Ski culture in the Vermont backcountry

With four feet of fresh powder falling last week, it did not take much for me to accede to a friend’s invitation to Mad River Glen. Known for its challenging terrain, minimalist approach to snowmaking, and single chair, Mad River—“Ski it if you can,” blares their bumper sticker—is a simple and traditional resort. It’s the kind of place where ownership is cooperative, snowboarders aren’t allowed, and most people in the lift lines are old friends. Access to one of the few slopeside condos is not something to be taken lightly.

As post-dump hordes assembled—the ticket office closed at 10:30—Mad River’s minimalist approach backfired rather spectacularly. The power in the valley went down, leaving only one lift working on the entire mountain. This, the single chair, remained in service because it is so old that it actually runs on diesel. Thousands of people were forced to wait up to an hour to get to the top of the mountain. Mad River did give out vouchers for a free day of skiing to those who called it a day before three, but I missed the cut after foolishly trying to maximize my time on the slopes and getting stuck in “Upper Glades” around 2:55.

So on Sunday, we ditched for the more intrepid slopes of Camel’s Hump, which is true skiing backcountry. Unlike the New Hampshire ridges that I am more familiar with, Vermont seems to have many open forests high on its mountains—beech and birch glades instead of dense Spruce-Fir forests. Whatever the reason, it makes for superb skiing. Only without a lift, you’re in charge of getting yourself to the top.

The most efficient way is to strap a pair of skins to the bottom of your skis and “skin” up. The hairs on the skins angle so that ski can move forward but not back. For the original enthusiasts of ski touring, as the sport is known, skins were just that—an animal product—useful for getting around (or after animals) in the winter. Even today, the sport is far more popular in Europe than in America, though it is growing rapidly here. These days, however, synthetic fabrics have replaced animal skins.

In America, skinning has long been the province of telemark skiers, whose releasable heel allows them to go uphill. The heyday of New England telemark skiing was in the 1930s, when its cheapness and wholesome appeal led skiers to cut dozens of trails across New England. Weekend “snow trains” ran from Boston to New Hampshire, allowing urbanites access to the best skiing in the region, the crown jewel of which was, as it is now, Tuckerman’s Ravine (known as Tuck’s to any telly skier worth his salt). The Inferno, an insanely steep and extended run named for a similarly intense race in Murren, Switzerland (which still exists and is part of the World Cup circuit), ran for three years in this period. In 1939, Toni Matt, a young Austrian who, having never skied Washington before, took the Tuckerman headwall without turning and won, halving the previous record. He later said he felt lucky to be “nineteen, stupid, and have strong legs.”

In the postwar period, skiing began to catch on with mainstream America. Resorts cropped up all over New England, and with the convenience and accessibility of lifts, telemarking’s popularity declined in favor of fixed heel alpine skiing. Only a few die-hards, preferring the simple approach, kept the sport alive.

In recent years, that has begun to change. It is nothing unusual to see people skinning up the slopes of a New England resort; indeed, telemarking is growing exponentially. As people have grown tired of the commercial nature of downhill skiing, they are embracing the simple, stylish telemark alternative. The telemark turn, though slower than its alpine equivalent, is remarkably graceful and beautiful to watch, and it also provides more of a challenge and workout than alpine skiing.

Telemarking is growing suspiciously popular, however; among outdoor people, it is becoming a test of how hardcore one is. As alpine skiing has, telemarking will lose its mystique if its appeal changes from aesthetic to joining the bandwagon.

Practically speaking, telemarking gear isn’t the best way to get around in the backcountry. In Europe and Canada, alpine touring gear is the norm—this system combines the best aspects of telemarking and alpine skiing. With AT bindings, the heel releases for skinning uphill, but it also clips in for easier turns on steep downhills. The advantages over telemark gear are considerable: AT equipment tends to be lighter, safer in a fall (as Andrew McLean of telemarktips.com points out, AT skis have a mechanical release system, whereas the telly release system is biological—your ACL breaking), more efficient on the uphill and more controlled on the downhill, has boots better suited to crampons, and is easier to put on (step-in vs. bend down and attach). What AT skis lack in countercultural appeal, they make up for in functionality.

But, to quote Mr. McLean again, “the beauty is in the thigh of the beholder.” Skiing, like so many sports, has a major image component to it, which extends to all aspects of the sport. My favorite, of course, is the language—I won’t ever be able to say the words “shred some gnar” or “wicked pow” without giggling. Freestyle skiers are adapting a badboy style which, promoted by ski porn, seems to be catching on, having first been adopted by snowboarders from skateboarders, and now a few skiers seem to be getting in on the act.

