In a ski lodge basement at Sugarloaf Mountain, Maine, the contents of Natalie Rines Terry’s locker sit exactly as they were left last spring after she passed away from natural causes, on April 22, 2020, at 96 years old. There’s a snowflake beanie, a fleece, and a commemorative pin. Not far away, her official gravestone reads “Sugarloafer Since 1951, Lifetime Member of PSIA (Professional Ski Instructors of America).”
Beginning in the late 1930s, Rines Terry skied with grit through a time when girls’ school sports didn’t even exist. “Way back in the day, being a strong female athlete made her feel a little bit different, but she always found a way to be competitive,” says her daughter Sarah Carlson, who now works as a ski coach. “Rines Terry taught more students than anyone else in the East,” her co-workers and friends told me over and over again. She was Sugarloaf’s most requested instructor in history, teaching tens of thousands of students over the course of her 50-year career. In 1996,