I grew up skiing on the East Coast. I learned how on a small hill called Powder Ridge Mountain Park and Resort in Middlebury, Connecticut. College brought me farther north, first to the University of Maine at Farmington for its two-year ski-industry program and then to the University of Vermont, where I coached the Sugarbush freeride team for a few seasons. The group of friends I skied with then went on to start Ski the East, an apparel and film company launched in 2005 to show the world that skiing in the East isn’t just ice—powder and backcountry options are abundant if you’re willing to look for them.While there’s some good skiing just southeast, at resorts like West Virginia’s Snowshoe Mountain, I rarely felt the need to leave New England. I fell in love with the woods surrounding Mount Mansfield, at Stowe Mountain Resort in Vermont, and spent the next decade living in the state and exploring every corner of it. From 2,000 feet of vertical at Mad River Glen to the local runs at Stowe, here’s proof that skiing the “ice coast” is more than you give it credit for.