Veteran skiers — let's call them super seniors — are all around us

Boston Globe

27-03-2025

Lavigne's graceful turns down the High Ridge trail belie his age, Carpenter implies, and suggest an investigation may be in order to ensure he belongs in a story with the working title 'Old Men — and Women — of the Mountains.'
Carpenter is the youngster in this duo: He's 80.
Lavigne turned 90 last August.
They're both ski heroes to me. I want to be skiing like them when I grow up.
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Look around the next time you're out skiing and riding: Especially on weekdays. Especially on the early side in the morning.
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Maybe they've taken their handful of runs and are packing up and leaving when you're just arriving. Perhaps they're over in the corner doing circles with their arms, warming up and stretching, as probably all of us should.
Veteran skiers — let's call them super seniors — are all around us.
'I thought it was kind of a big deal,' says Al Posnack, going strong at 84 at Gunstock. 'Then I realized skiing is peppered with older skiers.'
It's a big deal still.
We chased down several of New England's super senior skiers to see what keeps them going, to perhaps steal a Mountain of Youth secret or two.
Ethie Ritson and Al Posnack at Gunstock.
Allen Lessels
Ethie Ritson, 89, Gilford, N.H.
After a career as a pediatric nurse, Ethie Ritson says it felt — and still feels — natural to focus on teaching 3 and 4-year-olds these days as a Gunstock ski instructor. Two of her great-grandchildren have been among her recent star pupils.
'It's a fantastic age group to teach,' she says. 'I've always been an outdoor person. And I have good genes and I like to have the genes keep going. Plus, my family lives locally. There are four generations of us skiing at this mountain most weeks. They give me limited hours, which is what I want right now and it's just a lot of fun. I do private lessons and I get a lot of requests. My greats, they are amazing. I started teaching them when they were a year and a half, just walking around in ski boots.'
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When she's not skiing, she might be working her woodpile — 'When I turned 80 I bought myself a birthday present, a 27-ton wood-splitter and I love that rig' — or in the summer leading the kids in water activities.
'I do something every day and I'd like to encourage seniors to do that, whether it's yoga, whether it's swimming, whether it's skiing, whether it's walking, and even if they want to sit in their chair, move their legs, move their arms. I'm just happy and grateful that I can still do it.'
Al Posnack, 84, Alton, N.H.
Al Posnack had skied only occasionally until he went to college at RPI in Troy, N.Y.
'A bunch of us would go up to Vermont to Bromley and Stratton and so forth and we'd go to Wachusett Mountain and we'd wash dishes in return for lift tickets,' he says. 'Why stop now? It gets you out. It makes you feel good. More often than not I'll come up and run into someone I know. It's such a good community.'
No longer does he do chores to earn his runs. One good way to battle the cost of skiing: Age. Ski areas generally treat their veteran customers well. Gunstock has one of the best deals: it's free for those 70 and over. Skiing at 80 is a great deal at most resorts.
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Posnack had to pay $10 for a lifetime pass when he turned 70 and calculates that he's paying 'about a quarter of a cent a run.'
Bill Russell of Lenox.
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Bill Russell, 79, Lenox, Mass.
This has been a bounce-back season for the Mount Greylock Ski Club after a couple of tough ones at the club's historic two-rope tow ski area — write that three times quickly — in South Williamstown.
Bill Russell, one of the members who helps keep the club and its weekends-only ski area going, has been getting a kick out of it.
'It's been great skiing after not having been open once last year and only a few days the year before that,' Russell says. 'We're back on track.'
Especially Russell.
He played a good amount of squash until a half a dozen years ago or so, but too many of his younger partners were getting banged up and injured.
Now he sticks mostly to bicycling and skiing for his exercise.
'There's nothing I more love to do than skiing,' he says. 'I decided long ago that this was going to be my last sport. There have been members up here who have skied into their 80s. When I was first skiing here you'd see guys skiing at 80 in the crud snow, out there just doing it, and it was great. You've got to have someone in front of you, someone you're trying to keep up with. We also have big connections at the ski club. Mikaela Shiffrin's probably the greatest skier of all time and her mother was born out here in western Mass. and was a member of this club for many years.'
Betsy Cetron likes to hit the moguls at Sunapee.
Allen Lessels
Betsy Cetron, 80, New London, N.H.
Betsy Cetron and her cronies meet up in the old lodge at Mount Sunapee.
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'We refer to this base lodge as the senior center,' she says. 'Here, if you want to ski — and you're old — you've got lots of people who want to ski with you.'
There is one minor problem, though. Most of her friends and skiing mates prefer to cruise on groomed trails and slopes. Cetron likes to get off the beaten path.
