Back when we were weekend commuters, I really looked forward to Friday night arrival, when we would unload the car and transfer sleepy kids to bed, then settle down for a few minutes’ relaxation before we fell into bed ourselves.  We had a little ritual that involved shaking a small batch of martinis and sitting quietly on the couch to decompress.  After we brushed our teeth, I had my own ritual, too:  I would drink several glasses of cold, clear, fresh Waterville Valley water, and bring one to the bedside table.  It always tasted just “right” to me, and after a week of Boston tap water, I felt like I was at home in the mountains again.  I reversed the process (sans martinis) on Sunday night or Monday morning before we’d head south again:  car loaded, I would sweep the condo, then stop to drink a couple glasses of water, a tonic to sustain me through the week.

Several mornings this week, I found myself out on the mountain with the weekday morning die-hards, making early season turns on the steadily improving snow.  There were the usual complement of BBTS/WVA racers, training and drilling along the edge of High Country.  There were a smattering of guests, thrilled to be skiing but wondering where the other trails were hiding. And there was a cadre from the Silver Streaks, Waterville Valley’s season-long ski program for skiers 50 years of age and up.  All morning long each weekday, the Streaks meet to ski together, mixing and matching and socializing for the chair ride up, but skiing quite seriously all the way down.

As I watched these skiers — some a little older than me, and some my parents’ age — carving graceful turns down the hill, I saw a spectrum of techniques from a modified wedeln (probably learned from a Swiss instructor in the 1950s) to a thoroughly modern race-turn.  I also saw something that would make most demographers smile and scratch their heads.  These people were the definition of “active older adults”.

I thought about my many older neighbors in Waterville Valley, and was struck by their collective energy and robust good health.  I thought about Doctors Suzi and Phil Boulter — Suzi was my pediatrician when I first moved to Concord, NH about four decades back (I am sure she was a child prodigy) — who are master athletes on and off snow.  I thought about Nate Grifkin’s long, graceful GS turns.  I thought about Harry Notowitz and Brenda Conklin, who climb peaks and maintain trails with unparalleled energy.  And I thought about Toni Fallon, working her way into the Coyote Grill with slow, deliberate steps and holding my arm lightly, telling me she’d had to retire from skiing and tennis a couple years back, and how much she’d missed it.

What is it about Waterville Valley that draws and sustains so many vigorous older athletes?  Is it something in the water?  The statistician in me knows that this is a highly self-selected group.  You don’t find suburban mall, Rascal-riding seniors here.  The environment just doesn’t support that species.  Instead, you find an environment that encourages active play, and a cohort to do it with.  You find friends who will form a league or a team or a ride group, and better athletes willing to coach and provide advice and support while you buck the odds and get better.  You find a resort that values active older adults, with programs like the Silver Streaks and tennis teams for all abilities.  And you find something else very important: role models for aging well and gracefully.

I am pretty sure that the water doesn’t hurt, either.

I learned an awful lot my freshman year of college: Psychology 101 was more interesting than English Composition 101 (minor issue: I was an English major).  Dining hall meals, while survivable, aren’t Mom’s cooking.  Laundry doesn’t do itself.  Peppermint schnapps doesn’t mix… with anything.  And depending on the weather for anything important can make you crazy.

This last lesson was brought home to me that winter, when I worked at Sport House in Campton as a sales person.  The early winter was classic New England: a wet fall, early snow, decent Christmas week, and a catastrophic January thaw.  The mountain recovered for February vacation, but March brought unprecedented warm temperatures and hard rains.  Skiers returning rental skis to the shop in the afternoons were somewhat shaken and told tales of having to jump crevasses on Valley Run to make it back to the base.  My winter job ended a month earlier than planned, which wasn’t entirely a bad thing if you were a college freshman unaccustomed to having weekends off.

It was a valuable life lesson, though… at 18, I thought I had my life pretty well planned:  I’d work in a ski shop and dabble in writing and photography until I somehow magically broke into skiing photojournalism as a career.  What could be easier?  That spring, I figured out that I really didn’t have the constitution to have my livelihood dependent on the whims of New England weather.  I got a job in the psychology department’s rat lab and consigned skiing back to hobby status.

I am reminded of all this by the upside-down weather we’ve been enduring the last few weeks.  First, a decent cold snap, which allowed Waterville Valley and other ski areas to get a good jump on snowmaking, especially at higher elevations.  That was unfortunately followed by a warm spell — which broke just in time for a dandy ten-inch snow storm on Thanksgiving Eve.  Waterville opened on High Country for a great first weekend (Bob Fries told me they were just 100 feet short of opening down to Northside.  One more night of snowmaking… but they ran out of cold).  The snowpack held up splendidly through the holiday weekend’s warm temperatures, though it was more like late March then late November.  Unfortunately, the topsy-turvy weather has continued, with more warm, then hard rains and big winds last week, and more rain and fog this week.

