When it gets to be around turkey time, especially when the real early birds are already enjoying man-made snow on the Kingfield slopes, active Mainers’ thoughts get around to sharpening edges, shopping for lift passes, and finding (or placing) shiny new slope-conquering equipment under that pine tree that will soon be in the living room. If the smell of oncoming flakes isn’t already in the air, it is in the anticipatory musings of the winter-sports enthusiast. We feel the tug of gravity and centripetal force helping us carve turns, hear the lonely wind at the mountain’s peak before we plunge into that black-diamond run, in short, we become friends with Old Man Winter all over again.

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