April 6, 2007 – A ramble up Wachusett Mountain in Princeton, Mass., the other day was a good reminder of the realities of spring hiking in New England.

It was April 4, temperature 30 degrees, trail icy in some spots and crispy mud in others, mountain shrouded in cloud, and snowing lightly.

Ah, spring.

Traction gear would have been useful, but trekking poles provided enough extra stability. Farther north, in the Whites, the Greens and the mountains of Maine, serious traction gear – crampons, STABILicers or the like - is good to have, at least in the pack, well into May.

Wachusett is the highest peak in New England south of New Hampshire and east of the Connecticut River. Another way of saying that: It’s the highest peak in eastern Massachusetts, 2006 feet above sea level, 174 feet higher than its closest rival, Mount Watatic in Ashburnham and Ashby. Views from both can be spectacular - but not on this day.

This was a day for good boots and warm clothes, starting with a layer of pile top and bottom, covered by wind resistant pants, another warm layer on the torso, a windbreaker, and hat and gloves.

Wachusett’s woodland trails were sloppy – saturated by rain and melting snow over the last two weeks – so the Pine Hill Trail offered a better route to the summit.

The trail, built in the 1930s by the CCC as a downhill ski trail, is the most popular hiking route to the summit. It also exemplifies a problem common to popular hiking spots across New England: How to manage the impact of hundreds of thousands of people who come to enjoy natural places that are unable to withstand the onslaught. Wachusett Mountain State Reservation sees 850,000 people visit each year – 375,000 skiers and the rest a mix of hikers, cross-country skiers, snowshoers, bird watchers and drivers.

Park staff estimate 250,000 of the hikers take the Pine Hill because it is the shortest route to the top, and closest to the Reservation’s Hitchcock Visitors Center on Mountain Road.

The trail had widened and eroded under the impact of those many feet, hammering uphill and down in all conditions, moving ever outward in search of dry footing, crushing vegetation and compacting soil so it lost its structure and washed away.

Volunteers and park staff are rebuilding the steepest part of the trail into a hard-surfaced route, essentially a half-mile-long stairway of massive stones.

Steve Crowe is directing the major effort on the lower portion of the trail, with a crew of volunteers from the Appalachian Mountain Club and Green Mountain Club; the next section up is being restored by the Student Conservation Association, which provides labor as part of the group’s annual work projects; and the AMC professional trails crew has done work on a section above that.

This month marks Crowe’s fifth anniversary on the project.

Reservation Supervisor Dwayne Ericson, who recruited the volunteers and keeps the project moving forward, sees it as a 15-year effort.

He said the components of the trail work – steps and walls and water runoff channels – vary along the path. “They’re modified into different styles and forms intentionally. I envisioned this to be an educational tool, with different forms in close proximity,” he said.

“I do not believe in the concept of overuse,” Ericson said. “I believe in the application of appropriate design.”

He said 500,000 people walking on a soil-based trail will cause massive erosion, while a rock-based trail will withstand the same number of hikers without eroding.

“The problem is that the majority of hiking trails in the United States were not engineered to take a lot of use. They were quickly built by people who just cut a path through the forest,” he said.

He said that by channeling the water, erosion is controlled; by moving massive stones into the pathway, the impact of hikers’ feet is removed from soft soil; and by creating a thoughtful and natural line up the hill, people are kept on trail.

”We have a mission to make sure people have the ability to come out and become intimate with our natural landscape,” he said.

Work on the Pine Hill Trail continues this season, with work days planned April 14 and 15, June 2, Sept. 8 and 9, and Nov. 3 and 4. Check the LeopardReport Calendar for more information.

June 2 is National Trails Day, with trail maintenance projects planned around the country.

Meanwhile, the hike up Pine Hill on Wednesday followed the stone steps that Crowe and the others had built. Ice glazed the rock in a few places, and snow was building up on the flat surfaces and on the trees. Where Pine Hill crosses the auto road, we veered off the trail, to the right, and followed the old road and the very upper portion of Balance Rock Trail, another CCC ski trail, to the top. The summit was in clouds.

A van appeared, driven by a worker who was to install a new antenna on public safety communications equipment, ahead of a storm forecast for that night.

Heavy snow was predicted.

Ah, spring in New England.

March 27, 2007 – The world is poised at the end of winter, snow thick still in the high places, but increasingly patchy across Central and Southern New England, melted out in some spots, thinning in others.

Change will be later coming to the mountains, but in many places it is already here.

Days are longer, start earlier and end later.

Wildlife is shaking off winter’s cold and starting to move around more visibly. Bald eagles, great blue herons and many other species are well into their nesting.

Woodland trails are sloppy for hiking and mountain biking, still treacherous with ice in places. Soils are saturated and vulnerable to compaction and erosion. This will ease over the coming weeks.

The first spring wildflowers are starting to appear, and will blossom their way from south to north over the next few months. More on this annual spectacle is offered by Garden in the Woods in Framingham, Mass., home of the New England Wild Flower Society.

Rivers are full, cold, inviting and treacherous. One annual rite of spring, the Millers River Rat Race, draws paddlers from across Central New England to Athol and Orange, Mass. for a two-day event April 14-15.

Many ski areas have ceased operations for the season. These include Ski Ward, Blue Hills, Berkshire East, Bousquet, Otis Ridge and Ski Bradford in Massachusetts; Pats Peak, Ragged Mountain, Black Mountain, Cranmore and Whaleback in New Hampshire; Magic Mountain and Suicide Six in Vermont; and Black Mountain and Camden Snow Bowl in Maine.

Others plan to shut down after this weekend or next, so it’s a good idea to call before setting out.

Killington plans to ski into May.

Of course.

March 15, 2007 – Spring is a week away, and almost every ski area in the Northeast is open on every trail, with conditions that experienced skiers expect at this time of year: frozen cover first thing, softening as the day warms, winding up as mashed potatoes.

And as these words are written, a Nor’easter is bearing down on New England, with the possibility of heavy snow across ski country, and conditions that will resemble mid-winter rather than near-spring.

These last few weeks of March can offer great skiing, spiced by the knowledge that despite the occasional heavy snowstorm it soon will be over for another year, save for the annual trek into Tuckerman Ravine on Mount Washington.

At this time of year, skiers savor each run, each carved turn, each ride uphill on the lift.

A trip to Mount Sunapee this week found all trails open, with good cover - of the springtime variety. Marketing Director Bruce McCloy was at work getting out the word on his mountain's conditions by way of 30-second spots for the area's Web site. The message from Lauren Miller, sales and events manager, included the advice: "... and don't forget your sunscreen." McCloy said that advice might be on hold through the weekend, with the likelihood of snow over the next several days.

It's New England. Variability is the norm. Every year is different. Two winters ago, skiing was spectacular. Last winter was uniformly poor. This winter is an even split: the second half has been as good for skiing as the first half was lousy.

Think back to December: When winter arrived on Dec. 22, 56 areas in the Northeast, fewer than half, were open on 18 percent of their trails – 495 out of their combined total of 2,686. The next three weeks were a disaster in terms of skiing weather, calling to mind 1979-80 and 1980-81, back-to-back dry winters before snowmaking was used as a primary source of trail cover, and the winter of 1982-83, when warm, wet weather prevented snowmakers from covering much terrain.