The weather has oscillated between snow-making cold and April-warm-and-rainy.  The Resort has done a great job of dealing with the fickle conditions, but in the end, we really just need winter to make up its mind and settle in for good.  The latest weather forecast promises some snow tonight and colder temperatures for the foreseeable future.  We should finally be able to get on with the season — but I know I made the right call all those years ago when I surrendered my dreams of life in the ski-industry.  I just haven’t got the constitution for it.

 ——————

 It’s that time of year again — the Waterville Valley Foundation will be sending out our Annual Appeal letter.  We trust we have met your expectations for the stewardship of your donations, and hope you’ll consider once again supporting us as we seek to support the things that make Waterville Valley unique.  In the mean time, I want to once again thank Waterville Valley Realty and Roper Real Estate for their ongoing support: we have received generous donations from both agencies in recent weeks.  Their donations, combined with generous gifts from several private donors, mean we’re off to a good start for 2012, but we still need your help!

There is something endemic in human nature which makes us subtly but acutely aware of the passage of time and the changing of the seasons.  I’m fairly sure it springs from some deep genetic memory of a time when we truly lived by the seasons — migrating with game, harvesting wild bounty in the short, fleeting days before the dark months returned.  My wife Nancy’s Aunt Marj lives in Palm Springs, California — not really a place notable for profound seasonal change — yet after living in the desert for 20 years or more, she is exquisitely aware of every nuance of the coming of each new season.  I’d bet if you woke her from suspended animation and let her look around at her environs for just a moment, she could tell you the date within a week.  It’s uncanny.

Here in Waterville Valley, the rhythms of the four seasons (seven, if you count mud, blackfly, and stick — I do) are much more pronounced.  The slow rotation from winter to spring is anything but a linear process… a few warm days are often followed by gray skies and surprise snow late into April.  None the less, there always comes a day with bright sun and shockingly blue skies that breaks the back of winter and heralds the warmer months.  Usually about the time the first big bare spots show up on Sunnyside in the spring, my friends and I start pushing the season a bit by road-riding on our mountain bikes and taking small, sometimes mucky forays onto the trails.  The truly adventurous (or, some might say, senseless) among us will even venture onto the hard-packed snow of Livermore Road or Moose Run for short spells of wheel-spinning fun.

This season-pushing tendency is certainly because we love mountain biking, but there’s something else in play, too.  We start riding as soon as we can, because it eases the ineffable sadness of the end of ski season.  For us, the end of ski season is a period of mourning.  We celebrate the season past and dread the snowless months ahead.

My family has evolved a tradition of thoughtfully calling our last run on the last day of the season, and ending with hugs all around and careful savoring of the season’s last turns  together.  Last spring, I stood at the top of Lower Bobby’s and watched my son and daughter carve beautiful turns in sun-softened corn, and wondered how it was possible that they were suddenly so big and so competent when I remembered skiing with them between my legs just a few short moments before.  It’s not so easy skiing a bumped-up Lower Bob’s with tears in your eyes, take my word for it.

So, if mountain biking is in part a palliative for the loss of skiing each spring, it’s kind of funny I’ve noticed a similar phenomenon each fall the last few years.  As the days draw shorter and the mornings frostier, we ride less and less — but I think we enjoy each ride that much more.  The signs of seasonal change are all around us — leaves down, small patches of snow in the shady woods from fall flurries, and trails that look and ride entirely different than they do in the summer.  The fallen leaves mask the track, and the bare branches allow light to fall in unaccustomed ways.  The cold air is bracing and makes long climbs more comfortable but fast descents chilly enough that you think twice before letting ‘er rip.

This morning my friend, Waterville Valley Foundation treasurer Mike Furgal texted me and asked if I was up for one more ride.  A little while later, I picked him up at his house and we headed out with Cliff the Wonderdog trotting along to keep us company.  We pedaled up the Tripoli Road and out through Osceola Vista Campground to pick up one of our favorite short rides, the gently rolling Moose Run-Wicked Easy loop.  Even though we’ve been off our bikes more than we’ve been on in recent weeks, we both had retained enough conditioning to make good time.  We talked quietly and breathed deeply of the cool air.  The November light, filtered through gray skies, flooded softly through the woods with no shadows.  A light breeze stirred the bare branches, and we stopped on several bridges to let Cliff take a drink.

