12/12/17 Haystack woes, Keystone fatality

Following up on financial woes at the Hermitage Club in Southern Vermont, seems they have a $90k water/sewer bill coming due on January 3rd that threatens to suspend operations if not paid. By itself this wouldn’t seem to be a big deal to a group that has spent millions of dollars over the past couple years on new chairlifts at Haystack Mountain ski area, which is now a private ski hill for club members. But what compounds the problem is that Hermitage defaulted on a $117k payment to the Vermont Municipal Bond Bank last month, and in October the members were assessed a one-time charge of $10,000 to assist with debt relief…for our photo above, we went back in the archives to the 1960s, the early days at Haystack Mountain…regret to report that Nathan Enright, a 21-year-old originally from Libertyville, Illinois, is the second inbounds Colorado ski fatality this season. Enright, who moved to Larimer County CO to attend college, was snowboarding when he crashed at Keystone on December 2, the same day U.S. Armed Services member Collin Zak died at Monarch. The reason we’re just hearing about it is that Enright was on life support for a few days, and then his passing was only picked up by local media in the Summit County area. The only details we have are that Enright was on a beginner trail and crashed into a tree. He was not wearing a helmet and ultimately succumbed to head injuries.