Then this season changed. A solid month of snowmaking weather, Jan. 15 to Feb. 15 – when the Valentine's Day storm hit - allowed snowmakers to fire up the guns and cover trails, create terrain parks, and stockpile enough for a fair shot at a good spring season.

Of course, that still lies ahead, and depends largely on the weather. So far it’s promising, with warm days and cold nights.

Another big factor in the spring season is skier enthusiasm. After the slow start to the winter, ski area operators are a tad skittish over how long skiers will continue to turn up.

Momentum is a big factor in how often skiers hit the slopes. Conditions were marginal through December and the first half of January. Warm rain kept most trails bare, and no momentum developed.

Temps turned around on the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend, leading to record February skier visits at many resorts across New England, and this enthusiasm among skiers carried over into March. Okemo had its best day ever on the Monday of February school vacation week; Wachusett may have had its best-ever day on Saturday, March 10.

Mount Sunapee has had good cover and busy weekends starting in mid-January and, like most ski areas, has zany spring events and lift ticket deals aimed at keeping skiers coming. sunapee also is keeping its lifts open an extra hour until 5 p.m. this weekend and next weekend, March 17-18 and 24-25.

Check the LeopardReport.com Calendar for more events and deals.

At the end of March, areas will begin closing down operations. Wachusett Mountain is aiming at April 1 as its last day, and in past years has shut down mid-week leading into its last weekend.

Up to the minute: SnoCountry.

Feb. 24, 2007 – An outing on the lower slopes of Mt. Watatic in Ashburnham and Ashby yesterday confirmed what we had suspected: Two recent storms had left enough snow – more than a foot – for good snowshoeing.

The Valentine’s Day storm dropped more than a foot, and another 4 inches fell overnight Thursday.

Even with some settling under a couple of 40-degree days and the passage of time, the snow cover was ample to float adults on snowshoes breaking trail over log and rock, and to smooth out all but the roughest ground. It's also deep enough for cross-country skiing in Central New England for the first time this winter - other than on lakes, ponds and swamps. Windblown in New Ipswich, N.H. is open on all trails. Northfield Mountain in Northfield, Mass., also is open on all trails. Farther north, the usual suspects are in full nordic mode, including Jackson Ski Touring Foundation in Jackson, N.H., and Bretton Woods Mountain Resort in Bretton Woods, N.H. That's just a sampling. Most cross-country areas are in full operation, but call before you go.

It was a delightful outing – briefer than most, given a late start - but energetic and enjoyable, and sufficient to remind of why people enjoy the freedom that snowshoes afford to ramble at will through winter woods.

Gear was state-of-the-art. We both wore Atlas snowshoes, me a pair of men’s Atlas 1030s, she a pair of women’s Atlas Elektra 1025s, each with built-in crampons and Wrapp Plus bindings, and adjustable LEKI trekking poles.

Northern New England has had enough cover for snowshoeing since mid-January – barely – but Central New England was suffering under a snow drought of historic scale. Even with the Valentine’s Day storm, snowfall in Central New England this winter has been 21.2 inches compared with a normal snowfall to date of 39.1 inches. This month’s snowfall total so far is 16.2 inches; which means a scant 5 inches fell in December and January, and all of it melted in the warm rains that characterized the region’s weather until the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.

Central New England has thousands of acres that, with enough snow, offer virtually unlimited snowshoeing.

Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation has a list of parks in Central Massachusetts. Among them:

Wachusett Mountain State Reservation, Mountain Road, Princeton. (978) 464-2987

Leominster State Forest, 90 Fitchburg Road, (Route 31) Westminster. (978) 874-2303

Quabbin Reservation in Ware, Hardwick and Petersham. Quabbin Visitors Center is located at 485 Ware Road (Route 9) Belchertown. (413) 323-7221

Massachusetts Audubon Society lists its sanctuaries, including two in Central New England with nature centers:

Broad Meadow Brook Conservation Center and Wildlife Sanctuary, 414 Massasoit Road, Worcester. Introductory snowshoe lessons and organized walks. Snowshoe rentals, $2 an hour. Call (508) 753-6087.

Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary, 113 Goodnow Road, Princeton. Introductory snowshoeing program for adults and families. Snowshoe rentals for adults, $5 an hour. Call (978) 464-2712.

The Trustees of Reservations, the nation's oldest land trust, also has properties open to passive recreation such as snowshoeing.

Feb. 15, 2007 – The idea of Quebec is more remote than the place.

Quebec is clearly in a different country – different language, unfamiliar road signs, speed limits in kilometers – but much of the province lies within five hours drive of Central New England.

A visit to Owl’s Head found great snow, cold weather, good food and reasonable rates.

The mountain offers 1,772 feet of vertical, 44 trails and eight lifts – three of them high-speed quads. Terrain is 30 percent beginner, 40 percent intermediate, and 30 percent expert.

The skiing was fantastic, on a deep base of manmade covered each night for the preceding week by 2 inches of fresh snow. Most of the trails sweep down the mountain, and all at some point offer great views of Lake Memphremagog below to the east. Lilly's Leap was a particularly nice cruiser off the summit, served by a high-speed quad.

Lifts open at 8:30 a.m., with adult lift tickets $37 most days, but $15 on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. The mix of skiers ran to family groups.

Lodging at the mountain is limited. It includes 20 rooms at the Auberge Owl's Head in the Chalet, the area’s base lodge, and a number of one-, two- and three-bedroom units at the Apartment/Hotel, which is quite cosy, and offers two lifts for ski-in, ski-out. Important tip to apartment dwellers: Stop in Mansonville, where there are several nice places to stock up on food and drink, including a grocery store and a bakery/bistro.

This latter alone is worth a trip to Owl's Head. It is called Boulangerie Owl's Bread, and served one of the best lunches I have ever had the pleasure of eating. If you're into ham, try “Le croque monsieur,” a grilled ham and gruyere sandwich, with delightful salad.

Denis Mareuge and Agnes Castillous are hands-on proprietors. Their offerings include various duck dishes, poached salmon, steak, grilled vegetables, french onion soup, and an array of lighter lunch meals including Eastern Township pizza and sandwiches.

The dining room at the Chalet, which is a combo ski lodge, hostel and restaurant, serves excellent food as well. It also has a cafeteria for breakfast and lunch.

Owl’s Head is a scant four hours up the road, just over the border from Newport, Vt. Four hours, that is, if you don’t follow Expedia, which will take you hither and yon, up the west side of Lake Memphremagog, and end you at a barred border crossing festooned with signs offering sudden death to all who venture past.

Expedia did this to me once before, on a trip to Montreal, where the route bypassed 10 - the real way into the heart of the city - and led off into vast decaying neighborhoods far from anywhere.

Owl’s Head has clear, simple and accurate directions on its Web site for getting to the mountain.

One route from Central and Southern New England goes up I-93 through Franconia Notch, past the Cannon Mountain Tram and the New England Ski Museum.

From there, the route crosses the Connecticut River, into Vermont, and joins I-91. A stop at the Miss Lyndonville Diner in Lyndonville, Vt., found the cheeseburger as good as in memory.