Summer rides can be a touch competitive, with everyone riding hard for long stretches.  The last ride of the fall, though, is all about savoring:  the feel of your suspension rising and falling over the terrain, the crunch of your tires in the leaves, the cool wind playing over your face and neck.  There were no tears in my eyes behind my glasses as we rode down the last hill from Moose Run and back through the campground, but there was once again a sense that another season was behind us now, never to be lived again.  It’s the thought that we’ll be skiing again next weekend makes that knowledge bearable.

What does change sound like? Sometimes it sounds like the quiet whir of an electric motor.

I grew up around diesel engines. My parents owned a small moving company, and from the time I could walk, I was around trucks every weekend and all summer long. I played around them, I worked around them, and I often slept in the sleeper cab while my father drove long distances.  The sound of a diesel engine is oddly relaxing to me, and to this day, I retain the not-particularly-useful ability to tell the difference between a Cummins diesel engine and a Caterpillar diesel just by the sound.

It’s probably for that reason alone that I’ve always been willing to forgive the High Country Double’s sluggardly ways. When my kids were little, I found it somehow comforting to hear the putt-putt-putt of the old diesel, and it really wasn’t such a bad thing that the chair came around the bullwheel at the speed of a slow walk.  The littlest kids could board without ever slowing the chair down. On the other hand, it was a little bit frustrating to see BBTS racers skating up the hill faster than the chair moved, and the 6 minute uphill-time for a couple hundred vertical feet was almost the same as the ride on the White Peaks Quad from the base to 3600 feet. If I was feeling charitable, I might tell you that it was a good place to go rest late in the morning.

Most of the time, though, I was not feeling charitable. The slow lift meant I seldom had the patience to go up to the summit.  Worse still, my environmentalist sensibilities were rattled every time the engine belched to life with a big black plume.

That’s about to change, though. The venerable High Country chair is receiving a heart transplant this fall, with an efficient, and much faster, new electric motor. Skiers and the environment will both see an immediate improvement. Much shorter ride times will open the summit to the impatient, and should dramatically shorten early season lift lines. The old diesel engine, which produced hundreds or thousands of pounds of soot and carbon dioxide emissions each winter, is now a thing of the past.

Best of all, though, is the short-but-sweet terrain that a faster High Country chair opens up.  In years past it was seldom worth the six slow (often cold) minutes up for the quick run down High Country.  Because of its altitude — the chair tops out at 3800 feet — the runs on High Country are the first to open each fall.  All winter long, you’ll often find untracked snow along either edge of the open slopes.  And if you stay hard to skier’s left, you’ll find an under-appreciated delight — the soft, silent snow of Tangent, the natural-snow-only connector that runs from High Country to Periphery, bypassing the top of the Northside Double.  Narrow and tunnel-like, Tangent is a throwback to the first trails cut on New Hampshire mountains, and on a good morning, it’s a great experience.

I’ll probably miss the comforting burble of the old diesel on the High Country Chair — but no where near as much as I will appreciate the swifter ride up to the summit.

Last Friday night was the grand opening of the new 1829 boutique in Town Square.  As happens a lot around here, the faithful were out in force, shopping, chatting, hanging.  It is a lovely store — a harbinger of the future, I hope — and the welcoming crowd brought a positive vibe.  As I scanned around at all the familiar faces, some weekenders and some residents, I thought about the strange gravity that brings us all back here, or makes us stay.  The old marketing campaign, “Love”, really wasn’t too far off the mark.  With that thought, I give you the first twenty-one reasons I could think of why you should abandon the comforts of the suburbs and move to Waterville Valley full time.  Or, as I say in my more candid moments, “Brains… more brains… fresh brains…”

1. You ask your friends what time they’re arriving Friday night, because it never occurs to you that they might not actually be coming up.

2. You hit refresh more than three times on the Resort webcam during a conference call.

3. You know where Swazeytown is.

4. You care where Swazeytown is.

5. You smell woodsmoke and leaf mold and your Pavlovian response is to start waxing your skis.

6. You feel just a little better when you put on your WV fleece or baseball cap.

7. You know exactly when it’s time to say goodbye in Thornton, because you know exactly where your cell phone will drop on Rt. 49 on the way in.

8. Your server at the Coyote says, “I won’t bother with tonight’s specials.  The Buffalo Meatloaf and a very dry Grey Goose Martini, super cold, slightly dirty.”  And she doesn’t wait for confirmation.

9. You stop in the middle of Lower Bobby’s, and you can pick out your condo.

10. You hear Warren Miller intone “I’ve been telling you, move to a ski resort this year.  If you don’t, you’ll be one year older when you do”… and in your heart of hearts, you know he’s right.

