Those shouts of joy you heard were for the snow that now blankets local ski areas

12:00AM / Thursday, December 27, 2001Print Story | Email Story

Open at last! Free to ski, board or snowmobile! Those were the exclamations uttered by thousands of snow sports enthusiasts starting Saturday morning, with postcard conditions. While machine-made snow permitted operations at most alpine resorts in the past three weeks, the natural snow cross-country skiers had been chaffing at the bit, frothing at the mouth for nearly two months. Saturday morning saw up to 12 inches of powder, snow-covered trees and sunshine at Prospect. The same for Sunday. Busloads of Berkshire high school cross-country teams were out in force Saturday morning, along with older racers and recreational skiers of all ages. Prospect is slated to hold the first Berkshire Interscholastic race New Yearâ€™s Day, Monday, Dec. 31 at 9:30 a.m. A day earlier, Dec. 30, there will be a snowshoe race at Prospect. Call (802) 442-2575. Most Southern Vermont touring centers also opened for the first time Saturday. Only Berkshire alpine areas Bousquet and Otis Ridge were not open that day, but Bousquet came on line Sunday. Otis Ridge reported up to two feet of snow Sunday, but did not plan to open before Monday. The Otis junior camp opens Wednesday. Despite the uncertain weather early this week, operators pledged to keep the snow guns blasting every possible hour throughout the holiday period. Despite improved SM conditions, few resorts had more than 35 percent of their trails open Sunday, but were enjoying ideal conditions for turning out more flakes. Snow sports are exhilarating, but not without risks, particularly at high speed. Helmets have been recommended for all snow sports and definitely for all children, unless the helmets are too heavy for tiny tots. Safety specialists have made exhaustive studies of helmet use over the past 20 years and have agreed on one major point: helmets do not offer significant protection in collisions with other skiers, trees or chairlift towers at speeds over 12 mph. Think about that â€” helmets to not mean safety at high speeds! As top downhill racers frequently top 70 mph they offer little in the way of safety. Two downhill racers have suffered fatal or serious injuries already this season. Franceâ€™s Regine Cavagnoud died in a training run Oct. 31 after hitting a German trainer who was working on the course. And Swiss skier Silvano Beltrametti was paralyzed from the chest down after crashing during a race in France Dec. 8. According to Ski Racing newspaper, Beltrametti had the fastest time on the upper part of the course at Val dâ€™Isere when he crashed through the safety netting at around 70 mph and hit a large boulder between two trees. â€œHis spine was molded to that rock,â€ a Swiss doctor said. Now downhill racing is comparable to auto racing and heavyweight boxing. Everyone knows Picabo Street, but who recalls Tamara McKinley (a slalom champion); the fourth-place finisher in any auto race; or tiny boxer Willie Pep, compared to Ali. The most replayed ski scenes are Franz Klammerâ€™s DH win in the Innsbruck Olympics in 1976 (still seen often each winter) and Herman Maierâ€™s incredible flight (not quite Lufthansa) four years ago at Nagano. Maier almost lost his right leg in a motorcycle crash in his native Austria and amputation was considered in the Aug. 24 incident. Maier, the favorite to repeat next February at the Utah Olympics, was able to take his first slow run a week ago, but holds out no hope for racing this winter. Bill Johnson beat Klammer and everyone else in the 1984 Olympics at Sarajevo and won fame, but not the millions he anticipated. Johnson made an ill-advised attempt last March 22 to win a place on the 2002 Olympic Team and nearly killed himself in a gruesome face-plant while running the national championship course at Big Mountain, Montana. Johnson was in a coma for months and after continuing rehabilitation took his first ski run a couple of weeks ago on Mount Hood. â€œI didnâ€™t take a digger and I donâ€™t plan to,â€ he said after his low-speed run. Bode Miller of Franconia, N.H., is Americaâ€™s hope in slalom and giant slalom and has already won in each event, the first since Phil Mahre in 1983. Miller hurt his knee in the DH last spring in the World Championships in St. Anton and took a bad fall earlier this month in another DH. Now, after Beltramettiâ€™s paralysis, Miller told Ski Racing he doubts if he will run DHs anymore. Veteran and successful DHers have joined in complaints about the safety concerns in the downhill events and former World Cup multi winner Marc Giradelli put some blame on the new shaped skis, which he called â€œfar too dangerous for high-speed skiing.