Mad River Glen Patch (Green, White & Red) — c. 1970s-80s

A vintage Mad River Glen ski patch from Fayston, Vermont, probably late 1970s or early 80s, round on green twill with a green merrowed border, the snowflake and fir in white and MAD RIVER GLEN in red on a band through the center. The same drawing as the die-cut ones, put inside a circle.

General Stark Mountain, in the Mad River valley, with about two thousand feet of vertical and trails cut in the 1940s by people who were not thinking about grooming equipment because there was not any.

That is why it skis the way it does. A modern trail is designed around the width of a winch cat and the turning radius of a beginner. These were cut around the terrain — they bend where the rock is, they pinch where the trees won, and they drop away suddenly in places a surveyor would have smoothed out.

Skiing Mad River is an argument with a mountain that was never flattened on your behalf. Most people lose. Some of them come back every weekend for forty years.

Trails cut by hand in the 1940s follow the fall line, which sounds obvious and is not. A machine-cut trail traverses to keep the grade even. A hand-cut trail goes where water would go, which is why the old ones are more interesting and less forgiving.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge. Photos are the condition report.