Just down the road, Bob Howland’s welding yard sported his fantastic creations – folk art from his blowtorch. He started making the pieces seven years ago. “Not much to do in winter,” he said.

Feb. 3 - Trail conditions are pretty good across ski country right now.

Credit snowmaking.

Without it, little or no skiing or riding would be found this winter anywhere in the Northeast.

Warm, wet weather in November, December and the first half of January combined for a tough start to the season.

Crews would blow snow, and it would melt and run back downhill.

In mid-January, the jet stream shifted, sustained cold moved in, and snowmakers began working non-stop to produce the raw material groomers churn into skiing surface.

The result? Best skiing in two years. Up to the minute: www.snocountry.com.

Since its inception in the 1950s, the technology for converting water to snow has become a key part of ski area operations.

“Basically, snowmaking is trying to take water and atomize it into small droplets and freeze each one into a snow crystal from the time it leaves the nozzle to when it hits the ground,” said Charles N. Santry of Snow Economics.

“There are many ways to make it happen and create a crystal that’s a snowflake. It’s not a dendritic crystal like mother nature makes, but a light crystal with a density lower than an ice particle,” Santry said.

“There needs to be an actual snow crystal that starts to form an actual white core that’s really natural snow, but we’re doing it in a short time frame. The crystal has to form in about 10 seconds – from when it leaves the nozzle to when it hits the ground – and that’s the hard part,” he said.

“To get that to happen is what most of the companies in the snowmaking business are doing,” he said.

Santry was born in Greenwich, Ct., has a bachelor of science in geology from St. Lawrence University and an MBA from the Tuck School at Dartmouth.

He and Herman K. Dupre, his father-in-law, founded Snow Economics 17 years ago. The company is in Natick, Mass.

Dupre ran Seven Springs Resort south of Pittsburgh, and was an early innovator and user of snowmaking technology, to the point where Seven Springs' snowmaking system has the largest pumping capacity in the world.

Snow Economics produces HKD air/water guns, the most energy efficient snowmaking guns, which use less compressed air – the most expensive component of snowmaking – per gallon of water.

Santry said HKD air/water guns use 50 to 100 cubic feet of air per minute compared with 350 to 600 cfm other guns use to do the same job.

Lots of kinds of snow guns exist, Santry said, but fall into two basic types: air/water guns, and fan guns.

In air/water technology, an air hose and a water hose go to each gun, which mixes the two in a way that atomizes the water into tiny droplets and shoots them into the air so they can fall to ground while forming snow crystals.

Only a water hose goes to fan guns, which produce their own compressed air.

In both, nozzles are configured to produce water droplets of two sizes: smaller ones that freeze instantly into tiny particles of ice which mix with a spray of slightly larger droplets that form snow crystals around the particles in the 10 seconds they travel through the air.

Most ski areas deploy a mix of guns for use in different conditions. Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton, Mass., for example, has seven different types. Mike Hayward, head of the snowmaking department, said his crews often use them all in a single night as temperature and humidity change.

“Recently most of the focus has been on high-temperature snowmaking, because there are less cold temperatures, and everyone’s trying to get open earlier and earlier to extend the number of days of operation,” Santry said.

One characteristic of compressed air is that it cools as it expands, in some cases dropping to 40 degrees below zero as it comes out of a nozzle. That helps a lot in converting water into snow in marginal conditions, Santry said.

Another key to efficient snowmaking, he said, is getting height into the process by raising the nozzles 15 to 20 feet off the ground, so the water droplets have more distance to travel and more time to form a snow crystal.

Snowmaking has evolved from a way to supplement a natural base of snow into 100 percent coverage at most ski areas in the Northeast, Santry said.

“Even in good natural snow years, many resorts still pump 80 percent of what they would pump in years without good snow, because they need an underlying base for skiers,” Santry said.

Les Otten, legendary founder of the American Skiing Company, said skiers preferred manmade snow to natural because of the uniform, durable skiing surface it provides.

“Manmade snow is a much more dense product. It all comes down to what I was saying about the 10 seconds. You can’t get that well-defined dendritic crystal you get with natural snow, but you still get a light crystal with a lot of air space,” Santry said.

And never forget the grooming.

“To get the skiing surface, you have to make a good product with the equipment, but you also have to have a grooming crew that works well with that manmade snow,” he said.

“There are times you don’t want to groom the manmade snow because of the temperature at which it was made. It needs to cure, or it could be a surface that’s good so don’t ruin it,” Santry said.

“It’s an art, it’s tricky, and I’ve got to say skiing surface management is the toughest task the mountain management guys have to face because it changes throughout the day,” he said.

Not to mention that the results of their work are right there underfoot, or ski, every run.

Jan. 27, 2007 – What a difference two weeks make.

A jaunt yesterday through Franconia Notch in New Hampshire’s White Mountains found great snow, bitter cold and more skiers inside the lodges than on the trails.

New England weather changes constantly. For example, today is not as cold as yesterday, and tomorrow will not be as cold as today. Then it stays in the mid-teens to low-20s through the week, with overnight lows quite brisk. Dress appropriately, and go skiing. Check the forecasts - preferably the National Weather Service site which presents temps and likelihood of precip, rather than TV or radio, which takes the death-is-at-our-door approach to weather prediction.

Yesterday's outing found empty trails at Loon Mountain in Lincoln, N.H., and at Bretton Woods Mountain Resort in Bretton Woods, N.H. Conditions at both are the best in two winters.

The really good snow, really cold weather, and really small crowds are related, of course, as bitter temps make for good snow, but also keep skiers indoors.

Almost everyone on the trails was wearing full winter regalia, including face mask. Few people showed any exposed skin whatsoever.

An old friend shook his head over the hysteric tone of some weather reports. "When we were kids," he said, "we were told to bundle up. There was no talk of wind chill. Or of dying if you went outside."

Yesterday, most skiers appeared quite cozy once covered up from head to toe.

As a nod to the cold, trips into the lodge for coffee or cocoa were more frequent than on milder days. And signs on the lifts warned of frostbite danger.

Loon’s gondola carries skiers uphill protected from the elements.

It may have induced people to choose Loon over other areas yesterday, although the trails were almost empty. That almost never happens at Loon, which usually hosts a full crowd.

At the north end of Franconia Notch, the temps were 10 degrees colder, and the slopes of Cannon Mountain were being scoured by stiff north winds – which is often the case at Cannon, and one of the traditional charms of the mountain.

Cannon hasn’t started running its aerial tram yet for the season because of the poor start and lack of snowmaking weather up to two weeks ago.

It’s run by the State of New Hampshire in a rock-solid, old-fashioned way that keeps its loyal devotees coming back year after year, and sends them in droves to Concord every time the state makes noises about changing things.

The most recent noise is a proposal to privatize Cannon’s operations, a la Mount Sunapee model, which is owned by the state and run by Okemo Mountain Resort in Ludlow, Vt. Okemo is doing a great job, but old-time Sunapee skiers are still grumpy over the changes that private management has brought.

Speaking of Sunapee, the area has gone from 37 of 66 trails a week ago to 50 trails today. At Okemo, 90 of 117 trails, slopes and glades are open. In similar fashion, terrain is opening at ski areas across New England. Up to the minute: www.snocountry.com.

