Ski Area Celebration: Shared Gifts of Community

Single-digit temperatures with wind gusts that pushed the "feels like" index well below zero are not, on paper, ideal conditions for a community gathering. And yet, that is what happened this past Saturday evening at the Proctor Ski Area. Members of the extended Proctor and Andover communities made their way to Yarrow's Lodge, the alpine trails, and the Bill Paine '51 Nordic Center. 

What began as a trickle of Nordic aficionados grew throughout the night as the parking lot filled and Proctor minibuses driven by faculty on "Weekend Team" provided continuous shuttle service from the center of campus to the Ski Area. Skiers from 5 to 75 made turns under the lights on one of the best snow surfaces in the Northeast. A few first-timers tried skiing, with friends coaching them through the handle tow and guiding them down the mountain. Non-skiers came out for the scene and the food – corn chowder, pulled pork sandwiches, burgers and dogs, and treats – while skiers and riders ducked into Yarrow's Lodge to warm up and refuel between runs. At the end of the evening, a torchlight parade wound its way down Burden Trail, the reddish glow of the torches framed by the dark tree line on both sides. None of this is possible without the parent/guardian volunteers and members of our professional community who make nights like Saturday possible.

In a recent conversation with Adam Grant, journalist Dan Coyle, author of Flourish, explores the nature and etymology of community — a word whose Latin roots, com (together) and munus (gift, duty), point to something like “shared gift” or “mutual obligation.” He tells the story of a retired journalist in a Paris neighborhood called Petit-Montrouge – a place that, by most accounts, was disconnected – who rented dozens of eight-foot tables, lined them down the middle of the street with 700 chairs, and posted a simple message: “We are going to have dinner.” People came, self-organized around shared interests, and over time began calling themselves the “super neighbors.” Coyle's point is that this act of organizing did not build community; it awakened it. All that was needed was a row of long tables, an invitation, and the willingness to show up.

Coyle profiles the small town of Norwich, Vermont – a place that, improbably, has produced eleven winter Olympians, roughly one for every 322 residents. The explanation is not a world-class training center or an army of elite coaches. It is something called the "Norwich Daisy Chain" – an informal expectation of helping other people's children as if they were your own. Kids train together, friends show up at meets by the busload to cheer each other on, and a whole town self-organizes around a shared purpose. These are complex systems — ecosystems of people, relationships, and competing demands that require what Coyle describes as a “group brain,” the combined efforts of many people self-organizing toward shared goals.

There is something of Norwich in what is happening at Proctor with our on-snow programs – communities that are both deeply supportive yet competitive. The ride up the T-bar is short, but long enough to reflect on what it takes to keep this hill running – hundreds of hours of snowmaking, lift operations, and meticulous trail preparation for Alpine, Nordic, and Freestyle programs. It is a “group brain” effort: the snowmakers adjusting equipment in the middle of the night, coaches adjusting training plans, parents showing up to cheer or ladle corn chowder, or faculty working with student-athletes to ensure their learning is not disrupted when they miss a class for a race. None of it works in isolation, and the beautiful messiness of that interdependence is what makes a community come alive.

That spirit is present in the Proctor Juniors pipeline that feeds into the high school program and in the coaches who sit down with students in the Outdoor Center to talk through form and strategy. As Cooper McNealus, U16 Head Coach, put it: "Podiums everywhere are pretty incredible, because it shows that there's a consistency to what we're doing." And the broader ski community has noticed – not just the results, but the way Proctor goes about its work. Coaches share radios with ski academy coaches when there aren't enough to go around and train other programs' athletes alongside their own. As Cooper described the dynamic with peer programs: "Everybody respects not only what we do, but also how we do it."

Community does not require perfection or a master plan. It requires the willingness to set a table, to post an invitation, to show up on a freezing night because you know others will be there too. That was certainly present this past Saturday at the Proctor Ski Area. People showed up for each other – because a mighty little hill on the north-facing ridge above the Blackwater River has been stewarded for more than sixty years, and because the desire to gather, to share a meal, to make a few turns under the lights with your neighbors, does not need to be manufactured. It just needs to be awakened.

Learn More About Snow Sports at Proctor!