INside the OUTside: Natalie Terry chalks up another milestone

Natalie Terry

by Dan Cassidy

Begins 50th year of ski instructing at Sugarloaf

Natalie Terry began another year at Sugarloaf as she has done over the last 49, however, this year has a special meaning. This is the 50th consecutive year that she has been teaching skiing at Sugarloaf since 1951. “I have never missed a year,” she said.

Natalie has received the highest number of requested private and group lessons of any staff member.

“Skiing has been a passion in my life,” she said. She and her late husband, Tim, lived and skied in Waterville with their two children at the Colby Outing Club in the late 1940s and at Baker Mountain, in Bingham, well before any lifts were cut at Sugarloaf.

She began her long skiing career at Sugarloaf around 1951, and has worked with 11 directors at Sugarloaf. “I climbed with Amos Winter to the top of Winter’s Way. We would seal skin up the mountain and ski down,” she said. “It was the only trail that had been cut.”

Natalie is certainly respected by her colleagues at Sugarloaf. “The past few years have been magical for me, three quarters of my life has been on this Mountain,” she said. She was inducted into the Maine Ski Hall of Fame in 2012.

“She is known as a celebrity on the Mountain,” Bob Trip, manager of the Ski and Snowboard School said. “Every coach considers her as a celebrity here. She is considered as family, She never expects anything from anybody he said.

Ski and ride safely, use your head and wear a helmet.