Further up the highway, Bretton Woods nestled in its valley just south of Mount Washington and the Presidential Range.

Fewer skiers were on its trails even than at Loon, perhaps because it was somewhat colder, and had no gondola in which riders could huddle on the ride up the mountain.

Its snow was even better than Loon’s – again, fewer skiers and a few degrees colder. The more gentle nature of Bretton Woods’ terrain also plays a role in keeping its snow cover fluffier and less-skied-off than at steeper areas.

Anyway, credit snowmaking and grooming that seized the cold snap to turn the season around.

New England has gone from suffering to surfeit in ski conditions, with constant, almost ideal snowmaking temperatures since the evening of Jan. 15.

That’s when the soggy, icy, windy Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend ended and winter began.

Up to then, ski areas made snow and watched it melt, over and over, starting in mid-November.

What operators are concerned about – and are reluctant to discuss – is whether skiers have given up on this winter.

Ski seasons run on momentum. Enthusiasm is high in October and November, driven by pent-up interest in skiing. If the season fizzles, the enthusiasm can sputter like a damp match.

To rekindle the spirit, ski areas are hitting the airwaves with ads and generating a blizzard of press releases about conditions and deals. Wachusett Mountain in Princeton, for example, is knocking down the price of 750 lift tickets a day for 10 weekdays, from Jan. 25 to Feb. 7.

Jan. 21, 2007 - Sustained cold and a few flurries have combined to provide the first cross country skiing of the winter in Central New England – limited to a few frozen swamps, and still fairly lean.

Swamp skiing has some of the characteristics of climbing in avalanche country, in that it’s risky. Safety depends upon knowing the recent weather history of the immediate area, knowing how to measure ice thickness and understand what that means, and knowing the individual characteristics of a particular swamp.

Swamps are shallower than ponds, and freeze faster. They also usually have a stream running through them, which freezes last and thaws first. Some also have soft spots or springs where the ice is not safe even in mid-winter.

But when a swamp is safe, the skiing can be sublime.

The ice tends to keep the snow deep, cold and powdery.

The secret lives of animals are revealed through tracks that crisscross most swamps.

And the underlying ice provides a smooth surface upon which to glide.

Lakes are more dangerous than swamps, especially in winters like this. They are deeper, take longer to freeze, and falling in poses the risk of drowning rather than wet legs, as is the case in most swamps. The presence of ice fishermen is a good sign the ice is safe.

Jan. 19, 2007 - A trip to Mount Sunapee in Newbury, N.H., today found skiing on 37 of the mountain's 65 trails.

It was good considering the first half of this ski season: little natural snow, record warm temperatures, abundant rain, then a quick freeze at the end of last weekend that changed saturated trail cover into sheets of ice.

Sunapee's snowmakers have been transforming water into snow steadily since MLK weekend, resurfacing trails and adding new terrain by the night.

Indeed, snowmaking was under way on Ridge and various other trails on the north side of the mountain, but not on any of the open trails. Yesterday’s outing found weather that included skiing in a cloud, intermittent sun, and light snow.

Only a modest number of other skiers and boarders were on the trails – at least until lunch, when tired legs prompted an end to the outing.

Eight of the area's 10 lifts were open, including the Sunapee Express Quad, the Sunbowl Quad, the North Peak Triple and the Spruce Triple, and at least through midday there was never a wait to board.

Cover was edge to edge on the trails, with a nice surface layer, well groomed overnight. By noon, intermediate and expert trails were showing what one might expect this season: loose cover skied off and very firm patches poking through. As ever this year, sharpen your edges and ski in control.

Sunapee has a vertical drop of 1,510 feet, and a nice variety of trails. As always, the mountain staff was friendly and helpful. (As to that, grumpy ski area workers are unusual everywhere; it's an industry that deals in fun.)

Sunapee regulars will find few things changed since last season – except perhaps the price of food, which has gone up, alas. A small coffee, a small tea, and one cinnamon bun: $9-something. Two bread bowls of chili and two drinks: $22.15.

Sunapee is on the northern edge of Central New England, under two hours from Boston or Worcester. The drive is always interesting, and not too long to become odious. One painted rock on Route 114 in Sutton, N.H., has intrigued passersby for more than 25 years. It reads, "Chicken farmer I still love you." Further south, on Route 123 in New Ipswich, a sign outside a gun store (it's New Hampshire) reads: "Bring our troops home. Send politicians and illegal aliens to finish war."

Elsewhere around ski country, snowmakers have made the most of the cold weather, opening new terrain or resurfacing old. Up to the minute: www.snocountry.com.

There’s even good news from cross country areas where they are at the mercy of the weather.

On Thursday, Jan. 18, Thom Perkins had this report from Jackson Ski Touring Foundation in Jackson, N.H.: “It’s been a lovely day here in Jackson. Yesterday and last night were pretty chilly. It has warmed up and where we groomed with a big machine today, the skiing is delightful. One can get away with a hard wax but use a bit of binder wax to keep it on your skis. The Ellis was groomed with a small machine this morning and was so frozen that we weren’t able to improve it, so it remained pretty icy and unforgiving. I will personally be grooming the Ellis tonight with a big machine tonight. It should be good tomorrow but there may be some thin spots every now and again. We are expecting a bit of snow tonight and tomorrow. The new snow will help fill in the thin spots. The Eagle and Wentworth and South Hall trail including the connector are good skiing.”

Jan. 12, 2007 - The Skier and Rider’s Responsibility Code is intended to set forth simple rules of the road so everyone has a safe time on the slopes.

It’s a little like everybody drives on the right, stops at red lights, avoids hitting pedestrians, wears a seat belt, obeys the speed limit and so forth.

So it’s a good idea to know the Responsibility Code.

Without rules, there would be confusion, even chaos, on the roads or on the slopes.

This comes up now because the National Ski Areas Association reminds us that it’s National Safety Awareness Week, Jan. 13-19.

Skiing and riding involve some risk, and that actually may be part of the fun. Living on the edge, skirting danger, dancing up to the brink and back is exciting.

The trick is to always have enough control to turn and stop when and where you want, to be safe yourself, and to make sure everyone around you is safe as well.

Speed and risk may be fun, but accidents hurt, and can lead to stuff that’s no fun at all. NSAA tracks accidents that bear this out.

The group reports that last season – 2005/2006 - 39 skiers or snowboarders were killed in the United States out of 12.9 million skiers and riders who made 58.9 million visits to the slopes. Of these fatalities, 29 were skiers (26 male, three female) and 10 were snowboarders (seven male, three female).

Another 57 skiers sustained serious injuries, which NSAA describes as paralysis or other severe damage. Of these, 37 were skiers (31 males, six females) and 20 were snowboarders (all males).

In the 2004/2005 season, NSAA reports, 45 skiers or snowboarders were killed in the United States, out of 12.2 million skiers and boarders, during a combined 57 million trips to the slopes. Thirty of them were killed while skiing and 15 while snowboarding, 39 were male and six female, the NSAA reports.

Another 45 people were seriously injured, suffering paralysis or other severe damage, the association reports. Of these, it says, 24 were skiers and 21 were snowboarders, 37 were male and eight were female.