But that sort of things isn’t going away anytime soon, and if telemark skiing brings back the snow train and gets skiers out of resorts and into the backcountry, I’m all for it. Up at Camel’s Hump, the gnar was four feet deep, and we got in three runs before getting lost and having to break trail all the way back up a shoulder of the mountain. We had more time to admire the snow-laden trees in the backcountry, and the downhill, complete with wild shrieks, attempts at grinding on fallen trees, and the difficulty of extricating ourselves from several feet of powder, was all the more exhilarating for the climb.

Winter Days at Lonesome Lake

Appearing in the March issue of the North Star Monthly...

It’s 7 AM at Lonesome Lake Hut, and the thermometer reads -16 degrees. Outside, the wind whips across the frozen pond, searing any exposed skin. Meg Norris, better known to her friends and co-workers as Bajo (an old nickname from Spanish class, pronounced Ba-Ho), is already up checking the snow stake, wind speed, and temperature measurements for her eight o’clock radio call with her headquarters at Pinkham Notch.

To outsiders, the cold is perhaps the most daunting aspect of caretaking. “I’ve had whole stints like this,” Bajo remarks, referring to the below-zero chill as she scuttles out with a blowtorch to unfreeze the well pump. Later, she only half-jokingly speaks of temperatures “warming up to 5 degrees.”

The Appalachian Mountain Club, which operates its huts with a permit from the Forest Service, keeps three open on a self-service basis in the winter. Two caretakers trade weeklong shifts at each hut. 1.7 miles from Lafayette Place Campground in Franconia Notch, Lonesome Lake is closest to the road, but nestled in a bowl amidst Cannon and Kinsman Mountains, it is detached from the everyday world.

Such a situation requires considerable reserves of personality in the caretaker. “I’m good with people, and I know how much Bajo they can take,” my host jokes. Unlike in the summer, when hut croos cook for their guests, the caretaker is not responsible for feeding hiking parties. Bajo does have a number of daily duties, however: keeping the hut’s wood stove going from 4:00 to 7:00 in the afternoon, assisting guests with washing dishes (they are allowed to use the stoves and kitchenware in the hut, which makes their packs lighter but can be a headache for the caretaker), and generally being friendly and helpful. The main challenge is “Can you be hospitable in a cold environment? It’s way more, can you deal with people or not…you survive the weekends and look forward to the zero counts.”

The previous Saturday, with a full house of more than forty people, both the hand and electric pumps to the well broke, meaning that all the water for drinking, cooking, and washing had to be collected from snow outside and melted. “People were cranky,” Bajo chortles.

This evening, however, there is only one party of five, and they are in an amicable mood. As soon as Bajo gets the fire going, they extend an invitation to a dinner of barbecue chicken, sautéed potatoes, and corn, promptly accepted. Cooking up here tends to take a long time; besides, nobody wants to pack out extra food. As the pinkish alpenglow infuses the Franconia Range across the lake and the two older guys tell embarrassing stories about each other—last time they stayed at Carter Notch, one of them took a wrong turn during a nocturnal visit to the outhouse and landed in snow up to his armpits—it becomes clear they are a mixed group of family and friends. Drawn by the challenge and camaraderie of a winter outing, they make an annual outing to the huts. The off-season price is affordable, too—at $28 for non-AMC members, an individual saves almost $60 on full-service prices.

“It’s definitely a different crowd from the summer,” says Bajo. “[It’s] a hardier stock with a great sense of humor about how crazy they are.” Groups are often boisterous and cook with gusto, often having packed up surprisingly elegant items such as steak and wine. When asked about the post-dinner atmosphere, Bajo erupts into snickers. “Let’s not talk about the booze,” she says, and leaves it at that.

Some make the hike for a more rejuvenating experience. “People come up here specifically for camaraderie—a couple of people have come up who have just gotten out of jobs or relationships. Basically, I’ve worked as a therapist…it is kind of a cleansing thing for people to come up and unwind.” Once in a while a visitor gripes about the hut’s intrusion into wilderness or argues that its presences encourages inexperienced hikers to put themselves in harm’s way. Bajo endures such comments with a mixture of public patience and private frustration, meanwhile noting that such passers-by never fail to come inside to investigate the woodstove or drink a cup of tea.

Occasionally someone does come through without proper equipment or in the early stages of hypothermia. Then it is the caretaker’s responsibility to educate them about the risk of continuing or to warm them back up. Winter accidents in the White Mountains happen frequently, and immobilization is particularly dangerous in cold weather. Indeed, in late January, just across from Lonesome Lake in the Franconia Range, a combination of high winds, ambitious planning, and human error forced a lost climber to spend two nights out in the bitterly cold weather. Only after an intense and sustained search involving 65 searchers and two helicopters was he plucked off the mountainside, having sustained severe frostbite.

The cold does not seem to bother Bajo much, however, and she has carried up a couple of down blankets and makes hot water bottles to stay warm at night. Nor does she go hungry—the pantry, or “poop” as it is known in AMC slang, is stocked with more than enough staples to last till spring. “Freshies” she carries up herself at the beginning of her stint: “You can get by [without them], but you’d get scurvy. You’re packing milk, vegetables, butter—things you couldn’t get during the Great Depression.” On her last shift she brought up a fifty-pound bag of flour. “I hadn’t packed anything in a while and it kicked my ass!”

