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An unexpected message appeared in a Vermont ski resort’s snow report. What happened next?
A snow conditions update at Sugarbush featured an employee’s thoughts on the Trump administration before a visit from JD Vance. The posts were deleted, but she kept her job.
A flare of protest against the Trump administration erupted last weekend from the most unexpected of places: a snow report.
The setting was the powder-packed peaks of the Sugarbush ski resort in the Green Mountains of Vermont, where Vice President JD Vance had retreated on Saturday for a day of skiing with his family. Before Vance arrived, a lengthy post appeared on the Sugarbush website, meant to be an early morning rundown of the current slope conditions.
As it turned out, it was more of a report of the current conditions of our nation, as perceived by Lucy Welch, the resort’s “snow reporter.”
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“Right now, National Forest lands and National Parks are under direct attack by the current Administration,” Welch wrote, after praising the natural beauty of the place. “This Administration also neglects to address the danger, or even the existence of, climate change, the biggest threat to the future of our industry, and the skiing we all so much enjoy here.”
Welch, 25, was not finished, noting the staff cuts at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration — “a resource I use every day for snow reporting,” she said — and praising the diversity of people, including veterans, immigrants and members of LBGTQ+ communities, who both work and play at Sugarbush.
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“ALL of these groups are being targeted, undervalued, and disrespected by the current Administration,” she wrote, adding, “We are living in a really scary and really serious time.”
Finally, she suggested that she might lose her job for posting her opinions, but that she felt it was worth it.
“This whole shpiel probably won’t change a whole lot, and I can only assume that I will be fired,” she wrote, “but at least this will do even just a smidge more than just shutting up and being a sheep.”
The post, which went live at 6:49 a.m. and also provided a full rundown on new snow, open trails and gusty winds, was removed later that day. But it was almost immediately shared online by fellow skiers and Vermonters, with many casting Welch as a brave, new member of the Resistance, as President Donald Trump’s opponents are sometimes known. “I Love Lucy” T-shirts were mocked up, as were depictions of Welch on social media in which she was shown standing up to a hulking snow-slope groomer, Tiananmen Square-style.
Others posted messages like “I Ski With Lucy Welch,” while Bill McKibben, an author and climate activist, called Welch “a hero for the moment.”
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“If a 25-year-old can risk her job to — quite politely — speak truth to power, the rest of us can figure out some things to do as well,” McKibben wrote in a Substack post in which he likened her to Ethan Allen, the Revolutionary War rebel. “We need more of them to take on King Donald, and I’d follow Lucy Welch in a heartbeat.”
Vance’s trip to Vermont, one of the nation’s most liberal states, drew crowds of protesters on Saturday, just a day after the vice president had clashed with President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine in the Oval Office. Demonstrators lined local roads and protested around Sugarbush, holding signs calling Vance a traitor and suggesting he “go ski in Russia.” Vance’s ski skills and possible attire were also mocked by some locals. (“Vance skis in jeans,” read one sign, highlighting a major ski faux pas, though Vance’s use of jeans could not be confirmed.)
Even before the vice president arrived, officials at Sugarbush had tried to prepare staff for “a high-profile guest” — they did not name Vance — and noted that his choice of slopes did not necessarily represent an endorsement. “Our view is that everyone should feel included in the celebration of the outdoors and the joy it offers,” the memo read.
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And despite Welch’s fears that her snow report might lead to her firing, John Bleh, a spokesperson for Sugarbush, said Wednesday that she “remains a member of the team,” though he confirmed that her post had been removed after being up “for a bit.”
“We respect the voice and opinion of all our employees,” Bleh said, “but determined that the snow report was not the appropriate medium to share.”
For his part, Vance said in a posting on the social platform X on Tuesday that he and his family “had a great time” in Vermont and “barely noticed the protesters.”
“Almost everyone we met was kind and generous,” he added, after chiding an online commenter as idiotic and before disputing a report in The New York Post that he’d had to move to an “undisclosed location” because of security concerns.
Welch could not be reached for comment, but in a biography posted on SugarBlog, she described herself as a recent graduate of the University of Vermont whose love of skiing had blossomed only in the last few years. “I am my happiest, most vibrant self when I am on the hill,” she wrote.
She said her job as snow reporter consisted of “waking up at 4:30 a.m. 4 days a week and spending my waking hours looking at snow, thinking about snow, talking about snow, writing about snow, and of course, skiing on snow.”
On Saturday, of course, her writing interests veered into more political terrain, as she worried she would “never be able to afford a good life for a child anyway, and snow will be a thing of Vermont history.”
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“So please, for the sake of our future shredders,” she concluded, “Be Better Here.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
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