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Stories about the intersection of sports and climate change
The post-war years weren’t kind to the Thunderbolt. This was a time when America, steamrolling into the future, decided it no longer needed a lot of things we’re only just now coming back around to appreciate: inter-city rail, bicycle commutes, food that comes from a farm in the next town over instead of a factory. Backcountry skiing was stuffed into the bottom of our national closet. No one wanted to hike up a mountain to ski when you could fly up on a chair and, while you’re at it, grab a beer at the summit before your next run.
Plans to add lifts and base lodges to Greylock were floated every now and again, but nothing ever materialized. The trail became overgrown with brush and, in certain places, it had become so narrow that it was hard to see if you didn’t know what you were looking for. Skiing one of the most important runs in American history now required you to fight through woody briers and dodge the occasional paper birch.
By the 1980s, the Thunderbolt had been all but forgotten. Only the most hardcore backcountry skiers knew it was still there; to everyone else it was a ghost, a vestige of town lore. But ghosts tend to linger in places like Adams, small towns that cling to whatever they can to remind the outside world they exist. (After all, this is a town that erected a statue to a former President, not because he was from there, but because he had merely visited a few times.) Adams needed the Thunderbolt, and the people who grew up there still heard the whispers: there’s an old trail up on Greylock; we used to be the center of the skiing world; you can still ski it if you dare.
Blair Mahar had grown up hearing the whispers. But he didn’t ski the Thunderbolt himself until he returned to Adams after college and a stint in the military and met a few of the backcountry skiers keeping the flame alive. One of those skiers was Heather Linscott. She’d actually been skiing the Thunderbolt since she was a kid, owing to the fact that her father happened to be the course champion of 1942. (He was just 16-years-old when he won it, besting a field that included Dick Durrance, an Olympian who would win the national downhill championship 17 times in his career.)
“I just love it,” she says. “You’re up there and it’s wild and quiet and it’s like you went to Colorado without getting on a plane.”
Mahar became hooked. Then he got an idea. The Thunderbolt’s 75th birthday was approaching. Could they restore the run to its former glory? Could they race on Greylock once more?
Mahar, Linscott, and a few others formed the Thunderbolt Ski Runners with the mission of reaching into history and yanking something back. They got permission from the state to widen the Thunderbolt to its historical dimensions and then got to work, slowly making their way up and down the mountain with weedwhackers and chainsaws. They hired ski patrollers, coordinated with the EMT departments of three different towns, and enlisted the help of over a hundred volunteers. Organizing a race was hard work that none of them knew how to do, but just before winter limped off in 2010, they pulled it off. Ninety competitors skied down the Thunderbolt on a sunny afternoon in early March, the first race on Greylock in over half a century.
Blair Mahar
“There’s really nothing like The Thunderbolt. It’s a true backcountry ski experience.”
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The chairlift hadn’t even been invented yet when the Civilian Conservation Corps cut a trail called the Thunderbolt down the slope of Greylock in 1935. There were no carbon fiber skis, no base lodges serving cocktails and farm-to-table small plates, no Eileen Gus, translating their ability to fall down a mountain in a controlled manner into a global corporate branding strategy. There was only the snow, and the mountain, and a single, winding path through the trees — one that you could only access by hiking up to the summit under your own power.
The Thunderbolt wasn’t the only trail cut by the CCC in the 1930s, but it was the best. Immediately upon its completion, Joseph Duncan, then the national downhill champion, called it “undoubtedly the most thrilling wooded ski run in the country.” Over the next decade, Greylock would host some of the most prestigious races in America. Past and future Olympians skied the Thunderbolt. Snow trains ran from Grand Central Station to Adams, Massachusetts, which was becoming known as “Little Switzerland,” as upwards of 6,000 spectators would descend upon the tiny town for big races.
The Thunderbolt even attained international renown. In 1939, Adolph Hitler, still trying to regain global sporting prestige in the wake of Max Schmeling’s loss to Joe Louis, dispatched a team of elite Austrian skiers to race Greylock. With swastikas sewn into their uniforms, the Austrians swept the podium against the local boys. The skiers would meet again soon enough, though — on a per capita basis, Adams would go on to enlist more men in the Army’s famed 10th Mountain Division than any other town in America. Men who grew up skiing Greylock would play a decisive role in forcing the Nazis off the Italian Apennines.
It isn’t just the history that makes the Thunderbolt so special though — it’s the fact that there’s almost nothing quite like it left in America. Most of the other trails cut by the CCC eventually became integrated into post-war resorts, complete with manmade snow and beginner skiers pizza-French frying down the mountain.
“There’s really nothing like The Thunderbolt,” says Blair Mahar, a high school teacher who grew up in the shadow of Greylock. “It’s a true backcountry ski experience. There is no snow making, no lights, no B-netting, no ski patrol, no lifts. You experience expert snow conditions — ice, powder, moguls, hard pack — sometimes all four on the same day.”
