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There’s a view of Mad River Glen from outer space on its website, but as I drove through Waitsfield, Vermont, there were no signs that I could see pointing to Mad River Glen on the ground. “You may never see one” I was told dryly when I finally arrived at the gates of Paradise. Paradise, I should explain, is a mysterious area only recently acknowledged on the trail map, where young blades on skis test themselves on, steep, “gnarly” rough-and-tumble slopes in the woods that epitomise the terrain at this funky ski area.

“Sometimes the road to fame is littered with boulders, bogs and fallen competitors”, said the sign on the noticeboard. Yup – this was an East Coast ski area all right. I went to the ski rental shop with Stephen, my travelling companion, who hadn’t brought skis with him. While I waited for him, slightly smugly, holding my now-ageing Salomon Cross Max 185s at the ready – more of which anon - I found myself glancing once more at a notice board. Mad River may be gnarly, but it tries to retain a degree of self-respect. One notice said: “The floor may be dirty but it’s not a trash can.”

Mad River is a relic. And pretty anxious to stay that way. “Ski it if you can” is its motto. While many resorts in the US have gone the corporate way, with state-of-the-art high-speed quads dotting their mountains, Mad River, now run as a co-operative venture, has stubbornly, and rather refreshingly, anchored itself in past. Why, the main lift is still just a single (and has been since 1948). And some of the terrain – particularly in the trees at “Paradise” at the top of the mountain – is ski-it-by-the-seat-of-your-pants stuff.

“Many ski resorts would demand that you hire a guide to lead you down this hidden gem” advises the ski area. “At Mad River, if you can find Paradise, you are welcome to enjoy it. But beware! A snow serpent lurks in Paradise and has been known to tempt many a hapless skier into an early descent into hell.”

Another tough run, The Chute, can be found on the way down from the Ski Patrol HQ at Stark’s Nest. “Do or die bumps” warns the resort – “in front of a highly opinionated audience!”

There are, of course, easy runs too: many are to be found in “Birdland” - like Duck, Lark, Loon, Robin and Wren. But by and large, the gung-ho, no-nonsense attitude towards the skiing here has paid off. Mad River has made a profit in five of the last seven years. The area’s shares, once $1500, are now $1750 apiece.

Mad River Glen was once owned and run by a redoubtable woman called Betsy Pratt, a pipe-puffing widow rarely seen out of her navy-blue parka, who these days runs the Inn at Mad River Barn. She quit in 1995, but to this day her resolute personality explains a lot about the continuing ethos of the resort.

One writer described her as “one of the most stubborn, most opinionated, most exasperating, most in-love-with-the-mountains people I have ever met.”

Her “resort” certainly lived up to its reputation as a gnarly, funky, retro, no-holds barred cult resort. Cissies need not apply. Neither need snowboarders, which is odd. Mad River is the only resort out East where snowboarders are banned, yet it seems like a resort that would simply ooze snowboarders. “Snowboard it if you can” therefore presents many more difficulties than skiing it, but the occasional snowboarder does sneak in the back way and “streak”, prompting cries of “snowboarder on the hill”. Typically, the lone invader will do a “straight shot” and ride straight out of the ski area again, doubtless to brag to his friends that “no damn ski resort is gonna keep me out”. Intriguingly, snowboarding was allowed briefly in the late 1980s, but banned again in the winter of 1991.

Again, it was an edict from Betsy Pratt that helps the ban live on: "Snowboarding on a ski mountain is like playing croquet on the 18th green” she once said. “You can do it, but I don't think it's appropriate." She loves telling the story of how she sent Vermont’s former Governor Howard Dean packing when he showed up at her area with a board. She had a similar take on snowmaking. "I hate man-made snow” she used to say. “If you want snowmaking, go ski somewhere else." (Since her retirement, the ski area has invested in some – but only to cover 15% of the mountain). And on Mad River's 'out-of-date' facilities? "They're not that old. The Brooklyn Bridge was built in 1880 and people still use that."

As I said goodbye to Stephen in the car-park (he to return home, me to ski another area) I absent-mindedly put my precious skis down by my car. A blizzard began, quickly covering them. I drove off without them. The following day, assuming they would have been quickly snapped up by a passer by, I telephoned Mad River from Killington, without much confidence, to ask if anyone had, by any chance, handed them in.

Not only had they been rescued, but they were in the post that very night, addressed to me at my next port of call. By the time I reached Jiminy Peak, Massachusetts, they were waiting for me. “We’ve never had a pair of skis stolen here yet,” said Eric Friedman, Mad River’s marketing director. Well, I guess he would say that, but I was still mightily impressed.

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