11. The sight of a moose thrills you nearly as much as the sight of your bride/groom standing at the altar.  Nearly.

12. The thought of running into a bear on the trail secretly pleases you.

13. The idea that a family of red foxes might be your closest neighbors seems pretty good to you.

14. You wonder why Real Life can’t be like this.

15. You scheme on Sunday nights for a reason to stay.

16. You realize that “work-from-home” Fridays can mean “work-from-the-Valley”.  And then you actually work, so you get to do it again.

17. Your kids’ best friends are the kids they ski with every weekend.

18. Your best friends are the grown-up kids you ski with every weekend.

19. You know what time the Saturday morning warm-up crowd at the Schwendi breaks, so you can always get a table.  No, I am not sharing.

20. You recognize and appreciate the fact that Steve, the Schwendi chef, will always play four songs you know and one you don’t, but love, in his house music mix.

21. Regardless of where you spend your weekdays, you only truly feel at home when you’re in the Valley.

If more than a few of these ring a bell for you, you have my condolences… what time do you want to meet for coffee on Tuesday morning?

The history of Waterville Valley is a microcosm of the history of real estate in the North Country of New Hampshire in general.  Early settlers straggled in during the early 19th Century, trying their hand at farming but finding the climate and soil best suited for bumper crops of granite boulders.  A few farmers eked out an existence, between raising animals and crops, trapping and hunting, lumbering, and — very soon — taking in guests.  This last development — hospitality — proved to be the most durable use of real estate in the White Mountains.  We’ll get to that in a minute.

By the late 19th century, another, entirely more rapacious use of the land had come to the fore, and huge tracts of forest were bought up by a few cagey and rock-ribbed lumber barons.  Their hearty crews spent long, intensely cold winter months slashing down vast stands of virgin timber.  In the spring, the trimmed logs were floated down the flood-swollen rivers to mills in Campton and Lincoln and a dozen other northern towns, to be cut into dimensional lumber for the burgeoning cities to the south.  Unfortunately, the scars left by this cutting were dramatic — even now, if you look carefully at the flanks of Noon Peak, Green Peak, and the Tripyramids, you can see the lines where clear-cutting stopped some hundred years ago.  The logging crews were relentlessly efficient as they cleared the land, and the mess they left behind was an ecological disaster of soil erosion and forest-fire potential.

The fortunes of the land shifted dramatically in the early 20th Century, thanks to the efforts of the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests, which mounted a PR campaign that would make Al Gore envious.  The tide of public opinion turned in favor of forest protection, culminating in the Weeks Act and the creation of the White Mountain National Forest one hundred years ago this summer.  The land — stripped of virgin timber and left denuded — suddenly had value again, and the Federal government bought up vast holdings from the lumber barons, rolling them together to form the 770,000 acre White Mountain National Forest.

All through the years, the hospitality industry in the White Mountains grew steadily.  Each summer, trains brought ever larger crowds north to the grand hotels.  Guests in Waterville took the train to Campton, then transferred to a stage for the last 10 miles’ journey up the valley, alongside the Mad River.  In the early days, the first guests stayed in the home of early settlers — who quickly caught on to the business opportunity, and built a series of ever-larger hotels, until the Waterville Valley Inn was constructed at the base of Snows Mountain, where the modern-day Tennis Center stands today.  Every summer, guests came, through rich years and lean, to play golf and tennis, hike the trails, and fish in the river.  Waterville’s unique “island in the forest” location was a powerful attraction — so powerful, guests started building their own satellite “cottages” on the hillside near the Inn.  These cottages were Waterville Valley’s first “weekend homes”, a theme that has echoed throughout modern times.  By the early 20th Century, summer guests started staying later in the year, then coming back on “snow trains” to ski on the trails on Snows Mountain and the CCC-cut race trail on Tecumseh (portions of which now run the course of Upper Whitecaps and Old Tecumseh), and the Inn and cottages were occupied all year.

The modern history of Waterville Valley is also a story of location.  Olympic athlete Tom Corcoran did his homework thoroughly, looking for a unique place that brought together the right topography, weather conditions, and space to grow a village.  He found the right combination in Waterville, and in 1965, purchased the Waterville Inn and surrounding land, and started building a modern ski resort on Mount Tecumseh (unfortunately, the old Waterville Inn burned down the very first season, during a blizzard in the winter of 1966).

The Waterville Company masterfully planned a self-contained village, with careful attention to the important details of infrastructure and design.  Tom Corcoran’s vision lives on in many ways through out the resort and town today.  Corcoran was decades ahead of his time in his approach, combining the development of a world-class ski resort and desirable real estate.  He also recognized the importance of building a real town, as opposed to a base village with no anchoring community.

