Lost Valley was the first mountain in what will remain one of the most memorable five days of skiing this winter and likely the tops in my life – you will find out just the reason why in later pages.  Sister Kate (whom we call the blond bomber in my family, flew all the way from Utah, into the Boston area and we started our journey to our home state of Maine early on a Thursday morning,  First stop, the charming Lost Valley.  Great grooming left us with that soft corduroy surface that is so easy to slice and dice with the sharp edges of our skis.  Easy going smiles and a handshake from area Manager Ron left us with a good feeling about visiting their slopes.

Greeting us also was locally famous TV personality Bill Green – host of Maine’s number one rated outdoor and travel show – a kind of Charles Karault for Maine.  Bill, a high school classmate of my sister and me, was interested in checking out this wild and wacky winter journey I was on, as well as catching up with Kate and me.  What a blast Bill – you look great, your family sounds great and congratulations on the success of your show!  What we did not know about the filming of a short news segment was the rough ratio of on actual air time to on site filming time – my calculation is for one minute of air time you actually spend one hour of total time on site – but all for the quality of the show - right Bill!  We met the film-master Charlie accompanying Bill and almost ran him over (his request) with the skiing shots.  I also now know why you wanted to interview Kate without me around – sneaking in a few words about the forthcoming big event.

Lost Valley gets two very special awards:  1) The most colorful chairlift award – one of the lifts had chairs painted alternating bright, glossy blue, yellow, orange and green – they lit up the landscape and spoke of a fun loving area with a focus on the children there and the youthfulness is all us older folks.  2) Most creative Mobile Snow Gun award – they had a 1968 snow grooming machine that had long ago been replaced by newer, faster, wider machines for grooming.  But Wendell, an ingenious Yankee if there ever was one, had welded-in-place an equally old snow gun to sit just behind the drivers cab to turn this into a mobile snow making machine.  The water and compressed air line snaked their way from the snow gun to a rack over the drivers cab so they could easily be connected to the trailside air and water lines.

This great old machine was painted a worn shade of orange; sported many a scratch and dent in its body; had a cab full of old tools and old torn seats; and best of all, there was a clean 2-inch hole with beautiful radiating cracks in the windshield (see photo).  I think this is a vehicle you drive with the driver’s door open and eyes ahead.  This piece, when and if Wendell ever lets it die, should be put in the New England Museum of Ingenuity.  The care of this solid, reliable machine represents another part of that indomitable New England character that finds pride and pleasure in nursing along the useful life of aging equipment – the antithesis of our sorely insensitive, wasteful throwaway society.  My hat is off to you Wendell (I feel I know even though I did not meet you) and to all the staff and owners of this colorful, cheerful and creative bastion of snow carving.