Loneliness is not much of a problem. “I do a lot of reading, a lot of writing…there’s a lot of thinking time. It depends on your personality, because some people do get lonely” (a caretaker at nearby Carter Notch Hut recently quit because the job was so solitary). When the radio squawks—Joanne, the caretaker at Zealand Falls Hut, is calling the AMC’s Construction Crew, presumably because something at her hut isn’t working—Bajo jumps up and runs to the radio to listen. “My program’s on!” she yells, and then comes back disappointed when no one responds to the radio call. “There’s enough work up here to occupy your time…at night, I listen to NPR, so it’s not like I don’t hear people’s voices for a week.”

Self-motivation is the key to accomplishing the gritty tasks it takes to keep the hut in good shape. “No one’s going to pat you on the back for reaming (cleaning) the stove,” she says. Cleaning the bathrooms, scraping ice off of windows, and scrubbing graffiti off of birch trees are some of her glamorous tasks. In colder weather, she chooses more active chores to stay warm.

A year ago, Bajo was working at an upscale women’s boutique clothing store in Burlington, where the money was good but the work uninspiring. Having paid off most of her college loans and seen the huts in action through a roommate at UVM, she applied to work for the AMC last fall and got a position on the croo at Lakes of the Clouds Hut. Hearing the friend’s stories about surviving the bitter winters made her wary of caretaking, but her enthusiasm for the mountains and simple lifestyle convinced her to try it, thus escaping another boring retail job at home in Connecticut.

Halfway through her winter term of employment, Bajo is already signed up to work at Mizpah Hut this summer and is thinking about another two months of spring caretaking. By August, she will have spent an entire year working in the backcountry. Born a flatlander, she prefers the rugged terrain of New Hampshire and Vermont and has plans to stay. After caretaking, she can survive anything. “It’s an opportunity to live a sparser life than in the frontcountry,” she says, and settles down for a late morning nap, to be followed by a couple of laps around the lake in the afternoon.

The ICA and the new South Boston waterfront

The trouble with modern art museums is that the buildings tend to overshadow the art within. This is the case with the ICA/Boston, an arresting new building on the Fan Pier just east of downtown. Its situation is magnificent, and it stands as a major milestone in the transformation of Boston’s waterfront.

The art itself is not worth the visit, however, so I will sum it up briefly. The first glimpse of the collection in the lobby is Chiho Aoshima’s “Divine Wind”—a giant anime girl reclining along one enormous wall in the lobby, issuing a swirl of multicolored clouds and flowers from her bottom. This attempt at an ironic joke ends up only warning of the predictable and boring installations. The most flattering adjective one can apply to the collection is “interesting,” and with a few exceptions, “self-indulgent,” “contrived,” and “kitschy” are more accurate.

The building itself and the position it occupies in the evolution of Boston’s urban planning are fascinating, especially with all the recent activity having to do with the Big Dig. With the dismantling of the Central Artery downtown, planners are converting the new space into the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a well-intentioned but poorly reasoned scheme because too few people live downtown to make use of the open space (those who live in the North End might, but the Greenway is isolated between two wide boulevards and doesn’t lead to any useful citizen amenities, just the financial district).

A wiser plan would have converted the land into prime building space, easing the pressure on the already cramped real estate market. Instead, development is spilling across Fort Point Channel and onto the South Boston waterfront. Long home to docks, fish processing plants and distribution centers, vast parking lots, and the odd upscale seafood restaurant (Anthony’s on Pier 4, more recently the Barking Crab), the area is no stranger to redevelopment; the World Trade Center has spawned a colony of sleek hotels to the east, and the new Moakley Federal Courthouse is a massive castle-like edifice on the edge of Fort Point Channel. The old brown turntable bridge has been replaced by a sleeker, less distinctive span.

The ICA building heralds a shift in focus, however. No longer will the South Boston waterfront serve primarily industrial and commercial functions (most fishing operations have already moved south to New Bedford and Fall River), but, like the stretch of shore just south of the North End, anchored culturally by the Boston Aquarium and which underwent a similar metamorphosis thirty years ago, it will now have a cultural and residential purpose.

Nine blocks of new development, replacing a wide expanse of parking lots, are slated for Fan Pier. The developer, Joseph Fallon, is planning a new luxury hotel and residential building adjacent to the ICA, to be followed by various further office and residential buildings depending on demand. While the buildings are hardly skyscrapers—mostly within the 150 to 225 ft. range—their size will make it difficult for them to create the neighborhood feel of the North End or Back Bay.

Fallon, who bought the land from the embattled Pritzker family of Chicago (they have recently been embroiled in an intra-family lawsuit over the size of a grandchild’s inheritance), is intent on replicating the ICA’s glass and steel (International) architecture.

