CD EBFor a shoppable list of the clothes and gear featured in this story, see page 51. @PopularMechanics _ March 2019 49
ran into issues with its water source: When
Ralph started the resort, he used treated sur-
face water from the local streams. The new
owners converted to wells, but they dried up.
When the DesLaurierses tried to switch back
to surface water, there were many more reg-
ulations than there had been in the 1960s.
“It needed to be someone’s focus, and since
there was so much of the regulatory side of it,
it made sense. I volunteered,” Lindsay says. It
took only until midwinter of that first year for
her to realize that this would have to be more
than a part-time job, so she became COO.
Adam handles Bolton’s expansive back-
country skiing. Growing up, he used to make
ski videos; the plastic-wrapped VHS tapes sit
on the shelf in Ralph’s living room. But he’s
too busy to ski much these days. He hustles
to a meeting, waving to his son Lincoln as he
walks off the mountain with a beat-up pair
of skis. Adam meets with an architect about
expanding the backcountry rental area. He
needs enough room for people to pick up their
gear, try it out, and get out of one another’s
way. His arms swing as he explains his vision.
“Working with family, you know everyone
has the same goal. No one is going to angle foran outcome that is not in the best interest of
the business,” Lindsay says. Adam designed
a batch of marketing logos. Evan had a spare
moment this afternoon, so he stands behind
the main lodge, stacking firewood for the
tavern. Lindsay guides an older couple who
wandered into her office over to the check-in
desk. And Ralph watches over it all, occa-
sionally ribbing his kids or shouting jokes to
workers out the window of his car.
There are challenges, of course. Like how
the work never stops—how bringing the kids
over to Grandpa’s can mean starting in on a
new problem hours after the workday ends. “I
expect more of them,” Ralph says. “In a fam-
ily business, everyone is watching. The onus
is on us to work harder than everyone else.”
Not that it’s all work. Every weekend, year-
round, they host pizza nights at the main
lodge. Dozens of the five hundred or soresidents who live atop the mountain show
up, kids in tow. And three generations of
DesLaurierses are right there in the middle.
They chat with neighbors, laughing, occa-
sionally chasing kids around the tables. It’s
one of the things that makes Bolton stand
out, while other mountains are snatched
up by huge corporations. “People want an
authentic experience,” Evan says. “Some-
thing ref lective of their beliefs. Here we
have the flexibilit y to be what we want to be:
a local, family-owned place for families.”
Ralph sits at a nearby table, laughing at
Lincoln’s story of morning ski runs on snow
that melted by afternoon. Tomorrow Ralph
has to figure out the renovation of the café
and make sure the water source is prepped
for snowmaking. But for now, he orders
another beer, leans over, and asks his grand-
daughter Juniper about her day.“IN A FAMILY BUSINESS, EVERYONE IS
WATCHING. THE ONUS IS ON US TO WORK
HARDER THAN EVERYONE ELSE.”