Here's one of those strange-but-true tales of irony that can elicit either humor or frustration - maybe both - depending on your perspective.
A guy with a lifelong enthusiasm for snow moves to rural Vermont from New York City to indulge his passion for skiing. Over time, the crowds and costs of large-scale resorts deflate his appetite for big mountains, while at the same time, his interest and aptitude in homemade snowmaking begins to grow. He buys a house with a steep slope, tinkers with snow guns, and builds his own rope tow. The backyard hill is just big enough for a few buddies to spend winter afternoons zipping through the trees, yet small enough for neighbors to not even notice it's there.
By word of mouth, the slope christened Cosmic Hill starts to attract attention from locals. Then a national skiing magazine gets wind of the home-grown glade and features it prominently, disclosing its location. Soon, the do-it-yourself skier who went back to the sport's roots to avoid hassle is fielding phone calls and e-mails from people he's never met, all wanting directions to his "resort."
"Well, it's a great way to make friends," reasoned Peter Avedisian, trying to look on the bright side of the polite but ever-increasing number of inquiries he gets from strangers, whose attention is the unintentional offshoot of his built-from-scratch ski hill. "It's a serious hobby. It's a lot of work. Any more effort and it would have to be a real business."
Avedisian, 48, is at the forefront of a small but fervent "backyard movement" in snow sports, one that fuses New England's rich history of small-time skiing with the technology to create instant winter. Although not quite as ambitious as the 1930s and '40s, when farmers figured out they could fashion a tow line from an old tractor and have half the town skidding down snow-covered pastures, this new wave of at-home ski runs and snowboard jumps is more in line with the region's families who once built hockey rinks for their kids - the scale is small, but the potential for fun close to home is huge.
"We ship kits to home snowmakers all over the world," said Matthew Pittman, who 10 years ago co-founded Snow At Home in Cheshire, Conn.
In Avedisian's case, his fascination with snow began as a boy in New Rochelle, N.Y. "I've always been into snowmaking," he said, explaining how he would experiment with a garden hose before figuring out that forced cold air was a key component of the equation. "I would destroy my father's compressor, things like that, and one thing led to another."
Avedisian moved to Vermont around 1985, and said that even while renting, "I always had a jump or something in the yard." An accomplished guitarist, he also took part-time resort gigs - teaching lessons, working in a ski shop - with the goal of buying a house, where he planned to build a recording studio.
In the early 1990s, Avedisian bought land in Mad River Valley (for privacy reasons, he requested the town not be named). Part of the appeal was 7 acres of glade that sloped from the house. The natural contour of the hill made for interesting skiing, complete with "bumpy, gnarly" moguls and jumps.
"It works with nature," he said. "It's not like we blasted this out of the side of the hill."
Avedisian built snow guns (he now sells them to aspiring backyard snowmakers at cosmichill.com). Then he installed a homemade rope tow powered by a 10-horsepower electric motor. Recently, he upgraded to an abandoned T-bar that was once part of a commercial operation, serving Frontenac in Plymouth, N.H., from 1969-91.
Pittman, who offers free online plans and instructions at snowathome.com, believes his company was the first of its kind to cater to do-it-yourselfers, and he said he now sells "hundreds" of kits each year, ranging from $60 nozzles that can be attached to power washers all the way up to elaborate $5,000 systems. "Our biggest clientele is over the holidays, moms and dads wanting to make snow for their kids."
Both Pittman and Avedisian cited the gradual loss of hundreds of local ski hills that once dotted New England as the main reason for the upswing in skiing and boarding at home.
"The demise of places where you can learn to ski, I think that is what's missing," Avedisian said. "Plus, the high cost of lift tickets today is insane. From what I understand, the reason a lot of those little community places died off was liability."
Liability doesn't go away when you're operating a backyard ski hill, and some might be surprised to learn that a grass-roots guy such as Avedisian requests that guests sign a waiver before they take a run down Cosmic Hill.
"Everything's litigation these days," he said. "What I ask them to sign is no different than what's on the back of a lift ticket you buy at a resort."
At Cosmic Hill, Avedisian said he is always cognizant of safety, which is one reason he attempts to limit who skis the 600-foot run with its vertical drop of 175 feet. The most people he has ever had on the hill at one time is five, "and that's enough."
Still, that doesn't stop strangers from inquiring. Avedisian said he recently had a humorous exchange with a Vermonter who Avedisian (mistakenly) thought was acquainted with his sister.
"I said, 'Sure, come on over,' " he said. "It turns out that the guy didn't know me or my sister. But he was a member of the ski patrol. We skied for four hours and had a blast.
"I value privacy, but it's all about passion. You have to love the mountains and the snow. So if somebody really wants to learn how to do it, I'll be happy to show it to them."