The NSAA figures show that over the last 10 years, an average of 38.5 people have died each year on U.S. ski trails, and another 44 have suffered serious injuries.

The industry group cites figures for fatality rates among swimmers and bicyclists that show swimming is more than twice as dangerous as skiing, and bicycling a bit more than half as dangerous, based on accidents per day of participation.

Its figures show the fatality rate for skiing is .66 per million skier visits; for swimming, it's 1.26 per million days of swimming; for biking, it's .38 per million days of biking.

The raw numbers for swimming and biking are larger than for skiing, with 2,900 drownings among 53.4 million swimmers hitting the water 2.29 billion times, and 900 bicyclists killed by cars out of 40.3 million riders going out 2.38 billion times.

“Skiing and snowboarding are no more dangerous than other high-energy participation sports, and less so than some common activities,” NSAA states. “However, they are challenging and require physical skills that are only learned over time with practice. The sports involve some inherent risk, but in some measure, it is the thrill that entices most skiers and riders to pursue the sport.”

Jan. 8, 2007 - “Helmets are a good thing,” said Robert Williams, M.D., doctor to the Smugglers Notch Ski Patrol and associate professor at the University of Vermont College of Medicine.

“They’re not a license to ride irresponsibly, but an extra measure of protection whose time has come.”

Williams said peer-reviewed studies – as opposed to less rigorous reports - show that helmets reduce the incidence and severity of injuries; do not increase the risk of neck injuries, and do not lead to riskier behavior.

Williams cited a 1999 U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission study of skiing head injuries, which found that of 17,500 total head injuries sustained in 1997, 7,700 could have been prevented or reduced in severity by wearing ski helmets.

The commission study based its conclusions on an analysis of the injuries by medical personnel who treated them.

Williams said snowboards and super-sidecut skis have driven a dramatic change in what skiers and riders do on the mountain, and that resorts have responded by offering a variety of terrain and experiences.

“Skiers and riders have to adapt by skiing and riding responsibly and wearing helmets,” he said.

He said glades, terrain parks and off-piste skiing have led to a decrease in the speed that people ski and ride, meaning that many accidents are at slower speeds, where helmets can be most effective.

At the same time, he said, the surfaces that skiers or riders hit are often very hard and unforgiving, like the icy walls of half-pipes, or trees in the woods.

“In terrain parks, at the top of an arc the skier or rider actually achieves zero velocity. But when they fall, they’re falling against really hard surfaces.

“Backcountry skiers and riders are a long way and a long time from help, so wearing a helmet to reduce the severity of an injury really makes sense. They can save a concussion; if you have a head injury but no concussion, that’s good. If you have a head injury with a concussion, but not worse trauma on top of that, that’s good,” he said.

Williams and PHAT – Protect your Head on All Terrain – have been working at Smugglers’ Notch for four years to promote helmet use. Karyn Williams, to whom Rob Williams is married, is PHAT Coordinator. The photo above shows Karyn and Rob at a helmet seminar Jan. 6 at Smugglers' Notch. The bar graph at right tracks increases in helmet use among adult Smuggs skiers and riders over three seasons.

PHAT is using education to reach the intellect, and a media blitz to create a cool image for helmets that, Williams said, employs posters, slogans, bumper stickers and “shameless sucking up” to skiers of all ages and abilities.

“Parents, skiing advocates, health care providers and other authority figures need to become advocates for helmet use,” he said.

The efforts to educate skiers and riders to the benefits appear to be gaining traction, at least at PHAT's home base. Nationwide last season, 30 percent of all skiers and riders wore helmets; at Smuggs, 70 percent wore them.

PHAT has found that helmet use is increasing among all skiers and riders at Smuggs, but is higher among skiers and riders under 18 than among adults. PHAT's work has found that helmet use is highest among skiers under 18: 83 percent for boys, and 80 percent for girls.

This winter, PHAT is taking its show on the road, expanding to Jay Peak, Bolton Valley, Sugarbush, Bromley, Okemo and Ascutney.

"Wear Your Helmet"

Jan. 5, 2007- Thursday morning, Bolton Valley in northern Vermont had skiing that would be considered good by any standard, and that was the best I've enjoyed this winter.

Terrain's limited, but the open trails were in great shape.

The visit came on a two-day swing through four areas: in order, Stowe, Smugglers’ Notch, Bolton Valley and Sugarbush.

All offered skiing, much of it as you might expect: extremely variable, best first thing in the morning when groomers had a chance to work the trails, more challenging as the day passed.

A storm last week dropped more than a foot of fresh snow across the northern Green Mountains and gave the region a semblance of winter. The ground is white, which is more than can be said of much of the rest of the Northeast, and the skiing is as good as it's been all season.

Here as everywhere in the East cover is still primarily manmade, which snowmakers have doggedly piled up when the weather allowed.

Persistent warm air masses have meant most of the precipitation this winter has fallen as rain. Don’t let that fool you into dressing as if it were spring.

The mountains are still cold, and stiff north winds bite through light clothing and nip exposed skin.

Up to the minute: www.snocountry.com.

At Bolton Valley, runs down Hard Luck and Spillway off the Vista Quad found great cover and top-notch grooming on true black diamonds. Alta Vista off the same chair was a good intermediate cruiser, again well-covered and well-groomed.

Bolton is owned and operated by Bob Fries, who was born in Massachusetts and started in the ski industry at Waterville Valley under Tom Corcoran.

His area reflects a lifetime in the business, and his affinity for New England.

Bolton is operating on 13 of its 60 trails, but they are in terrific shape.

The area has the highest base elevation of any resort in Vermont and 1,704 feet of vertical.

At Stowe, it feels and now looks like winter, although the trail count here as elsewhere is way below what skiers expect at this time of year.

A couple of runs down Lord and Sunrise off Mt. Mansfield and Perry Merrill off the Gondola turned up some pretty good skiing.

The runs also drove home the reality of this year: alternating freeze and thaw, grooming and skiing without enough fresh snow - manmade or natural – means the base has transformed into a solid frozen mass, and the top layer is loose granular that gets skied off early in the day.

Good advice: Sharpen your edges, ski early, and move down a level as the day goes on. Stowe has 30 of its 48 trails open.

First thing I saw at Smugglers’ Notch was a wagonload of kids being pulled through the parking lot by a tractor. They were all in full ski gear, with helmets and bibs. And they all looked happy. The next was a pod of snowboarders just outside the base lodge at Madonna Mountain.

Both scenes brought home the area’s reputation as a mountain for kids and families.

Runs down Upper and Lower Chilcoot found lots of cover, but by mid-afternoon much of the top layer had been skied into piles of loose granular separated by stretches of boilerplate.

Again, ski early and drop down in difficulty.

The top of Madonna Mountain looks out over three states and two countries, and looked and felt like mid-winter.

The bottom of the mountain had a distinctly springlike feel to it, although here too the trails were well covered, and the surface was softer and more forgiving than the higher, steeper parts of the mountain. Smugglers’ has 23 of 78 trails open.

Sugarbush has a brand new base lodge - 2,300 square feet compared with 1,100 square feet last season - and brand new base hotel, both patterned after the area’s traditional architectural model: the New England barn.

