Light show

New England born and raised, night skiing continues to have bright future

If you could cram certain skiing pioneers into a time-travel machine to show them how their innovations outlived them, one of the more interesting candidates for such a hypothetical journey would be the Bay State's own Clarence Bousquet.

Bousquet converted the sloping hills of his mink farm in Pittsfield into the nation's second rope tow in 1935. A year later, struggling to stay in business and looking for a way to attract attention, he had the brainstorm to string electric lights along a trail so people could ski after dark on Christmas Eve.

The publicity from the world's first illuminated ski run transformed Bousquet's hill into one of the industry's first "destination" resorts, and trainloads of skiers soon flocked to the Berkshires from New York and Boston. Although Ski Bousquet has since scaled back and carved out a niche as a small community ski area, the concept of skiing under the lights has spread around the globe, evolving into an entire sub-genre of the snow sports industry.

So what would the inventor of night skiing think if you fast-forwarded him 74 years and about 100 miles northeast to Bennington, N.H.? That's where Crotched Mountain currently strives to be New England's most outlandish and exuberant trendsetter in night skiing.

With lifts running until 3 a.m. on most winter weekends and on-slope activities augmented by bonfires, live bands, parking lot tailgating, snow volleyball, spur-of-the-moment contests, and snowboarders who show up in gorilla costumes, one wonders if Bousquet might have pulled the plug if he had envisioned what his idea would someday spawn.

Or - because he had a flair for originality - maybe Bousquet would have jumped right in and joined the party.

"Midnight Madness is not for the family," said Craig Messa, director of sales and marketing for Crotched. "It's more geared toward college kids, high school kids. There is always music going on, and it's just a bunch of crazy, wacky people."

Even though it is a segment that seems to be flourishing, extreme exuberance represents only a narrow slice of what night skiing is all about in New England. Other small and mid-sized resorts near Boston have well-established teaching programs and evening race leagues that have catered to families for decades. Farther north, even large mountains that once looked condescendingly upon lighted runs are beginning to rethink that mind-set, because customers who spend big bucks on vacations now expect to be entertained around the clock.

Like many innovations, night skiing was first dismissed as a passing fad. The lighting was crude, and in the days before the automobile became prevalent, it was thought that few skiers would venture out on icy roads in the dark just to get a few runs in. Skiing was more physically demanding before the advent of modern lifts and trail grooming, so the notion was that even customers who arrived by train would be so exhausted after a day on the slopes that the only thing they wanted to do at night was go to sleep.

The Midwest - where night skiing remains most prevalent today - fine-tuned the concept after New England launched it. With an abundance of modest ski hills sprinkled around dense, urban population centers, states such as Michigan were able to match the availability of skiing to when it was most convenient for customers.

"You have to think of it like a bowling alley," said Michael Berry, president of the National Ski Areas Association. "What triggered that to some extent was after-school programs and shift work."

Back East, Brad Sawyer's family founded Ski Bradford in Haverhill, and his cousins put in lights the very first season the business opened in 1949. Sawyer, who now co-owns Bradford with his brother, said their programs and race leagues draw as many as 1,000 kids a day, and that night skiing accounts for 30 percent of his business.

"We produce skiers and boarders for the bigger mountains," Sawyer said. "We're probably working on our third or fourth generation. We wouldn't be what we are today without the lights."

In 1969, The New York Times ran a feature on night skiing, noting that Massachusetts, with 12 of 24 resorts running after dark, was the epicenter of lighted runs. The piece quoted a spokesman for Brodie Mountain in New Ashford, who said "we have had as many as 1,500 night owls on our slopes at one time, at an hour when our income, in earlier years, would have been zero."

Income aside, the aesthetics of night skiing were different then, too. In the 1970s, resorts proudly touted the idyllic or even romantic aspects of schussing down quiet slopes under starlit skies, evoking a feeling of escape from the daily grind.

"It was serene, it was snowflakes, and really, that's what it was all about," said Berry, whose early career in the ski industry included working under the lights at Hunter Mountain in upstate New York. "Now it's kids, it's terrain parks, and the whole experience has to be event-based and have energy."

Messa, who comes from a younger generation of snow sports executives, does not mince words about the all-action attitude Crotched has embraced.

"It can get a little rowdy at some points," Messa said, adding that Crotched has drawn up to 700 people for Midnight Madness skiing until 3 a.m. "But in general, our customers are very respectful. Still, you do find the beer cans on the side of the trails every Saturday and Sunday morning."

Messa realizes that catching big air until the wee hours isn't for everyone, but he said he is intent on growing that niche for Crotched, because "I really don't think anybody else is going to compete with us."

But even though Crotched's claim to this amped-up sector of the sport seems safe for now, some of the region's larger resorts are beginning to take notice - and action.

This season, Sunday River in Maine added limited night skiing for the first time, offering a 12-hour ticket from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. on certain weekends and holidays. Dana Bullen, the resort's general manager, said "it's been more active and more used than I thought it would be."

Bullen said Sunday River plans to expand night operations by adding an additional lighted trail next year, and by exploring the possibility of special late-night events, like those at Crotched. But the demographics are different at his resort, and in his view, having extended hours is more of a perk than a linchpin to business.

For example, Bullen said he has authorized later operation on big check-in days, to give guests who arrive late a chance to get in a few runs. Although his core group of night skiers tends to be "kids who are too old for the arcade but too young for nightlife," he is also seeing an interesting mix of families under the lights, such as grandparents who go out boarding with the children while mom and dad enjoy dinner.

But along with the advantages, mountains that want to light it up for the first time face environmental hurdles that did not exist back when Bousquet first strung lights atop his hill, such as concerns over light pollution that can affect both people and animals.

"The issue of the night sky is more complex than it was 20 years ago," said Berry. "A lit-up mountain becomes a bright fixture, so it's important for resorts to work with their communities."