On a cold winter day in 1984, three skiers pushed off from the Massachusetts border with an audacious plan to ski the length of Vermont. They named the 300-mile route the Catamount Trail. It is now the longest ski trail in North America.

On Feb. 8, those same three skiers, Ben Rose, Paul Jarris, and Steve Bushey, who are each now in their 60s, will set off to once again ski the length of Vermont to mark the 40th anniversary of the Catamount Trail. They plan to ski all 31 sections of the trail in five weeks.

The Catamount Trail was originally conceived by Steve Bushey, a geography major at the University of Vermont, and his high school friend Ben Rose, who had just graduated from Yale. They had recently biked across the country together and were searching for their next big adventure. Jarris, who had been Bushey’s UVM classmate and regular outdoor partner, was a fourth-year medical student at the University of Pennsylvania. Bushey mapped out the ski trail as his masters geography thesis at Carleton University in Ottawa. Skiing it would provide proof of concept and be a grand adventure. But the trail was also about connecting people and building communities.

After skiing the Catamount Trail in 1984, the three friends have gone on to have rewarding careers. Rose served as the first executive director of the nonprofit Catamount Trail Association, later went on to lead the Green Mountain Club, and is now the recovery and mitigation chief at the Vermont Department of Emergency Management. Jarris was a family doctor for 20 years and also served as Vermont’s Commissioner of Health under Gov. Jim Douglas, then played a national role in public health. Bushey and his wife founded and run Map Adventures, which makes popular recreational maps and guides.

Today, thousands of skiers use the Catamount Trail each winter, including Vermont school children who are introduced to skiing through the association’s youth programs. “It’s a trail for everybody,” said Matt Williams, executive director of the Catamount Trail Association.

“This is a 40-year movement … to build backcountry trails and access throughout the length of Vermont to bring people into the state to enjoy that resource,” reflected Jarris. 

Climate change poses a threat to the future of the Catamount Trail. A study sponsored by the climate action group Protect Our Winters projects that the average number of days with snow cover in New England will decline by 50 to 75 percent in the coming decades, depending on greenhouse gas emissions. 

Rose said that the Catamount Trail and its association have “an important role to play as a canary in the coal mine, and as a group of people who refuse to give up on the value of winter, the possibility of winter, the future of winter.”

Skiing the length of Vermont and seeing how the Catamount Trail has grown "made me an optimist for life," said Rose.