Cover was ample and (surprisingly) good on the trails I skied, including Valley House Traverse, Murphy’s Glade, Jester and Gondolier on Lincoln Peak.

Again, really firm base covered by granular snow that skis off as the day wears on.

Sharp edges and a confident style go a long way toward a happy ski day.

Sugarbush has 73 of 111 trails open.

Dec. 23, 2006 - We’ve had worse seasons. Of course that’s little comfort as we suffer through the limited terrain and annoyingly persistent early season nature of this one. Add to this the forecast of warm rain over the next few days, and the reality of it today.

To paraphrase Horace Greeley, “Go West, skiers.”

That, or hit the slopes of the Northeast and enjoy what’s there, even if it means donning rain gear on days like today. Because, in fact, there's much skiing around.

To underscore this on the eve of Christmas vacation week - always a biggie for the ski industry - the Vermont Ski Areas Association on Wednesday rushed 20 snowballs from the Stowe Post Office to 20 television stations across the Northeast.

And in addition to the manmade cover now on the ground, it's possible that the precipitation predicted for the region will fall (at least partly) as natural snow in the mountains of northern New England. (But then, I suppose, world peace and perfect justice also are possible.)

As of Dec. 21, across the Northeast, by which is meant Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island and Vermont, 56 areas were open on a combined 495 trails out of a total 2,686. Fifty-nine more areas, with more trails, are hoping to open for the Christmas week, upcoming.

Up to the minute: www.snocountry.com.

Last year, December started off well, but winter failed to deliver on that promise. It was a miserable season.

Two years ago, 2004/05, was a good winter with a slow start and then liftoff in the first days of Christmas week.

Three years and 10 days ago, on Dec. 11, 2003, the numbers were roughly double what they are today.

Four years ago, winter was perfect. Temperatures got cold before Thanksgiving and stayed cold right through until Spring. It was the third-best winter for the ski industry in the Northeast in the last 20 years, with 13.99 million skier and rider visits to the slopes.

(The two better years were 1986/87 with 14.7 million visits, and 1987/88 with 14.4 million visits.)

Back to four years ago, and the winter of 2001/02, which turned out gangbusters.

On Dec. 6, 2001, prospects were bleak. No trails were open Massachusetts; Maine had four, New Hampshire three, and Vermont 15.

Of skiers’ weather-dependency, I wrote at the time: “Of course, we speak of New England climate. And as Mark Twain said of that volatile commodity, ‘One of the brightest gems in the New England weather is the dazzling uncertainty of it.’"

Some perspective:

Dec. 6, 1998: “The big news is what's not going on in ski country. One year ago yesterday, 677 trails were open in New England - 29 in Massachusetts, 96 in Maine, 110 in New Hampshire, and 442 in Vermont, including 112 at Killington. Whereas yesterday, no trails - as in zero - were open in Massachusetts, 33 in Maine, 13 in New Hampshire, and 73 in Vermont, including 21 claimed at Killington/Pico. Total: 119. Yipes.”

Dec. 5, 1999: “Oh, give me a break. Remember last winter? This one is starting out the same way: brief periods of cold when all the snowmaking guns in New England are blasting away, broken up by days of warm rain. Yesterday's ski report had 19 trails open at five areas in Massachusetts, 27 trails at two areas in Maine, 30 at five areas in New Hampshire, and 75 at nine areas in Vermont.”

Dec. 14, 2000: “Ski terrain continues to open across New England, thanks more to snow guns and bitter weather than to natural snowfall. But no complaints here. The last few winters have taught me to be grateful for snow in any form, and this season there is plenty to be grateful for - although, as I say, most has been shot from guns.”

Dec. 7, 2006 – Thom Perkins says he was born into skiing.

Perkins, 58, is in his 30th year as executive director of the Jackson Ski Touring Foundation in the Mount Washington Valley of New Hampshire.

The area has snow – a little – on its teaching area, but its 153 kilometers of trails await the first substantial snowfall of the season. Check the Trails Condition report on www.jacksonxc.org

“My three brothers skied, my father skied, my mother had given up skiing by then but she used to – had broken her ankle in Tuckerman Ravine in the ‘30s.

“It was something we did in the winter. Summer was just an imposition between winters in my life then,” Perkins said.

In some ways, this has only intensified.

At JSTF, Perkins and his staff work from September to April on ski operations, readying 157 kilometers of trails in the fall, grooming snow in winter, and teaching a steady stream of Nordic skiers the art and science of cross-country skiing.

The nonprofit organization sees 40,000 skier visits a season, most years.

That was not true last winter, Perkins said, when poor conditions drew far fewer visitors, and not in the winter of ’86-’87, when the area saw 60,000 skier visits.

“When I started skiing back in the ’50s, there was not a lot of difference between alpine and cross-country. I would ski around the local golf course, ski down hills, climb up, ski down, climb up,” he said.

Each winter, his family would travel from home in Waterbury, Conn., to his aunt’s farm in Bradford, N.H., for skiing.

“Sunshine Farm, that was my aunt’s farm. We’d go up and spend a couple weeks a year skiing Sunapee, Pat’s Peak, Cannon.

“Back in the winter of ‘68-‘69, I took my eventual wife up there, went to Sunapee, and she claims I threw her off a cliff.

“She hated it, so next day we took our alpine ski gear, went into the back fields of my aunt’s farm and skied around. She loved it.

“I sold my alpine racing gear, bought cross-country gear, and we’ve been doing it ever since,” he said.

Perkins and Denise married, and have two daughters, Caitlin and Corinna.

He came to the JSTF in 1976, its fifth year of existence.

The Foundation was started under the impetus of Brad Boynton of Wildcat Tavern, who had one of many small cross-country facilities in the Village of Jackson.

“Wildcat Tavern had a trail system and guide service, and Dana Place, and Black Mountain,” Perkins said.

“Avery Caldwell … was a guide at Wildcat Tavern in the winter of ’71-’72. He was hired by the Jackson Resort Association to conduct a study of what cross-country skiing would do for the village.

“They decided to go ahead with a nonprofit, the JSTF. Avery was here for one winter. Then Jack Lufkin, an Olympic skier in 1968, was here for two years. Then I came in the fifth year, 1976.”

At the time, Perkins was head of a ski school in Connecticut.

The Jackson Ski Touring Foundation was chartered as an educational organization to maintain the trails and to promote the sport of cross-country skiing. The Foundation takes its mission very seriously and opens its trails free to racers of all stripes for skiing and training, and has a huge calendar of junior racer and team programs.

Lives fill up with memories, and many of Perkins’ are of skiing.

One of his earliest is of skiing with his brothers in the moonlight.

Another is skiing downhill with his oldest daughter, Caitlin, on his back, her hands over his eyes, saying, “Go faster, daddy.”

Another is ripping the sole off his boot as he started down the headwall of Tuckeman Ravine in cross-country racing gear. It was in 1977, the first stem christy of his second run, and he plummeted down the middle of the headwall.

Another is of the first-ever ski traverse of the Presidential Ridge, in 1981, with Ned Gillette, adventure skier, who was killed in the mountains of Pakistan in 1998; Walter “Tyke” Weed, who competed in cross-country in the 1972 Sapporo Olympics; Sam Osborne, hutmaster at Lakes of the Clouds Hut on Mount Washington; and John Halupowski – local tellie skier and guide. They started at 4 a.m., and traversed 7,000 feet of vertical over 33 kilometers in 13 hours and all kinds of weather.