Should he? Many critics, perhaps most notably Nicolai Ouroussoff of the New York Times, are ecstatic over the new ICA. Ouroussoff calls it “a startling display of public-spiritedness,” meanwhile noting Boston’s conservative taste in architecture. The building is intriguing and from some angles, attractive. Its cantilevered fourth floor is at its best when viewed from the east or west; unfortunately, it presents itself as a box to the south, which is the angle from which most people will see it. Inside, the lobby and restaurant occupy most of the first floor, while the second and third are taken up by a theater. The fourth floor is reserved for art, and thanks to the cantilevered design, it is much bigger than one might imagine. Two features stand out—the mediatheque, basically a downward-angling computer lab looking meditatively into the blue harbor, and a long observation corridor, which offers a stunning view of the harbor and the East Boston Shore through an entirely glass wall. Finally, the future boardwalk lining the waterfront is another excellent idea.

Fallon has found an ally in Mayor Tom Menino, who is salivating at the prospect of escaping the monstrosity that is Boston’s current city hall by building a new one further east on the South Boston waterfront. While Menino’s eagerness to move out of the dysfunctional and hideous current building (which some say is responsible for Boston’s antipathy to architectural experiments) is understandable, making a new one on the waterfront makes little sense logistically—the neighborhood is isolated, its only connection to public transportation being the much lauded but essentially slow Silver Line, and Boston does not need to further entrench its political establishment in Southie. Redeveloping the current site would make far more sense.

What’s unique architecturally about the ICA in Boston, however, is not necessarily distinctive on the international stage. Cantilevered roofs are currently in vogue among designers of cultural buildings—note Henning Larson’s new Operaen (Copenhagen Opera House) or Vienna’s refurbished Albertaina. The ICA building and future developments on Fan Pier will make a striking contrast to what Ouroussoff calls “Boston’s architectural aspirations: brick,” but will they be livable? Does Boston want to distinguish itself architecturally by emulating successful features of world cities or by emphasizing its own quirks? Is it possible to construct a vibrant urban neighborhood from glass and steel, or is Fan Pier destined to become an enclave of the wealthy and isolated as well as a tourist destination, meanwhile depriving Boston of another piece of its maritime past?

Hitting up the Mount Washington Hotel hot tub

Saturday morning saw me quit EMS. At daybreak on Sunday, RD Jenkinson and I were preparing for Wildcat Mtn. And on Monday, after a steamy night courtesy of an overloaded wood stove, I dropped into International Mountain Equipment in North Conway. There I ran into fellow AMC Naturalist Lynne Zummo, who needed a ride down to Boston that night, where I was heading.

What to do in the meantime? I learned on my last day up at Mizpah this fall how easy it is to lean on those who can afford it. The Mount Washington Hotel, home to the Bretton Woods Conference where ideas for the IMF and World bank were hatched, is the poshest resort up north. Blessed with a superb location—the Hotel faces the main ridge of the Presidentials, dominated by Mt. Washington—it is the last of the venerable old hotels which used to dot the White Mountains and Lakes Region, somehow having escaped fire. It’s a place that likes to do things on a grand scale, whether in its “Spanish Renaissance” architecture or the massive fireworks we saw through the fir trees on a Crawford Path night hike this fall.

The irony of a place like the Mt. Washington Hotel is that most guests are social climbers. They aren’t the confident, suave people one imagines luxuriating in a place like this; rather, they go there to impress themselves and their friends. It’s not unusual to hear a strong New Hampshuh accent on the verandah, or to see a mom shushing her kids in the front hall. The jetset may have frequented the Mt. Washington Hotel back in the 40s and 50s, but now they’re going to Vail or the Carribean in the winter.

So if you can look a doorman in the eye and keep the cuss words to a minimum, it’s not too hard to blend in. After all, the staff isn’t going to challenge you—you might be the rough around the edges face of new money, for all they know.

Enter via the side door closest to the parking lot (that is, unless you choose valet): the pool is all the way at the end of the corridor, about a quarter of a mile away. The hotel provides towels—all you need is a swimsuit, or in my case, a pair of boxers. In addition to the Jacuzzi, there are two pools, an indoors and a heated outdoors. I prefer the latter—the view of the Presidentials is tremendous, and the steam rising off the surface in cold weather (it was about 10 degrees out on Monday) is both beautiful and conducive to privacy.

If you feel like mingling, head upstairs after your soak and grab a paper and a cocktail in the main hall. The late afternoon alpenglow on the Presidentials is particularly fine. And as you head at the door, a snappy farewell is a nice parting shot—I find that “Ciao” seems to elicit the most patronizing response from the doorman.

Luxury is a dangerous habit but a delightful treat.

Two for the trail

This article will appear in Macalester Today, our alumni magazine.