It’s a testament to Tom Corcoran — and to Waterville Valley’s unique location — that 45 years later, a whole new generation of visitors and residents continue to find the place irresistible.

++++++++++++++++++

In my 30 years of so-called adulthood, I’ve been involved in my own fair share of real estate transactions:  apartment rentals, condo purchases, buying and selling homes, deciding on the perfect weekend getaway, finding a piece of land, and finally building a house.  I’d have to say that my experience with the real estate industry at large earns mixed reviews at best.  You find a pretty broad spectrum of humanity in the real estate game, but you’re not often left scratching your head about why someone became an agent.

To that end, I have to tell you that my experience with the real estate establishment in Waterville Valley has been entirely different since we first started looking at property here in the mid-2000s.  I’ve been treated fairly, offered good advice, and invariably greeted as a friend rather than a customer.  I’ve worked with both Waterville Valley Realty and Roper Real Estate a number of times over the years, and I have always been very satisfied with the experience.  This isn’t intended to be an endorsement, but rather a segue — but if you asked me personally, I would tell you that my own experience with both agencies has been overwhelmingly positive.

One of the signal differences I see with both Roper Real Estate and Waterville Valley Realty is that both agencies are truly local and absolutely invested in the community.  I am not sure it’s even possible to find a local event, charity or cause that both companies don’t ardently and generously support.  And that brings me to two final thoughts:

I want to publicly thank and praise Roper Real Estate for their pledge over the summer to donate $100 to the Waterville Valley Foundation for each real estate closing they complete.  This week, we received our first check from Roper.  I can’t thank you enough, Terry, Chip, and team — you guys rock!

I also want to recognize Bill Cantlin, Jan Stearns, and Waterville Valley Realty for their extraordinary support and patronage.  Waterville Valley Realty is a consistent and generous donor to the Waterville Valley Foundation — and we really appreciate that.

In this case, though, I am reflecting on Bill and Jan’s unflagging support of one of the things that truly make the Valley unique: our very own Shakespeare in the Valley troupe.  In recent weeks, Donna Devlin and Will Hammond have been working with Waterville Valley Realty to find a new home for their summer stage.  Bill and Jan have been great, and with just a little luck and a lot of hard work, Shakespeare in the Valley will have a new and better home on the east side of Town Square next summer.

The land and the streams and the mountains are a big part of what make Waterville Valley special.  Having not one but two local real estate agencies who are truly of the land and are so willing to reach out to make the community a better place is a real stroke of luck.

One of the things that struck me very soon after moving to Waterville Valley was that I was suddenly surrounded by some extraordinary people. Frankly, the list is long and daunting enough to give even a pretty secure middle-aged guy an inferiority complex. Think about it:

Tom Barbeau, who is the J3 race program head and director of athletics for BBTS, is obviously an extraordinary skier — but he also a stunningly good athlete who played professional football in the the Canadian Football League.

Christopher Devlin-Young, a mainstay of Shakespeare in the Valley (where he is charged with all set construction and manages the front of the house on show nights) is also a world-class member of the US Disabled Ski Team. In January, Chris took the 2011 Disabled Alpine World Championship Super Giant Slalom. He posted the fastest time of the day among the sitting class and the fastest time of the day over all of the disability categories, beating out standing skier by more than 2 seconds.

Hannah Kearny, 2010 Olympic Gold Medalist in Freestyle skiing, cut her teeth and refined her technique on the steeps of Sunnyside and trained with BBTS coaches including Nick Preston (a legend in his own right). It’s not at all uncommon to see Hannah scooting through the lift lines when she’s home for a visit.

Kris Freeman, Olympic and World Cup Nordic Ski Champion, grew up skiing the cross country trails of Waterville’s nordic center and still considers Waterville Valley to be his home resort.

There are literally dozens of other standout, world-class athletes around our little town summer and winter. Clearly, Waterville Valley is a place that attracts and retains extraordinary people. If you’re not careful, you could easily be lulled into thinking all the world is like this — or into overlooking the extraordinary efforts of those around you on a daily basis.

I’d like to call your attention to a couple of events that have happened in the past few weeks that remind us how fortunate we are to have some of the hard-working men and women who keep us safe and keep things running around the Valley.

