Beyond the Pond
An alien chatted amiably with an astronaut. Darth Vader handed a can of beer to a Conehead. A man with aluminum foil wrapped around his limbs and head sat sprawled on the snow and lamented to anyone that would listen how hard it was to find a girl who “wanted to live on 100 acres, debt-free.”
Snow fell in large, wet clumps around us, the 80 costumed characters waiting to drop into Burke Mountain, VT’s 37th annual Pond Skim. Each year, the event organizers pick a cryptic theme that skimmers are left to interpret. This year’s theme? Beyond the Pond. The minuscule flying saucer in the corner of the advertising graphic was the single clue that had produced this galactic crowd. We huddled above an orange line spray-painted on the snow across Warren’s Way. The placement of that line, creeping lower each round, would soon decimate our cohort as we fought for every bit of gravity we could squeeze out of the hill.
“You got the butterflies?” my friend Nick asked, side-eyeing me in my “Maurice the Space Cowboy” outfit.
I nodded. “Every year.”
Subscribe for access to this article plus the entire archive of The Ski Journal content—and receive a discount on all products. Subscribe Now