A final ski tour at Appleton Farms reveals winter letting go.

1970 Washington Birthday Race start. Everyone goes at once. Credit: Lewis R. Brown via CardCow.com

It is that special interim period here in New England between the end of winter and the start of spring.  Last week, we headed out across the corn snow at Appleton Farms in Ipswich, MA., in the bright, and, yes, warm sunlight.  We recalled the first time we skied around the edges of farm fields, way back in 1970 when we stayed at the Whetstone Inn in Marlboro, VT.  We were there for the Great Washington Birthday Race, an annual “people’s race” at the Putney School started and run by the legendary cross-country racer and coach John Caldwell.  In those days, hundreds of skiers came to Vermont for what must have been the defining event of Nordic skiing in the United States.  Modeled after the famous Vassaloppet race in Sweden, the massive starting line stretched across a hay field and, when the gun sounded, it was off you went.  We remember skiing along with the then-movie critic of the New York Post, an older chap who said he skied around the field behind his house in Westchester every morning before heading into work.  We also remember struggling in dead last in that race along with a couple of other members from the then-staff of SKIING magazine, our wax long worn off, but still laughing at our disastrous first-time-ever trying cross-country skis.

Snow is hanging on this year, melting slowly but inevitably, starting with the trees.
Credit: Mike Maginn

These thoughts came back as we went around that big field at Appleton’s.  For a long time, we favored wooden skis, woolen sweaters and wax potions; these days, we go waxless and polypropylene.  But the pleasure of being in the sun, noticing the melt around the edges, and the rhythm of planting pole, gliding, planting was the same as ever. As the snow rolls back and the sun comes in and out, Robert Frost’s Two Tramps In Mud Time came to us. This verse hits home:

The sun was warm, but the wind was chill. You know how it is with an April day.
When the sun is out and the wind is still, you’re one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak, a cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak, and you’re two months back in the middle of March.

Sunny day, springtime snow, skiing across the field at Appleton Farms, Ipswich.
Credit: Mike Maginn