When news reached me last summer that Ari Ofsevit `06, a fellow Bostonian and geography major, was attempting to hike the entire Appalachian Trail, I thought first of his collegiate devotion to GIS computer mapping and cross-country skiing. I also thought that to begin just after graduation in early June was foolish; most thru-hikers, as they’re called, start before April to avoid finishing the 2,176-mile journey in winter.

But I hoped that I would see Ari, whom I got to know well during a drive home from Mac a few years ago, at Mizpah Hut in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, where I was working another season in environmental education. The hut is only a couple hundred miles from the trail’s norhern terminus atop Mount Katahdin in Maine.

When Ari, having completed the bulk of the trail at a blistering pace, appeared in September—we nearly missed each other due to the difficulty in communication—he looked thinner than I remembered and bore the customary thru-hiker stink. But despite his 15-mile day, he brimmed with energy and opinions. Almost all thru-hikers take a trail name—his, he told me, was Ziploch. “That happened in southern Virginia,” he said. “I had dumped all my food out—everything was in a Ziploc bag—camera, lighters. A guy looked over and said, ‘You got a trail name yet?’" uch is the prevalence of Ziploc bags that the trail name recurs from year to year—misspelling it made it Ari’s own.

All thru-hikers delight in quirks and stories. As Ari puts it with typical frankness, “A lot of people [on the trail] are well balanced. But anyone who sets out to hike 2,200 miles is nuts. Every so often you snap back to reality when you meet a real loony.” At Mizpah, I heard stories about a thru-hiking family, a man looking for a wife on the trail, and a roving band of Mennonites—all of whom, to my surprise, eventually appeared.

The length and isolation of the AT make the trek a profound experience. Ari says, “There’s a mantra on the trail—hike your own hike. It’s a really good ethos and a hard one to adhere to.”

Since Ari started so late from the trail’s southern end in Georgia’s Springer Mountain, he hiked at a speedy clip to finish before winter. He reached Katahdin on Oct. 17, having encountered snow and sub-freezing temperatures. “I had people telling me you’re going too fast, you’re missing all the people. But that’s not what I wanted to do, what I set out to do.”

Along the way Ari encountered 13 bears, a bald eagle, two rattlesnakes (“I almost stepped on a third—I’m not sure if it was a rattlesnake or a copperhead”) and two moose (“when you’re in Maine and you hear something that sounds like Bigfoot, it’s a moose”). “I don’t miss having to carry my stove and my life, treating my water, tripping over roots,” he said. “I don’t miss the rainy days and the hot days. I miss the beautiful nights, having the weather and terrain playing such a big role in my life…. There were times I’d sit down for a half-hour and absorb things. It could be overwhelming.” (For Ari's Web site of his adventures on the AT, see http://ofsevit.dynalias.com:8081/at.)

We spent the next night at Mizpah, where I introduced Ari to the rest of my croo (slang for staff in the huts, all eight of which are run by the Appalachian Mountain Club) and our cooking and food packing chores. Hut life is simple and repetitive, livened by irreverent banter, the immediacy of the weather and the delight of 60 guests when you present them with a surprise chocolate cake dessert. Both Ari and I are considering working in the White Mountains next summer.

By morning, the weather had turned raw as Ari headed on across the Presidential Range. But first, we shared that most pleasant aspect of the trail—an evening by the warm stove, telling stories and chewing over Macalester gossip while the cook prepared coffee cake and eggs for breakfast.

In the months since, I’ve missed the simplicity and sense of purpose I found working along the trail. The huts and the AT cannot exist by themselves; rather, they are a reservoir of tranquility when crowds and schedules threaten to overwhelm. Ari is heading off to Maine for work with the Quebec Labrador Foundation at the Center for Community GIS; at my current job selling outdoor equipment, I find myself contemplating a hut caretaking position for the spring. As Thoreau wrote, it offers, amid the delicate beauty of the changing seasons, the chance “to live deliberately, to confront only the essential facts of life.”

Where are Boston's food co-ops?

According to Localharvest.com, a treasure trove for finding organic and local food sources, only three food co-ops exist within Route 128—Harvest Co-op Markets in Jamaica Plain and Cambridge, and Good Health Natural Foods, Inc. in Quincy. Other northern cities such as St. Paul and Minneapolis or Seattle are home to 8 or 9 co-ops each. What is it about Boston that has hindered co-op development? Could it be a lack of appreciation among Bostonians for organic and local food? A reluctance to join? Competition from establishment stores such as Whole Foods? And why has Harvest Co-op, founded in the early seventies, survived?

Co-op markets became popular in the seventies when, seeking organic and local food that mainstream grocery stores rarely carried, customers banded together to create an alternative. Members enjoy relatively low prices through the co-op’s bulk purchase of high quality foodstuffs, and they also have a say in what products the store stocks. “Neighborhood people are our base,” says Chris Durkin, Director of Membership and Community Relations. Customers tend to be well-educated and affluent—as Durkin puts it, “There’s a knowledge and awareness.”

