Stratton Mountain Patch (Trail Map) — c. 1970s

A vintage Stratton Mountain ski patch, estimated to date from the 1970s, featuring the mountain drawn as its own trail map — white runs fanning down a grey face into a row of green firs, under a maroon band and a black one carrying STRATTON in white letterspaced caps, the A doubling as a summit. Pointed shield, black merrowed border, a small TM at the shoulder.

Putting the trail network on the merchandise is a particular kind of confidence. Most mountains sold you a snowflake or a skier or a nice idea about winter. This one sold you the terrain, on the assumption that you had skied it and would recognize it, which in 1975 at Stratton was a reasonable assumption to make.

Those are not playful colors. They are the colors of an institution, and Stratton has always carried itself a notch more formally than the mountains around it — the ski academy opened here in 1972, and the place has produced competitive skiers in volume ever since.

You can read the whole posture off three thread colors and a shield outline. Nobody at Mad River Glen was picking maroon.

Ski academies were a new idea then and a slightly controversial one — the notion that a teenager might arrange their whole education around a sport with no professional league worth speaking of. It worked out for a surprising number of them.

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