The run-up to Thanksgiving is always a blur of food, guests, shopping, chores, snow shoveling and more. This week has offered it to us in spades.
We had fabulous early snow this year as well as fabulous snowmaking conditions. That was nowhere more evident than at Sugarbush’s opening day on Saturday, November 22, when the crowds were legion. How big were they? The lift lines stretched so far up the hills that people looked like ants.
How excited were people to ski? One skier was caught on a webcam, napping near the turnstiles in the wee hours of Saturday morning. His slumber was interrupted by a group of very large and happy bears rummaging near the base of the lift. Check Sugarbush’s social media to watch him watch them, and then sprint away once a couple of them turned their backs.
How excited are Mad River Glen skiers about their mountain? Pretty excited! Earlier this month, Mad River Glen quietly announced plans to exercise a right of first refusal to purchase 1,100 surrounding acres. That right of first refusal was part of the deal when the late owner Betsy Pratt sold the current ski area to a skier-owned cooperative. MRG needs to raise $2.5 million to make that happen and has already raised $580,000 towards that goal. That’s impressive. What a great thing to conserve 1,100 acres of pristine high elevation woodlands for wildlife habitat, conservation/recreation and headwater protection.
Finally, here is something to be thankful for – that flying car! A car took flight from Route 100 in Waitsfield by Darrad, smashing signs and stairs there before flying through the air until it collided with and became embedded in the second story of the red building in the Bridge Street marketplace.
A passenger in the car was transported to Central Vermont Medical Center for what police said were serious bodily injuries. She was no longer a patient as of November 24 according to the hospital. There was a lot of property damage but thankfully, the airborne car missed a fire hydrant and a large maple tree and did not land on the propane tank and the second building it hit was unoccupied.
What a week, folks. Stay safe, ski safe and Happy Thanksgiving.
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