Maine's Finest Athlete Immortalized On New Chairlift

Who's the greatest thinker humankind has ever seen?

Aristotle? Pythagoras? John Locke?

All great guesses, folks, but in our opinion, at POWDER, the title goes to Maine's finest athlete: Donny Pelletier, whose wise words were recently added to Sunday River, Maine's new Doppelmayr D-Line Barker 6 chairlift.

"Point em' downhill, bub."

When future historians recover the remains of our lost civilization, Pelletier's words will echo across generations. Sure, those historians—probably AI historians at this rate—won't have a dang clue what they mean, but they'll know that they carried power. Pelletier's not just a Moxie-swilling, straightlining lunatic; he's a poet and philosopher for our troubled times.

All right. At this point, the satire's getting pretty rich. Pelletier is a goofy character played by an actually talented skier, not the second coming of Socrates. But I think his presence in snowsports is important for less philosophical reasons.

Now, this is a generalization, but skiing has gotten awfully self-serious in recent years. Pelletier represents the opposite approach, a much-needed salve in the sore absence of Shane McConkey's lovable shenanigans.

Get goofy, have a laugh at yourself, and "Point em' downhill, bub"—you don't need to pass a graduate-level philosophy course to understand Pelletier's treatise, but that doesn't mean it's any less vital than those posited by the so-called greats. Skiing's supposed to be fun. Let's keep it that way.

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