First off, we have to consider the ravages of Irene, the remnants of the hurricane that passed through Waterville Valley at the end of August. You’ve no doubt seen pictures of the washouts along Route 49, or maybe caught a glimpse of the Tyler Spring bridge on the Mad River Trail, which had migrated a surprising distance downstream toward the Tripoli Road. Damage was widespread and significant — from undermined bridges to badly eroded trails. By Labor Day Weekend, very reasonable people were shaking their heads and wondering how we’d get back to normal any time soon.

The answer is, of course, by extraordinary efforts from extraordinary people. Unfortunately, I can’t tell you their names — but I can tell you that crews from the Waterville Valley Resort, Town of Waterville Valley, the State of New Hampshire, and the National Forest Service have done an amazing job already with repairs. Route 49 is improving every day. The Tripoli Road is open end to end and in good shape. Crews and contractors have begun restoring the damaged cross-country network and are making great progress.

Today, I drove up to the mountain and stopped on the bridge above the town offices to stare in wonder at two excavators working together to lift the Mad River Trail bridge and nudge it toward the shore. By the time I came back down the hill 30 minutes later, they had already gotten it up on shore and were preparing to move it. Will everything be “back to normal” before snow flies? Maybe not — but I have to tell you, I am incredibly impressed with the progress so far… and I am happy to say we’re more than ready to receive the hordes of leaf peepers headed north in a few weeks.

I’d also like to call your attention to Waterville Valley Director of Public Safety and Fire Chief Chris Hodges. You’ve probably met Chris around town at one time or another. He’s exactly what you’d hope for in a small town public safety leader: smart, friendly, easy-going, but also incredibly strong and focused. If you needed any proof of just how strong, and how focused, Chris is, consider this: On Sunday, September 11th, Chris left the border between Canada and New Hampshire in the cold and dark pre-dawn. He rode the entire length of the state of New Hampshire in 12 hours and 37 minutes, setting a new overall record for the feat. Chris rode in part to raise money for Hoops for Heroes, an organization which seeks to honor veterans and which in turn supports the Intrepid Fallen Heroes Fund. Chris also rode in honor of his friend, Marc Paul Decoteau, a local resident and WV Elementary School graduate, who was killed in Afghanistan in January 2010.

By any measure, Chris’ ride was an extraordinary feat by an extraordinary man, and we’re honored by Chris’ service and dedication to our town. The Waterville Valley Foundation was happy to make a donation in support of Chris Hodges’ record-setting ride and the charities it supported. You make us proud, Chris!

If you’d like to contribute to this worthy cause, I am sure that Chris would still welcome your support.  You can make your check payable to ‘Hoops for Heroes’ and drop off at the Waterville Valley Town Office or mail to Chris’ home address: PO Box 1078, Campton N.H. 03223.

Given my fascination with weather, you can imagine my mixed feelings at being away on vacation when Irene unleashed her deluge in Waterville Valley (ironically, we were in the Caribbean, which one generally avoids at the height of hurricane season; the weather was lovely, thanks).  We left the day before the storm hit, knowing that big rains were on the docket; my good friend (and Waterville Valley Foundation treasurer) Mike Furgal sent me a text message late on Monday: “Apocalypse hit WV.  It will take years to recover.”   Mike also very kindly made his way out in the aftermath of the storm to check on our home, which was thankfully fine.

Mike is occasionally given to “Furgalizations” — enthusiastic interpretations of otherwise carefully observed details — but this time he stuck to the bare facts.  Bridges were gone.  Large portions of roads washed away.  The Mad River had literally changed courses in several places.

I finally caught a glimpse of the damage when we returned home late on Sunday night of Labor Day Weekend.  Even a week after Irene stomped her way through northern New England, dumping over seven inches of rain in the Valley in a few short hours, the evidence of nature’s fury was everywhere.  There were no fewer than four major washouts and diversions on Route 49.  Portions of the main artery into town had eroded and collapsed right up to the center yellow line.  The mountain access road and the Tripoli Road both suffered severe washouts and erosion in places, and were down to a lane and a half in spots.  The metal span bridges along the Mad River Trail at Tyler Spring were both washed away — the second bridge having been carried nearly down to town offices on Tripoli Road.  The West Branch Road bridge below the Osceola Library is still closed due to structural concerns — the water crested and ran over the road surface, and may have undermined the structure.  All in all, it was an amazing, and frightening, scene.

All that said, I am also impressed with how quickly our town and state have responded.  The Department of Public Safety used their Nixle alert system brilliantly to keep residents abreast of developments — including closures and eventual detours on Route 49 and information about the inevitable (and fortunately relatively short lived) power outages, and as always, worked to keep residents and guests safe throughout the storm.  The town and state road crews (at the urging of Governor Lynch) have worked tirelessly to restore some degree of normalcy to the washed out roads.  You might still have a couple moments’ wait at the narrowed sections this week, but you get in and out of town safely and easily, which is pretty amazing when you see the damage the storm wrought.