The day we met in the old lodge she was just in from a run on Goosebumps, a steep and narrow trail that often has moguls on it.
'Not a lot of the ski areas around here have anything as challenging as Goosebumps,' Cetron says. 'I've always liked the challenge. I'm kind of an adrenaline junkie. I've always been a powder, trees, and moguls skier rather than a racer. I don't ski them fast or pretty, but I ski them. It's hard to find people who will play with me.'
She and her husband moved to the Sunapee area after decades of working in real estate and skiing around Stratton, Vt. He's 87 and skied up until this year, but back problems now keep him off the slopes.
Cetron, who turned 80 on March 23, grew up on Martha's Vineyard and is an avid sailor and competes in her 23-foot sailboat on Lake Sunapee by summer, a passion shared by fellow super seniors Lavigne and Posnack.
'My Dad died at 98 and we took him off his sailboat at 93,' Cetron says. 'I guess I'll do it until it stops being fun.'
Jeff Gorton.
Allen Lessels
Jeff Gorton, 70, Francestown, N.H.
The youngster in our group, Jeff Gorton looks the part of a vintage skier as he cruises around with a bushy beard and his largely Nordic setup at Crotched Mountain, which is Vail-owned and thus on the Epic pass and a bit of a hidden gem in the southwestern part of New Hampshire.
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'I may look the part, but I don't try to look the part,' Gorton says. 'This jacket is 40 years old. These are Army surplus pants. It's how to do it inexpensively. In the old days, you skied in whatever your winter jacket was. And blue jeans. I started skiing when I was 10 in Connecticut. You were issued your dad's old wooden skis and his boots and you flopped around wherever there was a slope you could go down and then there was the big trip to go to a place there was a rope tow and a poma lift and J-bars and you kept moving up.'
'To be able to have the opportunity to be out and doing this on a daily basis,' he says, 'I thank my lucky stars every day that I can get up and do it.'
Paul Carpenter, 80, North Conway, N.H.
Paul Carpenter was a little late to the sport, so he's been skiing for only a half a century. He's picking up the pace now, since he and his wife moved up from Woburn in 2020, and especially as he's become an octogenarian.
'I looked forward to my 80th birthday so I could start skiing on a more regular basis,' he says. 'I'm on a fixed income and five or six runs is fine with me. A half a day is good. You spend a lot of money over a lifetime of skiing so it's nice they're (offering senior deals).'
He's a hockey player turned skier.
'I played until I was 30 and hurt my knee and I decided I can't afford to do this,' he says. 'I tried skiing and fell in love with it. I'm always looking to keep busy and keep moving. I do some construction work with my son when he needs an extra set of hands and I enjoy that, too.'
Skiing is a treat.
'I want to stay as active as I can for as long as I can and that's why I tell Connie he's my hero,' Carpenter says. 'All these skiers in their 80s have been my heroes for a while. My wife is active, too. We're not sitting in front of the TV. We're always trying to do things. We eat properly and try to stay healthy. Sometimes you have to light a fire under yourself to get out the door to go skiing, but when you get there, you're glad you did.'
Conrad Lavigne, 90, Rockport, Mass., and North Conway, N.H.
Not only is Conrad Lavigne still skiing. He's still perfecting his craft.
'It's a sport I love and I'm dedicated to it and I'm going to continue to work to get better at it at whatever age I'm at,' he says. 'My wife and I traveled all over the place to ski (and hike) and we'd hire guides and instructors. People would ask why and I'd say I learned something every time I went out with a guide or an instructor. If nothing else, you meet new people who have the same love for the sport that you have.'
Lavigne lost his ski and travel partner, Jo-Ann, after 50 years of marriage to cancer in December of 2023. 'She was a powerhouse skier,' he says.
'What will I do with all the adventures I had planned for us?' read a quote in her obituary.
Wildcat is Lavigne's home mountain when he's staying in North Conway, but he'll hit Bretton Woods, Cranmor, and others, too.
He also still hunts races his sailboat out of the Sandy Bay Yacht Club and hopes to get back to instructing on the water this summer.
'You have the same feeling on the water as on the snow,' Lavigne says. 'You see a wave coming the same way you look at a mogul. How are you going to take it and get up and over it? You're always looking ahead to what's coming. It's a very closely related feeling. Each day on the water, like each day skiing, is different.'
Lloyd Lambert founded the North Kingstown, R.I.-based 70 Plus Ski Club at the age of 76 in 1977 when he noticed older skiers were giving up the sport because many had no one to ski with and the expense. It's run by his grandson, Richard, now and has more than 3,000 members across the country and runs trips and events in the United States and internationally. Richard Lambert says more than 1,000 of the members are 80-plus and 125 are 90-plus. More information is available at
. Allen Lessels can be reached at
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