Whatever comes next for West Windsor, the town has proved its ability to adapt while staying true to its roots. Down at Paradise Sports, Rich Thomas says mountain biking is now his shop’s mainstay. “Vermont is reinventing itself as a mountain- biking destination,” he says—and Ascutney has the potential to become one of its best venues. Thomas even knows of a few people who have moved to West Windsor specifically for the trails.
As we talk, Thomas tunes the drivetrain of a beefy “fat
bike.” With extra-wide tires and a burly build, they’ve gained in popularity over the last few low-snow winters. Despite his business’s pedal-powered turnaround, Thomas says skiing’s not dead, either. As if to prove his point, the shop door swings open to reveal a customer with a pair of skis in tow. Jane Hoisington grew up in Windsor and moved to nearby Brownsville with her family 21 years ago. Her daughters learned to ski at Ascutney—just as she and her four sisters did a generation before. She’s here for help mounting her skis with alpine touring bindings that will allow her to get up the mountain under her own power, without using a lift. “When we were kids, it was wicked busy,” Hoisington says. “There were lines snaking halfway up the mountain, and you couldn’t find a parking space. It was a dark day when it closed.” As someone who knew Ascutney in its heyday,
Hoisington is enthusiastic about the mountain’s future. “People are pretty pleased with the direction it’s going in, and that it’s going to be developed for the benefit of the whole town. It’s a special mountain, and people will discover that, and they’ll come.”
On the first day of the new year, I pull into the parking lot at Ascutney, taking my place alongside dozens of other cars. The two groomed slopes near the base of the mountain are crowded with skiers—a few of the more ambitious climbing higher in search of fresh snow from a recent storm. Families cluster around a stove in the barn-red warming hut, clutching mugs of hot chocolate. It looks, frankly, like just another good day of skiing. You’d never guess from this bustling scene how close the commu- nity came to losing Ascutney, the big ideas and long hours it took before these neighbors could truly call the mountain their own. You can’t see the sport shop’s bottom line, or how property values have rebounded. But you can see the smiles. As I ski to the base of the hill, I encounter a pair of retirees showing kids how to use the new towrope: one by one, they grab hold and let it pull them up the groomed slope. As the line shuffles forward, I hear a father call out to his son:
“It’s good to ski in our backyard again, isn’t it?”
60 · LAND&PEOPLE · SPRING/SUMMER 2017
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