The Thunderbolt is one-of-a-kind, a hardcore skier’s dream, a winding, twisting time machine of a trail, just fifteen feet wide at some points. But if not for the efforts of Mahar and a small group of dedicated backcountry skiers, it might have been completely lost forever.
You’ve probably never heard of Mount Greylock, which is unfortunately the fate of the tallest mountain in a state not known for its mountains. But if there were any justice, you would have. It’s the heart of one of the East Coast’s outstanding four-season vacation destinations; it’s the namesake of one of the best craft gins you’ll ever drink; and it inspired one of the most important works in literary history, when a struggling novelist from New York moved up to the Berkshires and got to work on his masterpiece, orienting his desk to face the mountain, because the rounded slope of Greylock reminded 31-year-old Herman Melville of a whale.
For people like Shefftz, though, what’s important about Greylock is that it’s arguably the birthplace of American skiing.
AUGUST 23, 2022
by Dan Secatore
The first time I spoke with Jonathan Shefftz, a Harvard-trained economist who now dedicates much of his time to backcountry mountaineering, he was skiing up the 3,400-foot ice-encrusted slope of Mount Greylock in the Berkshire Hills. We were a little over a week away from a race in which competitors would strap skinning skis to their feet, ascend the tallest mountain in Massachusetts, ski down a wild and ungroomed 87-year-old trail dotted with boulders, natural moguls, and sheer sheets of ice, and then do the whole thing again — twice. As the director of America’s leading Olympic-format ski mountaineering racing series, Shefftz had to mark the trail, remove fallen trees and overgrown brush, and clear breakable crust. He had work to do.
As he made his way up the ice, though, I was at a coffee shop just 100 miles to the east in Boston — and I was sitting outside. The sun was on my face, a light jacket was draped over my shoulders, and a cup of iced coffee sat on the sidewalk table in front of me. It was that day — that first glorious day of spring weather after a winter that’s left your front hallway caked in road salt. Bright sun, singing birds, the grass in the park slick with mud and the footprints of seemingly every person in the neighborhood, all escaping their homes to finally, joyously, celebrate the end of winter.
This is one of the single best days of the year. It should be a municipal holiday. Your boss should be civilly liable for emailing you on this day. You should bear no burdens, face no responsibilities, have nothing to do but sit outside on a bench somewhere, counting the shoots emerging from the dirt and reminding yourself of the essential lesson of spring: that things can always — always — get better. That’s what spring is for.
The only problem was that it wasn’t spring. It was mid-February. There were half-deflated pink balloons in the window at CVS instead of shamrocks; the Nordic combined was on TV instead of a split-squad game in Sarasota. The sunlight isn’t quite right when this day hits so early; there isn’t quite enough birdsong. It’s unsettling, a 60-degree day in February, especially if you’re Jonathan Shefttz, working to host a race on one of the most historic ski runs in the entire country, knowing all the while that there’s a good chance the race will never happen.
Twelve years ago, a small group of backcountry skiers saved one of the most historic runs in America. Despite their efforts, we’re going to lose it anyway.
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From there, the Thunderbolt took off in popularity. Backcountry skiing in general was seeing a surge in interest, as never-ending lift lines and sky-rocketing resort prices were leading many skiers to seek out cheaper, back-to-nature alternatives. In Adams, town administrators seized upon the race as an opportunity to reinvent the faded mill town as an outdoor sports capital. The race became an annual event and was soon joined by Thunderfest, one of the largest outdoor winter festivals in New England. Soon, banners celebrating the Thunderbolt began appearing on light posts on the town’s main street, and a municipal building was converted into the Thunderbolt Ski Museum. Not only would the Thunderbolt be restored to its past glory, it would become the town’s identity.
Everything was lining up for Adams and the Thunderbolt to stake a new claim as one of America’s most important backcountry skiing destinations. There was talk that the sport would soon be added to the Olympic program (it’ll make its debut in the 2026 games). The annual downhill race was becoming so well known that the Thunderbolt Ski Runners were occasionally offered bribes by competitors who didn’t register in time. And the pandemic provided an even bigger boost to the sport in 2020, as many traditional resorts were forced to close for the winter. Backcountry skiing was blowing up, and its spiritual home was blowing up with it.
There was just one problem — those unsettling 60-degree days in February.
In the week after that first glorious day of spring weather, when I had been drinking iced coffee outside as talk of a Russian figure skating scandal dominated the news, Jonathan Shefftz made four more trips up Greylock to prep for the race. This can be tough and tedious work — at times he’s had to do it with a chainsaw strapped to his back to remove fallen trees — but it suits him, a natural outdoorsman with sun creases on his face who peppers emails to members of the backcountry racing circuit with references to Confucianist philosophy.
It was also necessary work, particularly this week. The spring weather had lingered, and one 60-degree day followed another. Even worse, there was rain. Backcountry skiing requires a stable snowpack — the sport is dangerous enough without having to worry about skiing over exposed rock. Shefftz was monitoring the course conditions daily and pinning his hopes on the weather: the long-range forecast called for a cold front to arrive the day before the race and bring a significant snowstorm with it. Despite the rain, he had hope.