Those of us who love Waterville Valley know that it’s nature that has shaped the place, from the glaciers that cut the peaks surrounding us, to the slides that tore down Tripyramid in two places a hundred years ago, to Irene this summer.  We are surrounded by the splendor of nature, but from time to time, she still reminds us of her power to change the status quo.

==============================

Not all the sweeping changes in the Valley this month are scary: after careful consideration, a consortium including the Waterville Valley Resort, several active volunteers, program founder Kathy Chandler, and representatives from the Waterville Valley Foundation have decided to reshape the Waterville Valley adaptive skiing program, bringing it home and refocusing on needs of our local community.

In August, we informed the board of directors of Ability Plus that we would be going our own way.  Ability Plus is a fine organization, and we wish them the very best as they continue to provide quality programs to disabled skiers and riders at mountains all across New England.  However, as we looked hard at what is best for Waterville Valley, we felt strongly that a locally administered and managed program would be best able to serve the needs of the community.

The Waterville Valley Foundation and Waterville Valley Adaptive Sports have a long history together.  The two were virtually entwined in the early days and remained so until the mid-2000s.  Waterville Valley Adaptive has continued to be one of the largest recipients of the Foundation’s support ever since.  We are happy to be able to help out during WV Adaptive’s transition away from Ability Plus by offering them a fundraising “umbrella” — until WV Adaptive has established their own 501c3 non-profit organization, all donations will be managed through the Waterville Valley Foundation, but will be handled with separate accounts and accounting.  During this transition, Mike Furgal and Andy Knight will also be serving on the Waterville Valley Adaptive Sports board of directors.  We’re excited to be able to help out during a time of great and positive change.

If you would like to help out — WV Adaptive is essentially starting from scratch in many ways, though you’ll see all the same friendly faces — please make your check payable to Waterville Valley Foundation (with Adaptive in the memo) and send to:

Waterville Valley Adaptive Sports
PO Box 505
Waterville Valley, NH 03215

But you know what?  That’s all details.  Here’s some really exciting news:

On Saturday, September 24th, Waterville Valley Adaptive Sports will be hosting a special fundraiser, “Dinner with Franz”.  Valley favorite and chef emeritus of the William Tell, Franz Dubach, has kindly offered to serve as celebrity chef, joined by the ever-talented Sean Stout of the Wild Coyote Grill.  Entertainment will be provided by long-time favorite Smitty, returning for the first time in many years.  The menu includes:

• Cocktails & appetizers
• Tell Salad
• Steak Maison, Chicken Lugano or Salmon with capers
• Franz’s famous Tobler Cake

It promises to be a fun, and delicious, night out!

Please mark your calendar and join us at T-Bars for this very special evening. The festivities begin at 6:00 PM with a cash bar.  At 7:00 PM, dinner will be served. It will be $50 per person and all proceeds will benefit the Waterville Valley Adaptive Sports program.  You can make your reservations by calling the Mountain at 603-236-8311.

This spring, if you’d said “the buzz” to any of the three-hundred-some-odd full time residents of Waterville Valley, chances are they would have thought you meant the maddening sound of a squadron of black flies and mosquitoes hovering inches from their ears and preparing to feast.  Thank goodness the plague of black flies has faded as quickly as they came on, and we’re left with garden-variety skeeters in manageable numbers.  Summer isn’t so tough, but spring can try the mettle of even the very brave.

In this case, however, I am thinking of a very different, and much more positive buzz, that we’ve been seeing and hearing all summer.  It started about the time schools let out for the summer, when new faces started turning up all along Valley Road, on the beach, and in Town Square.  The summer season was off to a solid start even before the first big holiday weekend.

And the Fourth of July weekend?  Gangbusters.  Everywhere you looked, there were people having fun, enjoying everything the Valley has to offer… Pick-up volleyball games and sandcastles ruled the beach.  The thwack of Big Berthas filled the air up on the fourth hole of the golf course.  The Adventure Center churned out mountain bike rentals, and the Rec department floated a virtual navy of kayaks and canoes.  Come time for the fireworks, cars lined both sides of Route 49 and people packed into Town Square and Packards Field to enjoy the longest, best show I’ve ever seen in the Valley.  Maybe they don’t rival the Pops and the Esplanade, but what our fireworks lack in sheer power, they more than make up for in intimacy; to me, the rolling thunder of the echoes booming up the notch between Tecumseh and Osceola is every bit as profound as the cannons of the 1812 overture.

