If You Don't Do It This Year...

...you'll just be one year older when you do.

After decades of hearing it, I have finally decided to heed Mr. Warren Miller's advice. For those of you who don't obsessively watch Warren Miller movies on Encore (or the VCR that you've kept just for that purpose)  in August (and the other 11 months of the year), at the end of each of his skiing and riding movies, Warren Miller signs off with:  "If you don't do it this year, you'll just be one year older when you do." I started considering this advice when I was about 22 years old. I've finally heeded it as a 42 year old.

Slow learner.

For years, this sign-off gave me a pulling feeling in the stomach.  To me, it meant that I was one year older, and no closer to living in a ski town in the Rockies.  I once told a good friend who grew up in Colorado that every time I got on the plane in Denver to fly home to Boston, I would cry at takeoff.  He looked at me like I was nuts.  "Um, do you think maybe you should move here?" he asked.

Yes, I do.

The problem for me is that there is one thing I love more than skiing, and being in the mountains:  my family.  And they live in Massachusetts.  I have finally admitted it: They are never moving.

In 1999, I made the crazy decision to buy my second home first.  I'd been renting a ski-season house at Sugarbush in Vermont with a group of friends for years.  One day in the lodge I saw an ad for condos that were for sale on the mountain.  They started at $20,000 - not much more than we were paying for a single season in our house.  I called a realtor the next day.

At the time, I was working as a well-paid (slave) corporate attorney at a big law firm in Boston.  Several of the attorneys - including (although I didn't know it at the time) the managing partner of the firm - spent every weekend at Sugarbush.  It was the perfect escape from the stress and drudgery of corporate law firm life, and I quickly learned the code among the associates at my firm:  What happens at the Bush, stays at the Bush.

I wanted in.

I decided to work as hard as I possibly could, and to earn a bonus that could make this crazy idea a reality.  I'd stay in my run-down apartment in Jamaica Plain, and buy a ski condo. It was easily one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I had no idea how lucky I was when Win Smith and his partners bought the mountain.  As a skier who - until I had twins in 2009 - did my best to ski at least 50 days a season at Sugarbush, I was thrilled that Win understood that "family friendly" does not mean "Groom every trail within an inch of its life, destroy all advanced terrain except a token few trails to make people feel cool, close all woods skiing, add high speed heated quads to every part of the mountain, and advertise as much as possible in New York City."

A completely new and amazingly-designed base with lodges, restaurants, bars, ski school(s), condos, and a hotel have blossomed at Sugarbush in the past few years.  The vibe is skier-friendly, and the owners clearly Get It.  While we're skiing, we don't want to be comfortable.  When Mother Nature gives us the rare gift of powder on a nice base, we want to hit that spot in the woods we've been eyeing without fear of losing our season pass.  We want to ski Castlerock without any grooming, and without having to stand in line listening to a bunch of idiots in $5000 Bogner outfits for whom skiing is just another way to show off gadgets and gear.

But we'll admit it.  When we finish a day on the Rock, we want to sit in a comfortable and nice lodge with a nice (and big enough) bar, and a fire outside, with a good meal in store.  We want to be able to take our kids to a great ski school where they'll have as much fun inside as they do outside.  And we know that if we have any hope of skiing at Christmas (or at any time in a year like 2012) we'll need some snowmaking.

Thank you, Sugarbush, for understanding all of this.

So what have I decided to do?  At the risk of ruining it all - my passionate love for Sugarbush, my appreciation for its owners, the fact that my blood pressure drops instantaneously when I cross the Roxbury Gap - I am going to start working as a ski instructor.

My plan for this blog is to teach you what I learn in the process, and to give you a place to check for weather updates and gear news when you have exhausted every other possible website and blog in a quest to transport yourself from Monday at your desk to Saturday on the snow.

Welcome.  And remember:  if you don't do it this year?

You'll just be one year older when you do.