By this point, though, hope is something that even the Thunderbolt Ski Runners had given up on. While the 2010 and 2011 races were smashing successes, they began to experience difficulty in 2012. This was supposed to be a special race for Linscott; it was the 70th anniversary of her father’s famous championship, and Mahar had arranged for her to wear his old bib number for the race.
Heartbreakingly for her, the race never happened. The first two weeks of February that year saw multiple days in the 50s, and not a single snowflake. They pushed the race back to March 3, hoping winter would find its way back to Adams in the intervening weeks. It didn’t. It was 51 degrees on race day and they canceled again.
The race would be canceled the next year, too, and then twice more over the next four years. By this point, organizing the race had become a massive undertaking. It was a multi-day event now, with a banquet the night before and medal ceremonies for the winners back in town. Putting in all that work was fine when the race was actually run, but it was hard to see the point as the cancellations piled up. After yet another cancellation in 2017, the Thunderbolt Ski Runners called it quits. One of the most famous downhill races in America would be lost once more.
Shefftz’s mountaineering style races have seen a little more success on Greylock. These grueling competitions don’t attract as big a field as the downhill, have more built-in flexibility for altering the course when necessary, and don’t come with the multi-day pomp that the downhill race had. Thus far, he’s only had to cancel 5 out of 13 races. But even still, there he was the week before the 2022 edition, watching the rain and hoping to be saved by one big storm.
“Skiing on Greylock is doomed in our lifetime.”
“There’s really nothing like The Thunderbolt. It’s a true backcountry ski experience.”
Jonathan Shefftz
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DANIEL SECATORE
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DANIEL SECATORE
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The snow did come. Six-to-eight inches of heavy stuff fell over the Berkshires the day before Shefftz’s race was set to take-off. Moreover, while the sky was clear and bright on the morning of the race, the air was frigid. As I drove to Greylock, I passed ponds frozen with ice so thick that snowmobiles raced around ice fishing tents. It was the type of crystalline winter day the Chamber of Commerce promises you.
But there was no race that day. It didn’t matter that the sidewalks of Adams were slick with ice. It didn’t matter that the tree branches on Greylock were fat with snow. The rain had done what rain does, washing away the snowpack and leaving the middle of the mountain completely bare.
I met Shefftz at the base of the mountain, where I had hoped to watch over 40 competitors race up Greylock. Instead, he handed me a goody bag of branded sunglasses, energy gel, and ski epoxy — sponsored merchandise that was supposed to go to the skiers and would now languish in the trunk of his car. “Skiing on Greylock is doomed in our lifetime,” he told me. Then he strapped his skinning skis on and went up the mountain once more — not to prep the course this time, but to take everything down.
The snow did come. Six-to-eight inches of heavy stuff fell over the Berkshires the day before Shefftz’s race was set to take-off. Moreover, while the sky was clear and bright on the morning of the race, the air was frigid. As I drove to Greylock, I passed ponds frozen with ice so thick that snowmobiles raced around ice fishing tents. It was the type of crystalline winter day the Chamber of Commerce promises you.
But there was no race that day. It didn’t matter that the sidewalks of Adams were slick with ice. It didn’t matter that the tree branches on Greylock were fat with snow. The rain had done what rain does, washing away the snowpack and leaving the middle of the mountain completely bare.
I met Shefftz at the base of the mountain, where I had hoped to watch over 40 competitors race up Greylock. Instead, he handed me a goody bag of branded sunglasses, energy gel, and ski epoxy — sponsored merchandise that was supposed to go to the skiers and would now languish in the trunk of his car. “Skiing on Greylock is doomed in our lifetime,” he told me. Then he strapped his skinning skis on and went up the mountain once more — not to prep the course this time, but to take everything down.
The snow did come. Six-to-eight inches of heavy stuff fell over the Berkshires the day before Shefftz’s race was set to take-off. Moreover, while the sky was clear and bright on the morning of the race, the air was frigid. As I drove to Greylock, I passed ponds frozen with ice so thick that snowmobiles raced around ice fishing tents. It was the type of crystalline winter day the Chamber of Commerce promises you.
But there was no race that day. It didn’t matter that the sidewalks of Adams were slick with ice. It didn’t matter that the tree branches on Greylock were fat with snow. The rain had done what rain does, washing away the snowpack and leaving the middle of the mountain completely bare.
I met Shefftz at the base of the mountain, where I had hoped to watch over 40 competitors race up Greylock. Instead, he handed me a goody bag of branded sunglasses, energy gel, and ski epoxy — sponsored merchandise that was supposed to go to the skiers and would now languish in the trunk of his car. “Skiing on Greylock is doomed in our lifetime,” he told me. Then he strapped his skinning skis on and went up the mountain once more — not to prep the course this time, but to take everything down.