Dave was a late arrival at our little affair at Stowe, probably because he had to pack and lug some 50 pounds of camera equipment and his ever present tape recorder. The extra weight didn't seem to slow him down any, and he managed to keep up with the pack pretty well, for a three-pinner (to see Dave in action, check out the Stowe Mountain Resort "outakes" from Warren Miller's Endless Winter).

Here's what David had to say:

They are die-hard skiers who rendezvous daily to swap notes, argue, lie, gossip and share information. As intimate as this sounds, few of them had ever met — until last March, when some 40 cyberskiers who routinely sign on to SKIVT-L exited the information highway and headed to Stowe, Vt., for their first live get-together.

Suddenly, individuals who had existed only ask Internet monikers were given faces and skis. Ron "Road Warrior" Ramsden lived up to his screen name by driving several hours from his job as a computer specialist at the University of Pennsylvania. "PattyMac," renowned for her on-line tales of wild skiing and dating adventures in the West, turned out to be a high-spirited New York State epidemiologist with a penchant for black-diamond runs.

Unofficially billed as Vermont's skiing ambassador to cyberspace, SKIVT-L was started in 989 by University of Vermont computer wizard Wesley Wright. It began as the Internet's first "discussion list" about skiing a place where people could "chat" by posting E-mail messages that would be distributed to numerous other participants. Today, SKIVT-L has more than 200 members who hail anywhere from rural Vermont to France. these Eastern skiing aficionados also dispense their wisdom to the cyberpublic on the World Wide Web. On-line discussions range from the mundane (daily weather forecasts from atop Jay Peak and Mount Mansfield) to the practical (daily ski conditions and first-hand ski reports) to the adventurous (where to find the best tree runs and how to not get caught skiing them) to the contentious (the pros and cons of snomaking). "It's great information to have before you spend money on lift tickets," attests Matt "Wunderski" Swartz, a UVM chemist and three year veteran of SKIVT-L.

Proving that 'net cruisers are as energetic on the slopes as they are on their keyboards, SKIVT-l guru Wes Wright led a charge down a closed trail, only to trash his skis [editor's note: they were trashed weeks before that!]. Examining his freshly serrated edges, he mused, "Skiing is like surfing the Internet: You never know what's around the next bend. At least you can't get maimed on the 'Net."

None of Dave's pictures appeared in the article. But they do appear here.