By Merisa Sherman I stood there in my boots, my hands on the railings, while my dad and the boot tech giggled about how many drops of water they should put into the my foam liners. My face was red and I remember feeling like I was about to faint from the heat on my feet.…

By Merisa Sherman It’s scary, this new thing. This trail I have never been on before. For so many years of my life, this trail hasn’t changed and now, here it is, with a completely different pitch and angle from what Pres and Joe had created all those many years ago. The idea is the…

By Merisa Sherman Almost despairingly, I lifted my head. I could see the towers sticking up from the summit of Pico and they seemed so very small from so far away. I was worn out and frustrated, my skins sticking to the snow just enough to make each glide forward feel like a battle between…

By Merisa Sherman I hadn’t realized it was spring yet.  Only last week, we were freezing standing in the cold, skiing snow so firm that your entire body shuttered when you maneuvered away from the groomed trails. That was only last week right? Today my face is on fire and I am sweating. The sky…

By Merisa Sherman We all moved across the bridge together, probably over a thousand cars all creeping precariously across the Hudson or whereever. Sure, there were some moving in faster bursts in an attempt to get around and others just maintaining a constant speed, but we were indeed all moving together. An aerial photo would…

By Merisa Sherman I wiggle my legs back and forth underneath me, like a pendulum they swing as I meander along on the Great Eastern. Or what used to be called Great Eastern, I honestly cannot keep track of the name changes. Maybe it’s Bear Cub or something. Just the slightest bit of movement from…

By Merisa Sherman Ahhh, the New Year’s Resolution. The pressure to become a better version of yourself than you were last year and usually something that you will have forgotten about within the four weeks of January. Sure, we all want to recommit ourselves to our physical and mental health, but what does this mean…

By Merisa Sherman I have been and always shall be a ski bum. While throughout my life, the journey has varied greatly, the message has always been the same: there is no peace, no salvation, without the feeling of floating across the surface of the earth. This may appear in different forms, in varying forms…

By Merisa Sherman Pulling my hood over my head, I dove off the trail and under the tree branch, heavily laden with the snow from the past few days. Usually, the branch would be bent from the weight of heavy wet snow, but today it was only from the weight of so much snow falling…

By Merisa Sherman The last paddle of the season, a chilly float in December With the weather this ridiculously warm, we had both been on watch for quite some time. Most days, I would try to slow down as I drove by and even once I pulled into the parking lot to just sit and…

By Merisa Sherman It was dark as I pulled into the parking lot, but a beautiful glow from the almost full moon lit up the trees that surrounded the lot. The clouds prevented a perfectly clear night, giving the sky an almost eiry Halloween feeling — even though we are almost two months past. With…

By Merisa Sherman I could feel the snow melting underneath my feet, as I swung my oldest, bestest ski sister around by the elbow. We were dancing in the joy of the moment and celebrating our 35-year-old sisterhood. Then we grabbed the next elbow, a woman who has never ski raced a day in her life,…

By Merisa Sherman Taking a deep breath, I open the car door and swing my feet out of the car. I grab the emergency handle and pull myself out. It’s been a few days of this and already I can feel which muscles have been lingering all summer long and I wonder how people must…

By Merisa Sherman Never doubt The Beast, the biggest and best in the East “Wishing and waiting and thinking and praying, planning and dreaming …” I know that’s the start of the song made famous by Dusty Springfield in 1964, but it’s also the mantra that I have been repeating to myself for the past few…

By Merisa Sherman A few lights litter the shoreline across the way, seemingly more like super bright fireflies than the building that they truly are. Different colors, ranging from white to yellow to red, mark the hillside and the farthest location along the 360 degree outline of the mountain range. The dark hillside seems more…