â€ The governing International Ski Federation is being blamed for not taking corrective action. Street, who won the Super-G at Nagano and then received career-threatening injuries in the last DH of the 1998 season, is still trying to make the U.S. starting list in Utah. She says she will retire after the Winter Games, but in the meantime dominates the womenâ€™s team in sponsorships and TV commercials. Saturday Street was 48th in a Super-G in Europe, while quiet little Kirsten Clark of Sugarloaf, Maine, was on the podium with a Bronze medal. Four other U.S. skiers were ahead of Picabo. The return of natural snow brought forth the first fatal accident in snowmobiling Thursday Night in Maine when 17-year-old Amanda Foss was thrown into trees after her driver, Garth Norris, also 17, lost control. There are around 50 ski fatalities in the U.S. each winter, but usually that many snowmobile deaths in the Northeast alone. And most of the snowmobile victims have alcohol in their systems. This is not to say that some skiers and boarders do not combine spirits or even stimulants before and while participating in their sports, but ginger brandy seems to be a favorite companion on nighttime snowmobile sojourns. Now that I have insulted some folks, I enjoyed some cognac while watching a ballet performance in a hotel atop a mountain peak hotel and then began a late afternoon four-mile descent to the valley. Skiing like a champion (I thought), I managed to crash, break off a ski tip and struggle on one ski the remaining two miles. That was in April, 1946, and I never had a drink again until I had put the skis away. Safety has been a concern of the ski world since the sport was taken up by the masses after the 1932 Olympics at Lake Placid. And after the death of New Yorker Frank Edson while racing the Shadow Trail in the Pittsfield State Forest in the early â€™30s, Minot Dole was determined to establish the National Ski Patrol. Since then the NSP has been a fixture at all ski resorts and all ski events. I was a one-man paid ski patrol at Berthoud Pass, Colorado, and was overjoyed when the NSP people from Denver showed up to help, if not take over my duties. We lost a NSP member Dec. 16, when Huck Finn of Lenox, died suddenly at his home. Formally known as Hilbert H. Finn, Huck was a retired insurance executive, but he never stopped patrolling. This winter marked the beginning of his 40th year on the Jiminy patrol. He held numerous positions on all levels of the NSP and was a true adventurer, reaching 19,000-foot summits in Nepal in October. He enlisted in the Navy at 17 and after World War II was called to duty in the Korean War. Truly a man for all seasons! John Hitchcock of Williamstown writes frequently about the area sports scene.

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North Adams Airport Welcomes Flight School

By Jack GuerinoiBerkshires Staff
05:32AM / Thursday, April 23, 2026

NORTH ADAMS, Mass. — Hewison Aviation operations manager Maura Hewison told the Airport Commission on Tuesday that the company plans to bring a flight school to North Adams.

"We have great things that we are going to be unveiling in the coming months," Hewison said. "You will see people in the airport and in classes. It will liven up the airport and bring a lot of joy."

The flight school has three locations in New York state; the North Adams operation will be its fourth. It offers private and commercial pilot training, as well as discovery flights, among other services.

Hewison was standing in for Airport Manager Andrew Franklin. Hewison Aviation is the manager of the North Adams airport, and Franklin is an employee of the firm.

Hewison said the company worked throughout the winter to establish a presence at Harriman and West. Now that the snow has melted, its presence will become much more visible.

"I am looking forward to sprucing up the place," she said. "I want it to be a welcoming environment, and I want people to be happy when they walk into the airport."

She said the airport has a lot of potential, especially with the possibility of a restaurant.

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