Bernie Rosow

.

Bernie, snowcat in Mammoth Resort in California, can ski during the day and see to his needs; the rest, his family apart, is only literature.

Born in Williamsville, southern Vermont, Bernie showed early signs of radicalism. Until his teens, he combined cross-country skiing, ski jumping and Alpine skiing. He spent his spare time skiing in the woods or devising jumps in the fields. In high school, he met the photographer Jeff Winterton and started working with him. The latter found him a job in a shelter in Alta, Utah, where he relocated at the end of his secondary school studies. Unable however to rein in his eagerness to ski whenever snow conditions are fine, he fatally lost all his jobs. At the same time, he took part in a few freeride or freestyle races with good results, including a fourth place at the Aspen Open; but he was short of money, and thus incapable of keeping up with the costs necessary to travel across the country. After two seasons in Alta, experiencing a decline in job prospects, he decided to go and live in Mammoth. While there, he came to know that the station was looking for snowcats. He could not believe his luck, so he stepped forward and was miraculously hired when he admitted that this night work would have enabled him to satisfy his unshakeable passion for skiing. Since then, he has become an expert in track preparation and still works at the resort. This training as snowcat alowed him to go and work in New Zealand and Australia for three austral winters. Thanks to digital instruments, Bernie managed to make a name for himself by filming his daily escapades and accumulated a few sponsors. Right now, his season is divided between his work until midnight and a half and the alarm set at seven o’ clock to go out skiing. He devotes the rest of the year to his family, to spring skiing, to harvesting works in autumn, and possibly to a trip across the hemisphere in order to ski, as usual.