I remember a big snow year in the 80’s when I was a teen. My buddy and I skied the woods between the Glades and Cliff Trail which were marked as a closed area at that tine. The powder was between knee an thigh deep, and neither of us had skied in deep snow like that before. I skied down into a little creek bed and heard a yell behind me. My buddy was nowhere to be seen but I could hear muffled screams. I tried to side step to him, but the snow made it impossible, so I popped my skis off and immediately sunk to my waist. I muscled and swam to get out of that little creek, and found him upside down in a tree well with only his ski tails visible. Fortunately, he could breathe, but he was totally stuck. Luckily, I managed to get his skis off, and dig him out. Neither of us realized how much danger we were in.

I’ve never seen conditions like that on Mansfield since. According to the records, the 80’s weren’t close to the really big record years, so I can’t even imagine what those must have been like.