SARATOGA SIDEBAR
WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN IS AN OLYMPIC-LEVEL SKI RESORT IN EASY DRIVING DISTANCE OF SKIDMORE.
BUNNIES TO OLYMPIANS For alpine skiers, the area around Saratoga Springs offers a wealth of possibilities. Of the 25 resorts within 100 miles of the Skidmore campus, four (Killington, Gore, Okemo, and Stratton) boast more than 2,000 vertical feet of trails, and another 13 have 1,000-plus feet. Bump your drive up to 200 miles, and you can reach an additional 38 resorts, nine with more than 2,000 vertical feet (including Whiteface, Sugar- bush, Stowe, and Jay) and another nine with over 1,000 feet. But it’s not all about size. Six small resorts nearby offer something the big boys don’t: night skiing. And two of these, Willard and West, are only about 25 miles from campus. In the long-board days, you didn’t even have to travel that
far. Alumni from the 1950s and ’60s may remember Darrow’s Farm Slope in Greenfield Center (about 5 miles from the old Scribner Campus), and those who attended Skidmore through the early ’90s had Alpine Meadows/Adirondack Ski Center in Porter Corners (12 miles from today’s Jonsson Campus). And of course Skidmore once had skiing right on campus,
with a T-bar and rope tow bringing schussers up its modest slope. Art professor Chip Cunningham recalls, “It was well maintained, and the athletic department used it to give ski lessons. My wife took ski lessons there in the late ’60s and early ’70s. It was really pretty cool.” Only a few years ago the last remnants of the equipment were covered by the North- woods Village apartments.
Where do Skiddies get their downhill groove on now? For a quick trip before or after classes, the nearby (and inexpensive) West and Willard mountains are the hands-down favorites of several Skidmore employees. Sociologist John Brueggemann
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calls Willard “the best place around for children to learn to ski,” and Garett Wilson, in theater, also likes its “great family atmosphere.” Historian Jennifer Delton and the Skidmore Shop’s Bob Carlton favor West Mountain for its convenient location and good deals on lift tickets.
Skidmore day-trippers cite Gore by a significant margin, most for its variety of terrain. The next most popular are Whiteface, Stratton, Bromley, and Killington. Also receiving at least one vote: Bousquet, Butternut, and Jiminy Peak in the Berkshires, Hickory (near Gore), and Mt. Snow and Okemo in Vermont. Bob Turner of the government depart- ment, who has a season pass for Gore and Whiteface, says Gore has “the best glades in the Northeast—no better way to clear the cobwebs than dodging trees,” while Whiteface, an Olympics venue, “has a massive amount of terrain and is very challenging.” Fellow government prof Kate Graney makes the case for the smaller Butternut: “The lifts are old and slow, but the trails are beautiful, and during the week it is very uncrowded.” For an overnight, many pick Okemo, Stratton, and Sugar-
bush in Vermont, Bretton Woods in New Hampshire, and Sug- arloaf in Maine. Wilson favors Stowe in Vermont and Sunday River in Maine, saying, “Both have great ski towns, excellent variety of terrain, many places to stay, and lots of snow!” (Skid- more prexy Phil Glotzbach sometimes goes even farther afield, to Heavenly, Mammoth, and Squaw Valley in California.) For Saratoga skiing, the options seem as vast and varied as the snowflakes that skiers delight in. A comprehensive resort list is on the Scopedish blog. —PD
COURTESY OF WHITEFACE MOUNTAIN, ORDA
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