Harvest’s two branches started separately. Students at Boston University created a pre-order co-op, which later moved to Allston and finally, in 1998, to JP. The Cambridge store was founded by community activists with a Federal Model City Grant in 1975. When it nearly went bankrupt in 1992 following the move to its current location in Central Square, the Allston Store offered to help, and subsequently they joined for good.

Both co-op sites are among, in Durkin’s words, “diverse, very inclusive neighborhoods that are more accepting.” Small independent stores and corporate outlets such as the Gap coexist with Harvest along Mass Ave in Central Square, where the pace of change has recently accelerated. Nearby old factory buildings now house biotech companies, bringing an infusion of wealth to the traditionally working-class neighborhood. In JP, the co-op is a stone’s throw from trendy Centre Street, yet it also borders the mostly Hispanic, lower-income end of South Street. Indeed, many of the co-op’s workers speak Spanish to one another.

Nowadays, Harvest’s General Manager Mike St. Clair thinks the business climate is more challenging. “Big chains are figuring out natural and organic,” he says. Besides competition, the cost of startup is formidable. He estimates it would now cost 3-5 million dollars to start an urban co-op from scratch.

Until recently, big chains focused on suburban markets, where costs were cheap and demand high. “Co-ops went into places where regular companies didn’t think they could make money,” says St. Clair, which is why some rural areas, as well as cities, are strongholds for co-ops.

A major catalyst for the growth of organic and natural foods was a 60 Minutes episode on the 1989 Alar apple scare, named for a carcinogen used by farmers to ripen apples simultaneously. The demand for organic food, and with it, co-ops, has risen steadily ever since, pushed by subsequent alarm over Mad Cow Disease and contaminated milk. Ironically, the recent E. Coli spinach scare shows that organic food is quite susceptible to contamination, and it is virtually impossible to save apples from worms unless chemical pesticides are used.

Nonetheless, the organic industry is now worth well over 10 billion dollars, and mainstream supermarkets, most notably Whole Foods but also Wal-Mart, have smelled profit. Whereas in the early nineties natural food stores sold over two-thirds of all organic products and supermarkets less a tenth, supermarkets now sell by far the greater share.

Harvest Co-ops now have an even greater incentive to emphasize the quality and local nature of their products. “We count on the community coming in and shopping,” says Durkin. That the co-ops stock Coke and Pepsi may seem surprising, but Durkin says, “We don’t dictate what people should buy… Education is on top of everything.” On the other hand, Harvest’s selection of spices and bulk foods is truly distinctive; while these items aren’t particularly profitable, they are popular with customers. And in a nod to influx of professionals in East Cambridge, the co-op stocks a wide variety of microbrews.

St. Clair expanded upon how the Harvest aspires to serve the local community. “Our profits go back to the community.” Regarding local vendors, “We can turn on a dime.” Whereas it would take a big chain several months to integrate a local farm’s products into its supply chain, if indeed it was willing to at all, Harvest can get a novel product such as Water Buffalo Yogurt onto its shelves in under a week after a deal. Besides, Harvest allows locals such as Red Fire Farm, of Granby, Massachusetts, to run CSAs out of its parking lot. “We know it takes business away from us,” says St. Clair. “We accept that.”

Other co-ops have not been as agile. Gloucester’s Cape Ann Food Co-op succumbed last year, leaving the North Shore without a co-op.

Certainly Bostonians have an affinity for local products. The cluster of farmers markets in the metro area—20 to 25, depending on how one defines the metro area—rivals that of any major American city. Rachel Travers examined the popularity of gourmet food stores with a natural twist, especially in affluent suburbs, in the Winter issue of Edible Boston.

Bostonians were actually quite hospitable to the sustainable food movement in its early days. Distribution followed a different model here than in other towns. Bread & Circus, so named because it sold wooden toys along with culinary items, was founded in Brighton in 1975 and quickly won a loyal following. Subsequent stores opened in Cambridge, Wellesley, and Newton, with farther flung outposts in Hadley and Providence.

Durkin speculates that Bread and Circus diminished the demand for co-ops. In other cities, he says, “people were more used to working together for things.” In Boston, St. Clair adds, “People aren’t aware what co-ops are.”

Whole Foods bought Bread and Circus in 1992, and it has since expanded the chain to 15 stores in the Boston metro area, with three in Cambridge alone, one of which is only a couple hundred yards away from Harvest. Soon, another will appear in Dedham—the company is trying hard to make inroads in suburbia. Prospect Street, however, is a relatively small stores, roughly similar in layout to the nearby Harvest Co-op. The employees with whom I spoke were genuinely upbeat about their jobs, giving their employer high praise. But they declined my request to quote them for this article, instead, referring me to Bill McGowan, Senior Produce Coordinator for the company.

