We’ve been riding the same chairlift up the same trail looking at the same trees for weeks now. We all talk about whether or not to choose Trail A or Trail B and then our minds are blown when Trail C opens up!
It’s a snowmaking miracle, giving credit to the combination of Mother Nature and the best snowmaking team in the business. And this weekend, we will all be at the bottom of Superstar watching their prowess in action, as the best women skiers in the world take to the stage they set.
But it’s not just the snow and the skiing and the riding that have us smiling ear to ear. It’s the chairlift itself that has us smiling, starting with the tunes being played as you pull into the liftline. You can feel your body start to dance a little, still humming from the descent, and you fall right into the rhythm of whatever song the lifties chose this time. At Killington, we hear a lot of reggae thanks to our awesome Jamaican lifties, but I’ve also heard the Indigo Girls, the Killers and everything else in between. It doesn’t matter, my body picks it up and we make the lifties laugh with our silliness.
As we load the North Ridge, we check the number. This past weekend, it was so loaded with rime ice that even finding the number on the chair became a game. A huge shoutout to Liftie Warren for helping us find the numbers. You have to look behind you, in front of you, and do some basic math sometimes, but the chairlift is where so many of our young skiers and riders learn to count.
I ride with my little athletes (I coach the Killington Mountain School 5-6 year old weekenders called Team PomPom) and we spend many rides shouting out numbers as they fly by us on the lift. We argue about how many chairs the lift has and squeal with delight when we see chair No. 1. You know it’s coming, because you can feel that elongated gap while you’re waiting with your toes on the green line. Why is it taking so long, you wonder, your body so in tune with the spacing that you can feel the difference. Could it be because it’s — it’s Chair 1! We all scream.
As an adult, it’s not much different. I still love getting Chair 1. But I also love getting chair 25 (that’s my birthday). This year, I’ve gotten chair 46 twice already, because the lift is rudely reminding me of how old I am… I love getting chair 42 because it contains the secret of life, but someone pointed out yesterday that chair 42 and 41 together make up 4241 which is the height of Killington Peak and I cannot believe I hadn’t realized that before. So now I am wondering if Killington holds the secret of life … can’t say it’s not wrong.
But my favorite chair is 15. That was my dad’s favorite number and the one he had on his baseball jersey. When I get that chair, I feel like he’s riding the lift with me and a tear falls from my eye as I remember all our times riding the lift together. He loved to play the “Yankee Game,” where we had to call out the name of which Yankee had the jersey number: 1 Billy Martin, 2 Derek Jeter, 3 Babe Ruth, 4 Lou Gehrig and so on. I still play that game sometimes, but I’ll never be as good as he was.
You can also use the numbers to time yourself. When there is no line, we ski about 20 chairs faster than the North Ridge lift itself. Monday we rode chair 32, then chair 12 and then chair 92. I was impressed with our consistency for those few runs until we found some folks to chat with at the top. It was a super sweet couple of runs!
Have you ever played the wish game? If your chair stops on the stanchion wheels, then you get to make a wish. You cannot say it out loud, and you have to wish for snow, but you do get to make a wish all the same. Last year, I got to make about four wishes over the course of the year but this year I have had none at all!
Could you imagine if Mikaela Shiffrin was riding Superstar Quad and somehow got Chair 100 and it stopped on the wheels?!? That would be absolutely amazing and then we would know without a doubt that she would be getting her 100th World Cup victory here at Killington. I know that if my chair stops on the wheels over the next few days, I won’t be wishing for snow. I’ll be wishing for history to be made right here in Killington. It would be worth not wishing for snow this one time. Besides, our snowmaking team obviously has that covered.
Merisa J. Sherman is a long-time Killington resident, global real estate advisor, and Coach PomPom. She can be reached at Merisa.Sherman@SothebysRealty.com.
