LETTER: Mad River Glen, ‘an example of true American exceptionalism’

March 25, 2023

To the Community: 

Thanks to David Goodman for his tribute to Mad River Glen’s Betsy Pratt, “Remembering Mad River Glen founder Betsy Pratt,” (Waterbury Roundabout, March, 19). In a business that is now hardly more than a few monopolies run by corporate overlords, what Pratt did at Mad River Glen is an example of true American exceptionalism.  

I never met Betsy. I saw her once from a distance some years ago, but did not get the chance to talk to her. I wanted to thank her for preserving Mad River from the ski oligarchs.  

I am a veteran of the ski business, having somehow lasted in it for 43 years. I have worked my way through five ski areas and resorts. I have seen and experienced the changes to where the business has become little more than a numbers game governed by a few monopolies.   

About 12 years ago, I wound up at Mad River Glen. It was surreal, like nothing I had known before then. I tried to explain this phenomenon once to a student from Middlebury College, studying ski areas for a college project. She came to Mad River because it was "unique."  Someone there gave her my name to interview because of my history in the business. The student inquired what was so different about Mad River compared to the previous areas I have worked at.  

It was easy, I said, yet difficult to understand as this difference is both intangible and excessively rare now in the skiing world and, for that matter, in American life as well. Pratt's ski cooperative prioritizes the love of humanity and the mountain over the dollars coming in.    

We could all learn something from what Pratt left behind for us at Mad River Glen.   

 Walter Carpenter 

 Montpelier