The ski's the limit

Wake up. Cold. Nose back under the blanket. Eyelids squinch shut. Morning. And yet, even half asleep, you sense there is something different. Something about the light...

What is it? groggy brain asks. (Search

cranial recesses.) Got it! Overnight it snowed!

Love it or hate it, snow defines New England's winter. As does the nose-blushing cold. Some call it wonderful; others horrible — and the debate about the merits of freezing temperatures versus Floridian Fahrenheits heats up nonetheless.

Like many, I have a love-hate relationship with winter. I love the first snow and its sugar-coating of Autumn's brown. I love the first ski under the hemlocks drooping with snow. I hate the gray-green guck and slush of February, the damp boots, messy floors, and balloon-woman layers of clothes that lead up to it. My husband, Boston-born, dons hat and hockey skates and shakes his head as if I should buck up and get out there. That's the polarity of things polar. You either love 'em and throw yourself into the weather, or hate 'em and make your home your book, food and quilt-filled cave.

Alyssa Carvalho is of the latter: an indoors-in-the-winter type of woman. The exuberant membership manager for the Greater Springfield Convention and Visitors Bureau goes for "flannel pajamas and a heated blanket" when winter rolls around. "A fire is key," says Carvalho, who lives in West Springfield. "Anyone who has a fireplace is my best friend in winter."

As for the cold and snow, Carvalho says she's embarrassed to admit she has never skied or snowboarded. "My liking of snow and cold is limited to Christmas Eve," she laughs. For the Carvalhos, the night before Christmas is a time for family to gather for dinner and opening gifts. With 17 relatives and three dogs, the focus is on the warm indoors. "The only time I like snow is on Christmas Eve. It makes it magical," she said.

Not so for South Deerfield resident Joyce Burrill, a data analyst at Deerfield Academy. Winter's outdoor activities are the flip-side of summer's focus on kayaking and tubing on the Deerfield River. As soon as the mountains are snow-covered, Burrill and her family typically downhill ski once a week. Burrill augments that with cross-country skiing on local trails.

"It's great exercise," she says. "I'm not the kind of person who likes to work out for the sake of working out. I'd rather cross-country ski for an hour than go to the gym."

After a hiatus from downhill skiing while their daughters gave their time to competitive swimming, Burrill and her husband resumed sliding down mountains several years ago. Humbly declaring that she is an intermediate skier, she nevertheless frequently opts for expert trails. "I found myself once on a double-diamond," she laughed, "but it wasn't my choice."

And while the exercise itself is an attraction, it is the company of friends that Burrill enjoys in outdoor winter activity. "I don't ski by myself," she said. "Usually we ski with friends and family. Being with people makes it fun."

Carol Rickless of Longmeadow plays it right down the middle. "How do you have fun in winter? Go to Aruba!" she jokes. "Actually, I love winter," says the secretary at the Natural Resource Conservation Service in Amherst, adding that she enjoys both cross-country and downhill skiing. "I love to ice skate on the pond behind my parents' house. When I was little we'd do that and we'd go sledding. I learned to appreciate being outdoors as a kid. Around the holidays, my father would cut boughs and teach us to make wreaths and decorations for the house. Then we'd go inside and have hot cocoa."

"I still walk in the woods with my dad in the winter," Rickless said, adding that wintertime offers other chances to have fun with family and friends indoors, too.

"Sometimes we all get together, my brothers and sisters, and play board games. If I was able to get all of my friends and family together around a roaring fire and play games, it would make me feel great!"

How does Susan Pixley, a clerk in the Chemistry Department at the University of Massachusetts find pleasure in winter? "Soup!" she exclaims. Pixley, who lives in Belchertown, says she doesn't like being outdoors in the cold as much as she used to, even though she used to spend quite a lot of time skiing. Now, the cold leads her to the kitchen. Pixley oohs about the corn chowder she makes when it's cold outside. "You don't feel like cooking so much in the summer, but in the winter," she says, "it's cozy in the kitchen."

For Pat Grenier, a certified financial planner and owner of BRP/Grenier Financial Services, winter's story has a different meaning than for many women in the Pioneer Valley. "How do I escape the boring dark days of winter?" she asks. "I say, just take it on the chin. Find something good in it."

Grenier, of East Longmeadow, and her family go skiing. "I love it! The outdoors, fresh air, just being on top of the mountain," she says. An "average" skier, Grenier admits that when others in her family have gone to the lodge to warm up, she is still on slopes.

"Even though I'm cold, it's like, one more run, one more run!"

Snowy childhood activities did not influence Grenier's adult love of winter outdoor activities though. "I never saw snow until I was seven years old!" she exclaims. "I grew up in South America. So coming here to winter was harsh. We came from a country where it was colorful and beautiful, and here we were where there were no leaves on the trees and everything was brown. I thought, 'How ugly!' I remember one day walking to school with my sister and the wind was howling. We started to cry. So we ran into a hallway of a building and stayed for two or three hours. We never made it to school. Then we ran back home. That was my introduction to winter!"

As a teen, Grenier decided that she might as well learn to enjoy where she was and started to ice skate. When she married, she and her husband skied. Last year, the couple attempted to ski every major ski area in New England. Mild weather thwarted that plan, but they're trying again this year. "So far, we have one weekend in!" she said.

Grenier's enjoy-it-while-you-can attitude seems to mirror the stiff-upper-lip Yankee philosophy that anchored our area's predecessors to this cold and beautiful part of the world.

"I don't love winter," Grenier concludes. "I tolerate it and take the best from it. Why complain?"