Return to Pallavicini

We'll be heading to A-Basin in early March and hope to ski Pali Face it's signature Black Diamond Run. This letter to Skiing Magazine was written as a response to their guide.


A Pallavicinian Response
As soon as I saw your Guide to “Arapahoe Basin’s Pallavicini Lift” October 2008, I had to immediately call my long time ski buddy Jimbo Cline. “Page 55, do you think Mark saw the article?” was my question to Jim.

Back in ’02 the three of us did a week long, end of season, "Skiing Road Trip"; hitting all of our favorite Colorado resorts. Our last stop was A-Basin. Near the end of a great day we decided to try our luck on Pali Face a very steep run of almost 40 degrees. Jim suggested a quick pic of Mark and myself just below the top. That’s when near tragedy struck. The snow gave way under Mark’s downhill ski, he fell shoulder first down the face never getting a chance to get his skis under him. Mark slid and bounced till both of his skis snapped off and flew into the air. Mark franticly tried to self arrest to no avail. Jim and I helplessly watched Mark reach terminal velocity and start to bounce through the lower mogul fields before finally coming to rest down near Palliwog about 1,000 vertical feet below. Mark scared the shit out of us, we thought he was dead.

I never really got a chance to ski the run and just picked up bits and pieces of Mark’s debris as I made my way down to him. By some miracle Mark wasn’t killed or even badly injured just a little torn up from the corn snow exfoliation. A little blood dripped from his bitten tongue, and his jacket was up around his neck. We got him back to the lodge, poured him a beer, and called it the end of the day.

Now Mark is a big kid 300LBS, and a Springfield Cop, used to getting shot at by drug thugs, but his favorite nightmare remains his slide down Pali! One final note, Jim never did get the picture!





Mark “Sparky” at A-Basin late spring ‘02
Pali Face can be seen above him to the right.

Winter Welcome 2010/2011 NELSAP List

Samuel Smith's Winter Welcome 2010/2011 is now available at your favorite beer merchant; let the games begin!

Four NELSAP's in Western Mass>>

I'm ready and waiting for Winter. Lately I've been checking out some "Lost Ski Areas" at http://www.nelsap.org/ to add to my "Must Ski" hit list. Add some snow and I'll check them out real soon! Just in case you are not familiar with NELSAP it stands for New England Lost Ski Areas Project and it's website lists the region's known lost ski areas. Jeremy Davis founded the website in 1998 to preserve the memory of those lost ski areas. My goal is to find and ski as many of those areas as time and snow permits. Here are four I've visited recently that are on my Ski Radar!!

Williston Academy's Area 1946-1972 is found on the Easthampton side of Mt Tom. It had one rope tow and a few trails. A few of the trails look open enough to ski. We found the remains of the rope tow too. I hope to ski this area this winter along with a re-visit of Mt Tom Ski Area, my old stomping grounds.

Mitch's Hockanum Ski Ranch early to mid 1950's is at the base of Mt Holyoke on Rt47 in Hadley. I remember people sledding on this hill back when I was a kid. Hunting around you could see the old engine that powered this rope tow. The hill is really just a big field with an upper narrow trail feeding into it. If I'm already in the area skiing I'll give it a stab.




Tinker Hill 1954-1964 This is the first NELSAP area I ever skied and that was at least 15+ years ago. As a matter of fact the http://www.nelsap.org/ site didn't even exist yet when I made my first crude Telemark turns down it's old tow-line. According to NELSAP the Amherst College ski club privately used this area. I'd love to give this one another shot and try some of the offshoot trails on modern Telemark equipment.

Hemlock Hill Three Rivers/Palmer 1960's-1970's Never skied this one back in the day but many of my friends did. Some of the trails still look clear enough to ski so I'm hoping for an invite to go check it out this winter. Ski-In used to have a ski shop in town back then but later moved to their current location in Wilbraham. I worked for them in the late 80's thru early 90's in my mid-formative Ski-Bum years.