Like many in the ski industry, Perkins is concerned about the impact of climate change on winter, and is trying to reduce the impact of the Foundation’s operations on the environment.

“The science is in, global warming is reality. Here we sit on Dec. 7 and it’s 40 degrees in Jackson.

“If we want the environment to be good, we have to be good,” Perkins said.

Besides, he said, the efficiencies that reduce people’s impact on the world are also good economics.

“We all have to do our part. JSTF has done a lot to limit its emissions. We’re buying better equipment, so we have less equipment. We had three Pisten Bullys, and now have two. But they cost more. The first Pisten Bully we bought cost us $25,000 or $30,000; our latest, $150,000.

“We built this building in ’98. The electricians put incandescent bulbs in. The first month we got an $850 electric bill for one building. I went through on an energy audit and replaced the lights with low energy fluorescents, and the next month’s bill was $350.

“So, not only good, but also less expensive.

“We use nontoxic, biodegradable hydraulic fluid. It’s expensive and I sleep better at night. We have no-loss policy with our staff, no spills, but the fact that it’s biodegradable and nontoxic is very reassuring,” Perkins said.

Roger Leo can be reached by email at leo@leopardreport.com.

Dec. 5, 2006 – The snow guns are roaring across New England ski country as areas rush to take advantage of a solid week – at least – of perfect overnight snowmaking temperatures.

It’s the first sustained burst of favorable weather this season, although many areas did get a few trails open for the traditional day-after-Thanksgiving start of ski season. Most lost terrain over the course of the following wet, warm week. Some closed altogether, and are in process of laying down snow to reopen in staggered fashion over this coming week.

For daily trails updates, check out www.snocountry.com.

A sampling of ski areas:

Sunday River in Newry, Maine, will pump more than 10 million gallons of water through 240 snowmaking guns over 24 hours, starting yesterday. By tomorrow, the area plans to have 16 trails open, and by the weekend, 25 trails served by four lifts.

Sugarloaf/USA in Kingfield, Maine, remained open on one trail right through the lean times and reopened from the summit on Sunday, Dec. 3. The area now has five trails and three lifts operating, and more on the way.

Mount Sunapee in Newbury, N.H., plans to open tomorrow, Dec. 6, with top-to-bottom skiing on Upper and Lower Blast Off, served by the Sunapee Express Quad. Opening day lift tickets will cost $30 for adults, $25 for young adults, and $20 for juniors and super seniors.

Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton, Cannon Mountain in Franconia, N.H., Loon Mountain in Lincoln, N.H., and Wildcat in Pinkham Notch, N.H. plan to open Friday, Dec. 8. Wachusett started snowmaking last night, and continues to fire guns on Indian Summer, Conifer Connection and Ollie’s as of 2:30 p.m.

Cannon will offer free skiing on Friday. The Peabody Express quad and the Brookside chair will be operating, serving over 1,400 vertical feet. The Links, Middle Ravine, Lower Ravine and the Brookside slope will be open and groomed. On Saturday and Sunday, Dec. 9 and 10, tickets will be $25.

Wildcat Mountain plans to have its Bobcat Triple lift open, offering 1,000 feet of vertical, with skiing on the Lower Catapult Trail on base depths of 6-24” of groomed manmade. The Alleycat Trail will open on Saturday, and the area hopes to open the Snowcat lift and trail at some time over the weekend.

Nashoba Valley in Westford and Ski Ward in Shrewsbury are making snow. Nashoba hopes to open toward the end of the week, and Ski Ward on Saturday, Dec. 9.

Burke Mountain in Burke, Vt., and Cranmore Mountain Resort in North Conway, N.H., plan to open Saturday, Dec. 9. Cranmore -- in its 69th season -- anticipates opening the South Slope trail and the South Double chair.

More good advice: Call before you go. Take your rock skis. And ski carefully. Conditions are variable -- as we say – skiers might not have their balance back yet, and there’s no snow in the woods to allow for a recovery should you ski off the trail.

Of course, skiing off the trail is never a good idea so my advice would be not to do it.

The number of trails open across the region will change by the day as snowmaking operations continue whenever temperatures permit. That creates an annoying characteristic of early season skiing: Skiers get to ride up through snow gun spray -- which coats goggles, glasses and all exposed skin – and then ski down through piles of soft wet manmade. (Kids seem to enjoy it. I don’t.)

Also, limited terrain translates into either crowded trails – as all lifts dump skiers onto just a few trails; or abnormally long lift lines – as ski areas cut down on the density of skiers on those few trails by loading every other chair, or by slowing down the lifts. At some areas, skiers will encounter both.

It must be too frustrating for words to spend all that money on high-speed quads or sixes and then not crank them up to full capacity.

Roger Leo can be reached by email at leo@leopardreport.com.

Dec. 1, 2006 – Snowshoeing could be the ultimate Yankee sport, learned by European colonists from the first North Americans, adopted as their own along with much else the American Indians possessed, and passed down the generations, with recent refinements to materials and methods.

For years I resisted the modern world, but last season high-tech aluminum snowshoes replaced my old ones – traditional wooden bear paws, oak frame strung with rope, mounted with modern bindings when the aged leather straps finally broke.

The new ones are Atlas 1030s, the old, Swenson and Swenson, made in Japan. (Honest.)

More information on Atlas: www.atlassnowshoe.com

I have fond memories of the old ones. They carried me fully laden with a week’s supplies into a winter base camp at Chimney Pond at the foot of Mount Katahdin in Maine’s Baxter State Park. The new ones are fabulous and, I trust, all but unbreakable.

Last winter, a friend and I launched a snowshoe assault on Blood Hill in Ashby, Mass., breaking trail through a foot of fresh snow no step had trodden flat. (Sorry, Robert Frost.)

I wore my Atlas 1030s, she wore Atlas women’s Elektra 1025s, each with built-in crampons. They are very strong, and very light, and the bindings are fabulous.

We also each had poles – hers aluminum Black Diamond adjustables, mine a pair of fiberglass Exel cross-country ski poles shorter than I use for skiing. Usually I use Leki Makalu collapsibles, but had managed to leave them home.

Our route began on Spring Hill and soon entered the 175-acre Wiita Property, which includes Blood Hill, highest point in Middlesex County.

Blood Hill is 1,516 feet high. Mt. Watatic, nearby but just over the line into Worcester County, is 1,832 feet.

(Forgive me if those numbers are a foot or so off. They’re converted from meters, which – maddeningly – the U.S. Geologic Survey started some years ago to use on its topographic maps. I plugged the metrics into the search bar on Google, and it converted them for me, but something may have gotten lost in the translation.)

In 2001, Ashby acquired the Wiita land for conservation, partly as a consolation prize when an effort to protect Mt. Watatic fell apart.

The Watatic effort ended well the following year, when the state purchased the mountain from the communications company that had hoped to put up a tower on the summit.

The Ashby Conservation Commission is steward of the Wiita Property.

