I pull my hood over my pompom and duck my head down as low as I can. My body is in the lowest squat I can manage with my ski boots on, and I can feel my tips rising off the snow as my weight drops back. Extending my pole grips out in front of me, I try to use my arms to counterbalance the weight of the squat, but I also need my hands out to block my face.
The branches are thick and covered with a solid layer of rime ice, and they are low—really low. They are the perfect height for the almost dozen 5- and & 6-year-olds squealing with delight behind me, but they are definitely not meant for a grownup. I cannot tell what they love more—watching the coaches have to shrink real little and getting constantly dumped on by overhanging snow or having a world be just the right height for them.
We are in their world now. A world where grownups don’t quite fit in and everything is kid-sized. A world where chairlifts to intermediate terrain might actually be designed for small children to get on without getting nailed in their upper back and just pushed forward. Most of my little ones cannot even jump onto most of the chairlifts, needing to be lifted by a grownup. It severely limits our terrain options: we cannot ride the North Ridge, Canyon, Bear Mountain, or Northbrook Quads. We can only ride the Bubble or the South Ridge Quad with grownup support, even though we can ski everything off those lifts. And I refuse to take them on the Superstar or Skyepeak Quads because they rise so quickly after loading that any little mistake by my littles could become a big one—fast.
Because people don’t expect littles to be ripping down Helter Skelter or taking the drops in Patsy’s, they don’t expect to see us coming down Big Dipper or East Fall. But for little kids who ski every weekend, these trails are a reality. Or at least they will be by the end of the season. Our young athletes work hard on their skiing; you should see their little brows crunch up as they put all their focus into making their pinky toes do the hard work of parallel turns. Where they should expect to see us is Rime or West Glade or anywhere on Bear Mountain—we just cannot get there.
But it’s just perfectly lovely in here. The loveliest trees that we ever did see, all spiky and covered in snow. We love breaking through the branches, like big monsters making our way through the world. Their little 90-110cm skis fit right through, while even my 161s make it so I can barely wiggle. If we can find them, there are a few magical chutes that we can fly through. Chutes that were paths 30 years ago and have since grown in so strongly that I often wonder if I am the only one that ever goes in here.
Every once in a while, I see tracks coming through, and I always want to know who it is because I think we should be friends. Or maybe we are already friends, but we don’t talk about this secret tree area. A secret that we can share without knowing each other. That’s a pretty cool secret—kind of like the Wizard or Cooper’s, although social media has completely destroyed both of those secrets.
So we fight hard to keep this one, never going in the obvious entrance but always taking a different, crazy, weird one where you really hope your jacket and pants are up for the challenge. Because these branches are sharp, pointy, and stiff, they do not want to break, which might be the magic of this wooded area. If the branches don’t break, the entrances cannot be made, and the paths cannot be found. It’s our own secret garden that isn’t a garden at all.
It’s a forest—a magical one where the branches seem to grow overnight, and you never make the same turn twice. Some days, it feels like the trees have moved from where they were last week, and all hope of getting out seems futile. Our screams echo through the trees but never seem to leave the forest. We aren’t in Killington anymore, but in some crazy, weird vortex where children rule the world and the trees move about.
But eventually, we do come out onto the public trails, where grownups are whizzing by us at phenomenal speeds that will turn us into pancakes or waffles with syrup. And nobody wants that. So please, during January Safety Month and at all other times, be on the lookout for littles on every type of trail. We don’t want to become snow angels.
Merisa is a longtime Killington resident, global real estate advisor, and Coach PomPom. Please share your stories at [email protected].
