VERMONT'S MAD RIVER GLEN A single chair lifts skiers back in time

WAITSFIELD, Vt. -- Skiers driving from Interstate 89 to Route 100,between Burlington and Montpelier, Vt., are faced with two key forksin the road.

One route leads to Sugarbush, a modern ski area with high-speedquad lifts, major snowmaking, groomed trails and condos.

The other goes to Mad River Glen -- and a step back in time.

Little snowmaking. No snowboarding. No condos. In fact, one of theattractions is the single-chair lift, the longest in the country at11/4 miles and the second-oldest, built in 1949.

"There are few things in life that offer the experience of a timemachine," said Brad Simmons of Rowayton, Conn. "It's not foreverybody, and that's part of what it is."

Simmons is one of just under 1,700 owners of Mad River Glen, whichGlen officials say is the only large ski area in the country owned byits skiers.

The place has taken on a sort of cult status for many, and itshows in the bumper sticker, "Mad River Glen -- Ski It If You Can."The sticker was started as a marketing tool in 1984.

Skiers take the sticker on trips around the world so they couldphotograph it in unusual places. Pictures along the wall in the Gen.Stark Pub show them holding up their stickers in the Arctic Circle inFinland, the Galapagos Islands, the Guinness brewery in Ireland, andMount Kilimanjaro. Astronaut Catherine Coleman, a Glen shareholder,even took her bumper sticker into space.

The area is particularly attractive to expert skiers, young andold. About half of its 45 trails on 3,637-foot Gen. Stark Mountainare black-diamond, the designation for the most difficult trails.

But it also is family-friendly, with a ski school for toddlers,and trails that all funnel to the base lodge, making it difficult toget separated or lost.

It is all pretty much the way Roland Palmedo probably envisionedit when he bought the land and began building his concept for a skiarea in the late 1940s as "a mountain community" where skiers couldenjoy nature and skiing, not a winter theme park designed just tomake money, according to Glen marketing director Eric Friedman.

At national ski association meetings, they talk about competitionfrom cruises and Disney, and how ski areas must compete for thosedollars, Friedman said. "Roland would be rolling in his grave hearingthat kind of stuff," he said.

Palmedo was a New York banker and former World War I and IIfighter pilot who invested in the Stowe, Vt., area, but built theGlen because he thought Stowe had become too commercial. He ran theGlen until 1968 when he sold it to a group of investors, which inturn sold it to Betsy Pratt in the early 1970s. She was ready to sellin the mid-1990s and suggested a cooperative structure to maintainits old-fashioned character.

They needed 1,667 skiers to pay $1,500 each for a share to pay the$2.5 million asking price. They got 900. But Pratt gave them aninterest-free note for five years, and they took over the area in1995.

Since then, the price of a share has risen to $1,750, but the debthas been paid, and about 65 percent of the shareholders are from outof state, many from Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York andConnecticut.

No one can own more than four shares to make sure there is nodominant owner, and each shareholder must pay $200 a year for everyshare. For that, all they get is a $117 discount on a season ticket,or a $7.50 discount on the $50 daily pass. There is no profit sharing-- the average $150,000-a-year profits all go back into the area.

Owning a share is more a sign of allegiance than a way to savemoney. Why else would a group of Glen employees get together to buy ashare, although they can ski for free?

"The general idea is to keep preserved the skiing experienceoffered here," said Brad Simmons, who bought his wife, Susan, a sharefor a Christmas present.

A nine-member board of shareholders meets every month to talkpolicy, and the annual shareholders' meeting is held in April. Attheir first meeting in 1995, shareholders decided they didn't wantthe area to change.

So the single-chair lift still runs on diesel fuel, one of thelast left in the country. When it broke down for four days in 2003,steel had to be ordered from Ohio and a local machine shop made thereplacement part because parts are no longer available.

When the time comes to replace the lift, a majority ofshareholders would opt for another single chair, though it would costmore than a double chair, said Jamey Wimble, general manager andpresident.

"They're willing to pay a premium for it," he said. "The skierswill decide. There's not a lot of places where they do decide."

People accept up to a 30-minute wait in line on a busy weekend tomake the 12-minute run to the summit, though they can choose amongthree double-chair lifts that don't go as high.

"It's not a very economical way to get people up the hill," Wimblesaid, but added that "the single is very much the identity of MadRiver."

However, the limited uphill capacity, along with winding trailslined by woods, means there often are no other skiers in sight on thetrails.

"It's worth the wait," Susan Simmons said.

Shareholders also have limited snowmaking to about 15 percent ofthe mountain to hold down costs and to keep the natural snowexperience -- the mountain averages about 250 inches annually.

And although snowboarders represent about 30 percent of thebusiness at more commercial areas, the Glen has banned them since1992 because snowboarders had trouble getting safely off the single-chair lift, Wimble said.

"If we were struggling financially, that's the only thing I see tochange," Wimble said. But with no debt service and no snowmaking, "werun a pretty lean ship to make it work," he said.

And besides, a survey of shareholders a few years ago showed 86percent liked the ban.

AP

If You Go

MAD RIVER GLEN: www.mad riverglen.com or (802) 496-3551. Locatedon Route 17 west in Waitsfield, about three hours from Boston, 51/2 hours from New York City, 21/2 hours from Montreal, and an hour fromBurlington.

RATES: Day rates for the general public are $50 for a full day,$42 for a half-day; for children 6 through high school, and adults 65to 69, $37 for a full-day, $29 for a half-day. Children 5 and underski free when accompanied by an adult. Rates for shareholders:adults, $42.50 for a full day and $35.50 for a half-day; children,$32 for a full day and $24.50 for a half-day.

SCHEDULE: Skiing usually begins mid-December. Shares remain forsale at $1,750 apiece; terms of sale are explained in detail on theWeb site.