A double diamond of a ski resort

This year marks Dever’s 38th season teaching skiing on these two mountains. When he started, many of the instructors were tough Austrians who learned their trade in the Tyrol. They had little or no patience for novices who didn’t catch on quickly enough.

“Bend your knees, dummkopf, they would yell. Don’t you have any muscle?’’ Dever blurts out in his best impression of a harsh Austrian accent.

The hardened Austrians seemed to be perfectly suited for hurtling themselves down the face of 4,393-foot Mansfield, where the legendary Front Four trails have always taught the brazen the meaning of respect. All double diamonds (most extreme), Starr has a 37 degree pitch, while Lift Line and Goat are narrow serpentine trails where you have to turn on a dime. But it’s National that instills panic in most skiers as they look over the lip and declare, “I think I’m gonna try something else.’’ Smart decision.

Ever so slowly the Austrian guard on the mountain retired and the only sound of the old country was “Edelweiss,’’ sung by the Trapp Family Singers down the road (we’ll get to them later). Even more remarkable, Stowe Ski Area softened, with the expansion of Spruce Peak to accommodate beginner and lower intermediate skiers. Trails were cut, the Over Easy gondola was created to shuttle skiers across Mountain Road to the base of Mansfield, and townhomes were built to signal that Stowe was no longer solely the hub of hotdoggers and experts, but a deserving family destination.