The Bergeron family leaves their southern Vermont home at 4:30 AM on Saturday. It's mid-January, and there should be two feet of snow on the ground. Instead, there's patchy ice and brown grass. Bromley and Magic Mountain—the two mountains they used to reach in under an hour—opened three weeks late this year and are running on half their trails.
So they're driving three hours north to Mont-Sainte-Anne in Quebec, where the snow is guaranteed. Or at least more guaranteed than anything in New England. Their 14-year-old daughter Maya has been skiing competitively since she was seven. This is what that means now: a 6-hour round trip, a hotel room, lift tickets that cost more in Canadian dollars, and the knowledge that next weekend they'll probably do it again.
"We knew this was coming," Tom Bergeron tells me as we sit in the lodge while Maya takes her third run of the morning. "Not this year specifically, but eventually. You can't pretend the winters are what they were."
When Maya started racing at six, Bromley had a 120-day season. Last year it was 87 days, and the snow was marginal for half of them. This year they've had two significant storms, both followed by rain. The mountain opened late, closed for a week, reopened with artificial snow on half the trails.
Maya is good. Really good. She's ranked in the top 20 in New England for her age group. She has a legitimate shot at skiing in college, maybe even beyond. But you can't train on grass, and you can't race on marginal conditions.
So the Bergerons made a calculation that thousands of families across New England are making right now: How much are we willing to spend—in money, in time, in weekend logistics—to maintain something that used to be simple?
For them, the answer is: quite a lot.
"We're spending about $8,000 more this season than we did three years ago. Gas, hotels, the exchange rate, more expensive lift tickets at the mountains that can make snow. We're not wealthy people. I'm a teacher. My wife works for the state. But we've cut other things."
He doesn't elaborate on what "other things" means. The family vacation they didn't take. The home repairs they're deferring. The retirement contributions that got reduced. Maybe the college savings that aren't growing as fast as they should.
What he's buying isn't just ski time. It's normalcy. It's the preservation of a family identity that's been built around winter sports for two generations. It's Maya's competitive edge over kids whose families can't or won't make this investment.
And that last part, the competitive advantage, is what nobody wants to say out loud. Climate change isn't just making winter unreliable. It's sorting kids into those whose families can afford to chase the snow and those who can't. Maya's getting better because she's getting more training time than competitors whose families ski locally or not at all. The gap is widening, and it's not about talent anymore.
"Sometimes I look around the lodge here and I think about who's missing. The families who used to ski with us at Bromley. The kids Maya used to race against. They're not here because they can't afford to be here."
He pauses, uncomfortable with this line of thinking. "I don't know what we're supposed to do with that. We didn't create this situation. But we're benefiting from it, I guess. Maya's moving up in the rankings partly because other kids are dropping out."
The "right now" is important. The Bergerons aren't thinking about Maya skiing competitively when she's 30. They're thinking about the next four years. Getting her through high school, getting her recruited by a college program, giving her the option to continue if she wants to.
But even that four-year timeline feels uncertain. What if the Quebec mountains start having bad seasons? What if the reliable snow retreats further north than they're willing to chase it? What if they simply run out of money? Tom doesn't want to think about this last one.
"We'll know when it's time to stop," Tom says, but he doesn't sound entirely convinced. "Maybe when Maya graduates. Maybe sooner if the costs keep going up. Maybe—I don't know. We're taking it season by season."
There's a moment when he's quiet, watching Maya through the lodge window. She's flying down the slope, perfect form, exactly where she should be at this stage of her development. Everything they're doing is working. I can see him doing the math in his head. How many more weekends, how many more hotel rooms, how many more years they can sustain this.
"Last month I was looking at the credit card bill and I thought, what are we doing? This is insane. We're going into debt so our kid can ski. But then Maya came home with her race results and she was so happy, and I thought, okay, one more season. We can do one more season."
On the drive back to Vermont that evening, Maya sleeps in the backseat. She's exhausted from six hours of skiing, which is exactly what she needed. Tom and his wife Sarah discuss next weekend's schedule. Another Quebec trip, probably, unless the forecast changes dramatically.
"Sometimes I wonder if we're being ridiculous," Sarah says quietly. "Driving six hours so our kid can ski."
Tom doesn't answer right away. In the lodge at Mont-Sainte-Anne earlier, I'd counted at least fifteen cars with Vermont and New Hampshire plates. Families who used to ski locally, who now drive hours for guaranteed snow. Families who are spending thousands of dollars they may not really have to maintain something that climate change is actively destroying.
But they were almost all driving newer SUVs. Wearing expensive ski gear. Talking about their second homes or their season passes at multiple mountains. The families making this work aren't just committed. They're comfortable. They have the cushion to absorb an extra $8,000 a year without it meaning they can't pay the mortgage.
The Bergerons don't have that cushion. They're making it work through sacrifice, through cutting "other things," through financial stress they don't quite want to acknowledge. They're in the middle. Not wealthy enough for this to be easy, but committed enough to make it happen anyway.
What happens to competitive skiing when the only families who can afford it are the ones with significant resources? What happens to the sport when it loses everyone in the middle?
The Bergerons pull into their driveway just after 8 PM. Tomorrow they'll do laundry, catch up on homework, prepare for the school week. Next Saturday they'll probably get up at 4:30 AM and do it again.
Tom knows, even if he doesn't want to admit it, that eventually the math won't work. Eventually they'll hit the limit of what they can sacrifice. Eventually "one more season" will become "we can't do this anymore."
Climate change made winter sports a luxury good. The Bergerons are discovering, weekend by weekend, what it costs to pretend otherwise.