A few weekends later, the Black Fly Tri came to town, and literally thousands descended on the Valley.  Each morning, the air was punctuated by loudspeakers exhorting participants to do their best, and the roads were lined with athletes and well-wishers. For two days, the buzz ramped up to a happy, loud thrum.

Last weekend, the Rey Center’s Curious George Family Festival enjoyed perfect weather and the best attendance I’ve ever seen, with hundreds of happy young faces smiling up at George and the Man in the Yellow Hat.  And throughout the summer, Shakespeare in the Valley played to packed houses nearly every performance, having their best season ever.

In January, I said to my buddy Mark, the problem with being back on the map is that people can find you again. There were a few days over the winter where we waited in longer lift lines, though somehow, Butch or one of the crew always showed up just in time to keep things moving, and it never felt that long.

This summer, the buzz was back in a big way.  All those new guests made the weekend days vibrate with new activity — and sometimes, unaccustomed noise and traffic — but with each dusk comes the peace and quiet we all love.

===================================

If this summer has brought many new faces, then it’s also important to remember a few beloved faces we won’t be seeing in the crowd anymore.  Donald Jasinski, who passed away in January, and Mike Morin, who passed away in May, were two men who touched a great many people in the Waterville Valley community.  The Waterville Valley Foundation has made a donation to the Pemi Baker Home Health and Hospice program in honor of both Don and Mike, who received invaluable hospice support in their final days.  We’ll miss you gentlemen, but even in your absence, you continue to help and inspire others.

It’s been a long, cool, sometimes damp spring in the mountains.  From the day the ski area closed, through the lingering snows (there were still whales of snow in the Exhibition Terrain Park the last time I hiked up Tecumseh a couple of weeks ago), through several weeks when we wondered if the sun would ever come out again, spring was slow and temperamental.  There were a few sunny, gorgeous days of the kind that reminded you that mud season wouldn’t last forever, but in the end, they only served to incubate the worst crop of black flies anyone can remember. Even the mosquitos seem somewhat abashed in the face of the superior firepower and sheer numbers of the black flies this spring.

It is only appropriate, then, that the first night of summer was marked by an entirely different and more welcome insect.  A few days ago, I smiled when a familiar critter landed on the sleeve of my fleece and for once I wasn’t tempted to slap it: shaped like a torpedo, dusty black wing covers, twin blazes of red on either side of its head, it was a lightning bug alighting to rest for a moment.  If the swallows mark spring in San Juan Capistrano, then the appearance of lightning bugs in Waterville Valley is a subtler but just as certain sign that summer is in the offing.

Tonight that promise burst to into full bloom after the sun finally dropped into the notch between Tecumseh and Osceola, the furthest north it will travel in its seasonal migration this year.  The kids, tired from a warm and wonderful WVES graduation last night and an equally convivial last day of school today, finally gave up on stretching bedtime toward new summer heights and headed off to the feathers.  The dishes done, Nancy and I steered toward bed ourselves.  I glanced out the window before I turned on the bedside light, and my breath was momentarily taken away by what I initially mistook for a meteor shower: a hundred white sparks drifting through the air against the blue-black night sky.  The fireflies were doing their summer evening waltz.

We stepped outside into the temperate night air, the perfect temperature so it felt neither cool nor warm on our skin, and were treated to a summer concert of sounds and lights.  In the distance, a lady fox crooned contentedly.  Closer in, the brook burbled quietly and a bullfrog thrummed.  All throughout the grove of trees behind the house, the white sparks of romantic fireflies danced, near and far, in a spatial array that seemed almost cosmic in its depth.  The tiny world of our backyard and the Valley we call home seemed for a moment almost as large and profound as the Milky Way, yet at once close enough to touch and call our own.

I hope this summer will find you back the Valley enjoying the beauty of nature and the company of those you love.

————-

Speaking of summer nights, the Waterville Valley Foundation is pleased to announce that we are once again sponsoring Shakespeare in the Valley’s popular “Sugar-Coated Shakespeare Interactive Family Matinees”.  The Sugar-Coated Shakespeare program presents free, family-oriented renditions of Shakespeare’s classics — as well as a variety of educational and fun riffs on the Shakespeare theme — free to all in Town Square.  As Artistic Director Donna Devlin says, “Sugar-Coated Shakespeare is hands-down the most popular facet of our theatre – they are the shows that both patrons and performers alike say is the highlight of their summer.”

The Waterville Valley Foundation is a proud supporter of Shakespeare in the Valley, and we are glad that our sponsorship over the years has allowed SITV to expand their programming and offer great entertainment free of charge to thousands of Valley visitors and locals alike.