Sitting beside her in the gondola lift was Chris Congdon, a 2010 Northeastern University grad who moved to Vermont last November to pull a “Mezvinsky’’ and live la vida mogul. For this season, anyway. A civil engineer by training, Congdon says he may seek employment back in the Boston area once the snow melts. For now, though, he’s keeping his options open, ski bumming before life imposes weightier responsibilities.
“To me, there’s no negative connotation to being a ski bum,’’ said Congdon, who works part-time as a ski instructor to support his mountain lifestyle. “It’s anyone who gets in 100 days or more of skiing and works to support that goal.’’ Minutes later, he was zooming down an expert trail yelling, “Welcome to my office!’’
Scannevin and Congdon both embrace the “ski bum’’ label, which means something far different than it did a generation or two ago. Back then, it largely referred to the stereotypical post-collegian (or noncollegian) who took menial jobs and lived in dormitory-like quarters for an opportunity to ski as much, and as cheaply, as possible.
Times have changed. Service jobs in and around major ski resorts have grown scarcer, locals say, due to an influx of foreign workers. Meanwhile, necessities like food, housing, lift tickets, and equipment have risen sharply in cost. Resorts have become more corporate, too. That chairlift operator who might barter with his buddy — you ride gratis if you’ll pour me free beers at night — is gone, replaced by the barcode-scanning attendant who tracks every lift ticket.
In today’s economy, with unemployment rates high and savings scarce, the ski bum is more likely be a fully wired (and flexibly employed) IT guru working on a laptop between runs, a jobless PhD, a semi-retiree, or well-heeled (if childless) investment banker, like Mezvinsky, than yesterday’s version. Still, if no longer quite so quaintly bohemian, the idea of ski bumming retains its near-mythic aura around New England ski areas like this one.