McGowan affirmed that Whole Foods allows its stores some autonomy, indeed, that “part of the mission is to help grow the local offering… We set up a relationship with a farm in advance—when the season comes, they’ll come to us [with the product].” McGowan could not, however, estimate what percentage of Whole Food’s products is local. A glance at product labels around the store shows that the vast majority arrive via the regional distribution center in Cheshire, Connecticut. Regarding competition, McGowan shies away from generalization. “We try to keep ourselves differentiated by offering more organic items,” he says. That contrast, of course, is with conventional grocers, rather than co-ops, which are now emphasizing the local nature of their products to separate themselves from Whole Foods.

Of Whole Foods, St. Clair speaks unequivocally. “They’re big, corporate, and vicious. But every day they go further corporate, we differentiate ourselves from them. There’s a benefit for us.”

Thus far, however, while Harvest may be holding its own, Whole Foods is growing steadily. In the end, Boston’s preference for established supermarkets probably speaks most to the city’s comfort with the establishment.

The Worst Weather in the World

This article appears in the January issue of the North Star Monthly, a paper published in Danville, VT. The editor is Terry Hoffer, father of one of my croomates at Mizpah this fall...

“STOP. The area ahead has the worst weather in America. Many have died there from the exposure—even in the summer. Turn back now if the weather is bad.”

So read the signs on the edge of the alpine zone in New Hampshire’s White Mountains. Posted by the US Forest Service, the warning seems exaggerated on a warm summer day. But Mt. Washington’s fame as host of “the worst weather in the world” is warranted. The record of fatalities on its flanks is grim—135 since 1894, and of those, 59 expired during the months June-September. What makes Mt. Washington’s weather so deadly

Since 1932, the Mt. Washington Observatory has explored this question by monitoring the weather and conducting research atop its lonely perch at 6,288 feet. In the words of Scott Henley, the Executive Director of the Observatory, the place attracts “a certain kind of person… avid outdoorsmen and women. It’s a grueling job because you’re marooned up there.” The staff on Washington includes day and night observers who switch off on 12 hour long shifts, an intern, and the occasional visiting scientist.

I talked to Jon Cotton, the night Observer, late one night after he finished one of his hourly forays to check the instruments. Most of the measurements must be taken manually because the weather tends to disrupt electronics.

Cotton, 26, has been working at the Observatory in various capacities since 2003. A native of New Hampshire, he worked seven seasons as a hutman for the Appalachian Mountain Club and found that the Observatory, in addition to allowing him to pursue his twin passions for computer science and the outdoors, filled out his seasonal schedule.

Cotton identifies three main hazards that Observers look out for when going outside to monitor their instruments. Lightning, extreme winds, and severe white out conditions are all excellent grounds for staying indoors. “You get used to what you can take,” he says, and adds that as the staff knows exactly where to find their instruments and do not have to walk far, getting lost in a whiteout is usually not a problem.

Many visitors to Mt. Washington have not been so astute. In October, 1855, only one month after Lizzie Bourne famously expired a mere stone’s throw from the Tip-Top House, a summit hotel, Dr. Benjamin Ball, nearly shared the same fate.

Despite encountering bad weather and warnings at the Camp House, a way station along the Carriage Road, Ball recklessly coveted the summit. He had neither a guidebook nor experience hiking in the White Mountains, but he did carry a conspicuous umbrella.

Though he reached the crag that now bears his name, only a half-mile from the summit, Ball was repulsed by furious weather and retreated below treeline to spend a first night. He was no luckier in the morning—caught in unrelenting snow and clouds, he wandered all day across the alpine tundra until nightfall, when he again took refuge under the umbrella. Only on the third day did he run into a search party, allowing Ball to avoid succumbing to hypothermia.

The elements are not responsible for all the deaths on Washington. Accessible by car and train, 25 people have died in vehicular accidents. The causes have ranged from an out-of-control railcar to plane crashes and drunk driving—of the 1880 variety, involving a horse and carriage. Indeed, when the mountain’s cog railway was first built, its workers used to descend into the valley on slideboards at fabulous speeds. Only after four men died from sailing off into the rocks was the practice forbidden.

19 people have died on Washington from natural causes. The hordes of visitors to the summit make it inevitable that some deaths occur.

Hypothermia, falling ice, avalanches, falls, and drowning have killed the rest. The climate of the Presidential Range, of which Mt. Washington is the most prominent summit, is uniquely harsh. Treeline, the point at which trees are replaced by grass and shrubs, is the lowest in the world for its latitude. The ground record for wind speed, 231 mph, occurred on Mt. Washington in April, 1934.

Mountains change weather in three ways. They increase wind and precipitation and decrease temperature.

The prevailing wind around Mt. Washington is from the west. When it hits the Presidentials, the mountains force it to rise. Since gravity tugs on air molecules blown by the wind, they stay as close to the ground as possible when they pass over the top of ridge. This creates a funneling effect: with so much air passing through a small space, the wind picks up to create space for new arrivals.