The snowshoe season begins when the first heavy snowfall of the winter, or a series of smaller ones, leaves a foot of snow on the land.

The first pass through just-fallen snow is tough and wonderful for the same reason: It involves breaking trail through a world renewed and purified by fresh snow.

The second pass is an exercise in flattening out the pillows of snow between the first tracks; the third is a polishing pass. Then gangbusters, until the next snowfall starts the process all over again.

Snowshoeing at night under a full moon can be magic. With full snow cover, the woods are well-lit by moonlight and, at the lumbering pace dictated by snowshoes, there is little danger from overhanging branches, although it’s always a good idea to be careful moving through the forest after dark.

Full moons this winter occur on Dec. 5, Jan. 3, Feb. 2 and March 3.

Nov. 15, 2006 – "You think about what skiers used to have to do," says David Crowley, past chairman of the National Ski Areas Association.

"Look at the goggles and gloves and boots and skis people used to use, and you just wonder what kind of person would stick to a sport like that. They hiked up, they had to sidestep the trail in order to pack it, they had to fill in their sitzmark, and if they got in four runs a day they thought they were doing well."

Even skiers now middle-aged who took up the sport in college remember a different world. Lifts were slow and unreliable, snow was mostly natural and unpredictable, and seasons were limited by the whims of weather.

But the sport that began on steep, granite-flecked trails, covered by natural snow, served by hang-on-for-dear-life rope tows has evolved – thank goodness.

Of all the changes, Crowley points to snowmaking as the one driving all others.

"Snowmaking was the big one," Crowley says. "Without it we’d run 10 days a year. Instead, we operate 130."

And without the long season, no way could areas spend money on lifts and trails and lodges and all the amenities that have transformed skiing.

Crowley’s family runs Wachusett Mountain Ski Area in Princeton, Mass.

Though modest in size – 1,000 feet of vertical, 20 trails and six lifts – Wachusett is in the Top 10 ski areas in the Northeast in terms of skier visits, along with giants like Killington, Okemo and Stratton in Vermont, Sunday River in Maine and Bretton Woods in New Hampshire.

That’s because in skiing, as with many things, it’s all about location and Wachusett is within an hour’s drive of 5 million people.

Skiing took off in the 1930s in New England. The first rope tow in North America was devised in Woodstock, Vermont, and is commemorated on a historic marker that reads: "Woodstock, Vermont. Site of First Ski Tow in the United States. In January, 1934, on this pasture hill of Clinton Gilbert’s farm an endless-rope tow, powered by a Model 'T' Ford engine, hauled skiers uphill for the first time. This ingenious contraption launched a new era in winter sports."

Local lore recalls that the rope tow did haul skiers uphill at a goodly clip, but required strong arms and a sure grip.

Ski areas today offer high-speed lifts – quads or six-packs; state-of-the-art snowmaking and grooming; an array of terrain – including glades and terrain parks; opulent lodges, and a variety of real estate.

These amenities are expensive: In 2003-2004, according to the NSAA’s End of Season Survey, U.S. ski areas spent $263 million on lifts, other skiing facilities and real estate; in 2004-2005, they spent $367 million; last season, $320 million; and this season, a projected $446 million.

The economic imperative is undeniable: Either show the folks a good time, or suffer as skiers go elsewhere. And the competition is fierce for attention from the almost 12 million skiers and snowboarders who hit the slopes a combined 58.9 million times last season in the United States.

The flipside of all the amenities shows up in cost: Lift tickets are not cheap.

The NSAA survey shows the average adult weekend ticket price last season in the Northeast was $59.55; in the Rocky Mountains, $68.70; and overall, $60.87. Of course, few people pay full price, given various season passes, lift-and-lodging packages, lesson deals, two-day tickets, and any of the many other promotions that ski areas run and advertise on their Web sites.

Each area has a Web site now, with trail maps, lift ticket prices, lodging information, directions, services and photos. Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont also have ski area associations: www.skimaine.com; www.skinh.com, and www.skivermont.com.

Skiing has been around long enough for the early days to seem ancient and the earliest innovations to seem quaint, even amusing.

When rope tows came along, they were a lot better than walking uphill, or sidestepping on skis to pack the runs. T-bars came next, and were fabulous improvements; chairlifts were luxurious – even the old wooden one- and two-seaters that crawled uphill at snail’s pace. The invention of snowmaking – by accident – in the 1950s changed the sport. One company that developed an early form of snowmaking – Larchmont Engineering of Arlington, Mass. – was in search of a way to protect Florida citrus from frost damage. Instead, engineers there wound up making snow.

Enormous sums were required to modernize old ski areas – such as Okemo in Vermont, started in 1955 and purchased by Tim and Diane Mueller in 1982, or Sunday River in Maine, purchased by Leslie B. Otten in 1980 as the foundation stone of what would become the American Skiing Co.

Many smaller, older areas could not come up with the money to improve lifts, lodges, trails, snowmaking and grooming and, unable to compete for skiers, were forced to close.

The New England Lost Ski Areas Project – www.nelsap.org – lists 558 ski areas that once operated in the six New England states and are now closed. Another 43 closed in New York, and three in New Jersey.

Of more interest to skiers today are the areas that did survive the transition from the rough-and-tumble early years to today. The National Ski Areas Association lists 84 ski areas operating in New England, 50 in New York, 35 in Pennsylvania and three in New Jersey among the 477 major ski areas operating in the United States.

Les Otten, creator of American Skiing Co., was one of the prime innovators in the move to modernize the ski industry.

At one time ASC’s far-flung holdings comprised areas in New Hampshire, Vermont, Maine, Colorado, Utah and California. They included Attitash Ski Resort, Waterville Valley and Cranmore Ski Area in New Hampshire; Killington, Sugarbush and Mount Snow in Vermont; Sugarloaf/USA and Sunday River in Maine; Heavenly in California; The Canyons in Utah, and Steamboat in Colorado.

ASC’s fiscal implosion in the late 1990s is seen by some as a cautionary tale of what rapid modernization of ski areas and investment in real estate can lead to; others see it as bad luck with the weather.

Otten himself believes that the ski industry is not for the faint of heart, and that the sport’s fundamental allure is personal challenge.

"Skiing in general has an almost limitless supply of new potential enthusiasts," Otten says. "The ski industry has to market the excitement of physically challenging yourself. Skiing is one of the few sports where you can risk your imagination against reality. If you can sell that idea, the industry will grow significantly.

"I’m still on the board of ASC, but I’m retired from the ski industry. Skiing is now my hobby. I've skied 50 days a year for the last four or five years, and I’m finding out how much fun it is. I’m finding out that I was right all those years."

Crowley agrees that the challenge of skiing is its primary lure, and one of its main virtues.

"The sport remains one where you’re left alone with your own devices to get down the hill," he says. "It’s not an amusement park ride. It’s you controlling yourself and watching out for yourself and others around you. It’s a sport of personal responsibility – a bit of a throwback sport.

"You hope that parents understand that if their kids are skiing they’re learning valuable lessons – how to control themselves, how to interact with others, how to be polite," Crowley said. "A whole lot of kids will succeed at those things, and will feel good about it. And they’ll be having a blast."

Roger Leo can be reached by email at leo@leopardreport.com.