I found the face of winter Saturday at the annual Ski and Skate Sale.
It belonged to Raelyn Viti of Henniker, a ski patroller at the local ski area there, Pats Peaks. She had high praise for this time of year.
“It’s my favorite season,” Viti told me. “I look forward to the first snowflake. It’s better than Christmas.”
Better than Christmas? I can almost hear Santa bellowing, “Whoa, Whoa, Whoa!”
Personally, I don’t like cold weather, but I met a bunch of people whose affection for skiing and skating gave a hot chocolate-like warmth on a cold day.
Viti has been skiing for 36 years. Her husband also patrols at Pats Peak. One of her daughters, 8-year-old McKenna Whittier, jumped up several times and said, “Super, super, super, super rush,” when I asked why she liked skiing.
“It’s a sport that is fun that you can play outside,” McKenna continued. “I love, love, love, love it. That’s four loves.”
The event was, in fact, a love-fest, giving skiers, snowboarders and skaters the chance to find second-hand equipment, save a few bucks and join hands with Old Man Winter.
There were racks and racks of skis and snowboards inside the old Circuit City building, plus tables and tables of boots and skates. Viti sat on the floor with her friend, Shanna Caron, another Henniker resident who also spends lots of time at Pats Peak this time of year.
To Caron, the word “used” doesn’t exist. If she just bought it, it’s new.
“I don’t need new skis, but I want new skis,” she said. “It’s like buying a used car. These skis are new to me, and that’s all that counts.”
She pointed to the day’s haul leaning against the wall, two pairs of skis for skiing and a pair made of wood for nostalgic “decoration.” She had two pairs of boots as well.
Viti selected a little snow bobby for her 3-year-old daughter, Neve Lund. “She tells us she will ski by herself this year,” Viti said.
I had no reason to doubt the little girl. Not with the face of Winter as her mother.
Elsewhere, middle school teacher Rebecca McHugh of Concord moved through the parking lot, family in tow. There were her two daughters, 11-year-old Gracie, who competes on the Nordic team at Rundlett Middle School, and Clara, 8, a member of the local running club, Girls on the Run. They carried their “new” skies, while McHugh’s mother, Elaine Duclos, had bought a pair of snowshoes.
Snowshoes? What about skiing?
“I still cross country ski, but I don’t downhill anymore,” Duclos told me. “I broke my leg and now I’m a little leery to downhill ski.”
Nasty fall on a black diamond trail?
“No, I fell down the stairs,” Duclos said.
She was carrying her then one-month-old granddaughter, Clara, at the time. Now, eight years later, Clara tackles the slopes, part of a little girl’s fascination with the snow and the season.
“Marshmallows and hot chocolate and watching Christmas movies,” is what Clara said she liked.
“And maple sugar on snow,” Gracie added.
The two girls wore ski hats and smiles. Freezing temps? You got a problem with that?
“I like playing in our backyard,” Gracie said. “We jump off our roof.”
For mom, skiing with her daughters thaws the winter chill that she’d otherwise feel. “It does bother me and I don’t like it all,” McHugh told me. “But they love it and it gets them outside, so I might as well get some exercise if I’m going to be outside with them.”
In other words, skiing and other winter sports can be the glue that bond a family. Take Jacki Drew of Strafford, for example. She moved to California last year, leaving the cold behind, then came back because she missed her family. She went to the sale looking for skates and hoping to instill the winter sports bug into her son.
“I’m going to try to do more winter stuff,” Drew told me. “I’m going to try to get my son into it so he doesn’t move away like I did.”
It’s doubtful anyone in Viti’s family will move from the state’s mountains and cold. The face of winter has snow and skiing in her blood.
She also has a snowflake bumper sticker on her car. As for her younger daughter’s name, Neve, it’s Portuguese.
“It means the first snow on a glacier, the snow that glistens,” Viti said.