Cotton compares the phenomenon to putting your thumb over a garden hose. As you constrict the flow of water, its speed rises where it can still exit the hose.

At the Observatory, average wind speed is 35 mph, and during the winter, the wind blows above 75 mph every other day on average. At Pinkham Notch, in contrast, about 4000 feet below at the eastern base of the mountain, the average wind is 4 mph.

Pinkham tends to be considerably warmer than the Observatory, too. In the atmosphere, as elevation increases, air pressure eases because there are fewer air molecules pressing down on those below. Molecules therefore expand and cool, which is why temperature usually decreases 3-5 degrees for every 1000 feet of elevation gained. In the winter, the jet stream moves south, bringing a blast of arctic air down with it. The average temperature at the Observatory is 26 degrees—meaning that for most of the year at the summit, precipitation forms as snow rather than rain.

On average, the mountain gets about 21 feet of snow per year. The strong west wind blows most of it off the high ridges and into the ravines on the east side of the mountain, thus making Tuckerman Ravine the premiere location for backcountry skiing in the northeast.

The Observatory staff works two week rotations, with eight days on and six off. Being outdoorsy group, they are often out and about on the mountainside. Neil Lareau, a day Observer, was spotted carving telemark turns down the auto road after the first snowfall in October.

In all, Washington gets a yearly average of 86 inches of “liquid equivalent”—that is, rain and snow after it has been melted. Coastal New England, in contrast, only receives about 40 inches per year.

This regional variation happens because air cools as it passes up and over the high ridges and thereby loses its ability to retain moisture. Water vapor visibly condenses and accretes into clouds—it is no coincidence that mountains tend to be wreathed in mist. Mt. Washington, for instance, is in the clouds 60% of the time. Eventually, if the temperature cools to the dew point, water vapor condenses into rain—or, if the dew point is below 32 degrees, snow.

Sometimes it is so cold that fog freezes directly onto buildings and plants, creating rime ice. While it has a delicate feathery appearance, rime ice damages trees in the alpine zone by freezing onto windward branches, thus allowing the wind to tear them off the trunk. The trees, if they survive, end up looking like flags or broomsticks, which is how botanists refer to them.

You can usually tell how high snow cover is above treeline by observing how tall plants grow. Anything that sticks out above the snow will succumb to rime ice and wind, so plants adapt by growing out instead of up.

All of these phenomena influence mountains across the globe, but the weather in the Presidentials is particularly potent due to its geography.

Anyone who has spent much time living in northern New England will notice that spells of good and bad weather tend to be brief—usually only a couple of days. This is because the prevailing west winds send alternating high and low pressure systems through the region.

High pressure systems are broad domes of air that can stretch over several states. They generally bring clear skies and cold temperatures. Most air is in the middle, and because air is always trying to equalize pressure, winds blow out from the center and spin clockwise around it.

Low pressure systems, on the other hand, are elongated and form between high pressure systems. They circulate in a counterclockwise direction, and as air blows into the center from high pressure systems, it eventually rises up to make space for molecules behind it. As water vapor gains altitude and cools, it condenses into rain, so low pressure systems tend to be wet.

In New England, low pressure systems bring in cold northern air due to their counterclockwise movement. Following on their tail, high pressure systems, rotating clockwise, reinforce the northern chill. The ensuing blast of arctic air into New England is sometimes called “the Polar Express” and explains why the region is so cool.

Indeed, the northeast is a magnet for low pressure systems. Of the 12 major storm tracks crossing the country, 9 of them exit via New England, and three converge above the Presidentials, which form a massive barrier to their progress.

“We’re the tailpipe of the United States,” says Cotton. He uses the nautical concept of fetch—the length of an area generating wind—to explain the violent gales on Washington. In a sailboat close to land, trees block the wind, making fetch negligible and sailing dull. If you move the sailboat out to the middle of the ocean, however, fetch will be much higher, sending the sailboat along much faster.

West of Mt. Washington, the next big impediment to wind is the Rocky Mountains. Gales have the entire distance across the Plains and Midwest to intensify before bursting over the ridge of the Presidentials.

Thus the area receives a furious infusion of strong winds, cold air, and moisture, making hurricane-force winds possible at any time of year and giving the area a precipitation profile to rival that of the Olympic Peninsula—except that Mt. Washington gets much more snow.

It is not surprising, then, that some American alpinists prepare for the Himalayas by climbing in the Presidentials, or that several former staff members at the Observatory have gone on to work at research stations at the South Pole. The severity of the storms and the quickness with which they spring up make it essential for any visitor, whether prepared for a blizzard or simply a summer jaunt to Lakes of the Clouds Hut, to be fully aware of the potential for danger on the mountain and have an escape plan in case dirty weather should roll in.