break from the writing world when I get to trade the lines I type on my desktop computer with the lines I pick here on the slopes.
I’m certainly not alone; after dusk is when the locals come out to play. There are adult nine-to-fivers (like me) seeking solace from a hectic workday, teen racers attending after-school programs, and families scouting deals, since twilight tickets can be had for as little as a two-thirds of the daytime price. It’s when these skiers and riders of all stripes unite in a single pursuit: serene runs amid the crisp alpine air.
This Tuesday in mid-February is no different. Past the dimly lit base village – where staffers at the Burbank Children’s Center playroom are stacking primary-colored chairs before closing their doors – JJ’s Lodge bustles with excitement. It’s nearly 6 o’clock, and teens outfitted in candy-colored gear swarm around tables, tugging on ski boots and jostling to meet their program peers outside. (Most of these kids have traveled about an hour from the capital region of Albany, New York.) A few linger by the massive stone fire pit on the front patio, warming their hands before the vibrant flames and chattering excitedly about the recent soft blanket that coats Jiminy’s 170 acres of varied terrain – nearly 60 percent of it open tonight with all 21 trails lit.
Night skiing isn’t a new development for Jiminy. The mountain was one of the first resorts to introduce night skiing in the Berkshires, starting in 1969, when GM (now President and CEO) Brian Fairbank installed lights on Grand Slam and alongside a T-bar that has since been replaced by the Novice Chair. By 1973, he had added lights to Merry Go Round, 360, and Upper Slingshot, and by 1975 to Ace of Spades, the first black-diamond. Others followed – expert skiers rejoiced in 1994 when the Whitetail black-diamond went nocturnal – but “it didn’t reach the proportion it is at now for quite a while,” Fairbank says.
During the 2010–11 season, a staggering 26 percent of all visits to the resort were during twilight hours – impressive, considering that only an average of 8.6 percent of visits to all down-hill venues in the Northeast are attributed to night skiing, according to the National Ski Areas Association. That’s a direct result of the amount of different terrain that is lit up here, ranging from gentle green-circles to steep black-diamonds.
Tonight, at the base around 7 p.m., I run into John Hughes, 55, of Albany, and his girlfriend, Jackie Monette, 54, of Petersburg, New York, who regularly meet up with a pack of longtime ski buddies – a motley crew of engineers, teachers, doctors, nurses, and businessmen in their 30s to late 50s. Their typical plot: cruising the slopes for as long as possible before gliding over to Christiansen’s Tavern. “I like the solitude of the mountain at nighttime,” says Hughes. “After the school buses pull out at 8 o’clock, you have the hill to yourself. You kind of forget the whole world.”
I understand exactly what he means. On my first trip up the Berkshire Express, I revel in
(Clockwise from this photo) Like a picnic table on a bluebird day, the fire pit outside JJ’s Lodge makes for a nice pit stop; shadows loom over a string of bumps on the edge of one of the mountain’s lit trails; an evening meal at Christiansen’s Tavern comes with uphill views of Alex’s Park and Lower Sling Shot; anyone need a lift?
“I like the at nighttime,” says John Hughes. “After the school buses pull out at 8 o’clock, you have the hill to yourself. You kind of .”
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(Clockwise from this photo) The sun’s work may be done for the day, but Jiminy’s second shift is just getting going; The Store at Jiminy Peak, near the access road, is an easy stop for night riders to pick up a snack on the way to the lifts; Crane Lodge during a busy night; a PistenBully 400 snowcat works its magic.
the gentle breeze and almost eerie stillness of the dark woods – a world apart from the constant daily maelstrom of meetings and deadlines. I feel relaxed, sure, but strangely energized, too. At the summit, I spy the 386-foot-tall Zephyr wind turbine, its massive steel blades rotating grace-fully high above a dark sea of spindly trees. Once strapped in, I carve languid S-turns down West Way, encountering only a few other dark figures guided by their own rhythms.
“It’s always less crowded during the week, more suited to flying down the mountain,” Paul Dodds. “Fewer human obstacles,” adds the 35-year-old Pittsfield local.
On a typical night, he and the rest of the group glides right into the Berkshire Express’s loading zone, no waiting required. Regulars love these “hot laps” – after all, it takes just over four minutes to get to the top. (Jiminy is the only ski area in the region with a high-speed lift operating at night.) Once at the top, they have their immediate pick of Left Bank and West Way. “North Glade!” one skier might shout, and the group funnels to the west side of the mountain, chatting side by side until they arrive at the top of the black-diamond. A ways down, the leader stops and everyone follows, waiting for the stragglers to catch up. But no sighs of exasperation here. “Sometimes sports stuff can get edgy and competitive and aggressive,” says Stuart Chase of Lanesborough, who often skis with Dodds and other buddies, “but night skiing doesn’t feel that way with us.”
That seems to be a common thread I see on the lift rides on my own night out. On the chair ride later in the evening, I listen to skiers Ron Majdalany, 59, from Great Barrington, and Paul Hersey, 59, from Bennington, Vermont, joke about their very first snowboarding lesson together at Jiminy and their utter excitement when first making it down the beginner’s slope without catching an edge. I can see that for these guys this time on the mountain is precious, something to be savored, so one-upping each other falls to the wayside. “It’s like social time out for all age groups,” says Marlene O’Connor, who founded the Bethlehem [New York] Ski Club 16 years ago, which currently meets on weekend evenings. More than 100 participants signed up that first year; last season, the group was 400 members strong, ranging from 7-year-old young-sters to their parents and adult relatives. She cherishes the bonding so much that she continues to organize the outings even though her three sons, now in their 20s, are no longer part of the club.
They aren’t the only ones happy about this brightly lit mountain, though (so much “you could almost read a book anywhere on the trail,” says Fairbank). Sometimes the park is even more active than the trails, especially during the Friday Night Rail Jam series, when hordes of skiers and boarders line the perimeter of Alex’s Park to watch each other jib off various rails and boxes and hit small jumps. On these evenings, about 15 contenders in each 20- to 30-minute heat take as many runs as possible in a choose-your-own-adventure format while handfuls of stickers, T-shirts, and hats are thrown to the rambunctious crowd like confetti during a Fourth of July parade.
It’s not all one big, raucous party, though. “[Night skiing] is just a different atmosphere,” says nighttime manager of 15 years Jim Mucci. Sure, you have some shenanigans, some loud folks, but for the most part, he says, it’s a more romantic experience.
Dreamy is how I like to put it. “This is usually a mellow time,” says Dodds, “and if the moon is, out it can be quite spectacular – almost a meditative experience.”
I can see that for these guys this time on the mountain is precious,
, so one-upping each other falls to the wayside.
