Walter Kersch

By Alex Kochon

Residence: East Poestenkill
Age: 86
Family: Wife, Terri; daughters, Susan and Heather; four grandsons
Occupations: Tree Farmer, School Principal, Guidance Counselor, Math Teacher, Ski Instructor, Ski Area Owner
Hobbies: Cross-Country Skiing, Hiking, Gardening, Hunting

As a first-grade student in a one-room schoolhouse in the town of Wethersfield in Wyoming County, Walter Kersch cross-country skied to school on a pair of skis his dad made with leather straps. It was just under a mile each way, but rural roads weren’t plowed back in 1944.

“We didn’t think of that as cross-country skiing,” Walter recalled. 

Without buses or viable transportation in the winter months, skiing to and from school was a necessity. 

Eighty years later, Walter, now 86, has seen his life come full circle as the co-owner of Pineridge Cross-Country Ski Area in East Poestenkill, located 14 miles east of Troy. Situated on over 700 acres of land on the Rensselaer Plateau with 50 kilometers of trails, 35 kilometers of which are groomed for Nordic skiing, Pineridge is celebrating its 40th season in business this year, with Walter and his wife, Theresa (also known as Terri), at the helm since the start.

“It doesn’t feel like 40 years,” Walter said. “I kind of marvel when I walk on some of the ski trails, especially at different times of the year, and see the pattern and development of all these trails. I look back and say, ‘How did I ever do that?’”

Growing up on a farm with a father who logged trees by hand with a crosscut saw and a team of horses, Walter was exposed to an outdoor lifestyle and living off the land. His family’s dairy farm also sold Christmas trees, and Walter made extra cash as a child tapping maple trees and selling five-gallon buckets of syrup to a local distributor. 

After graduating from the State University of New York at Oswego, Walter bought a large farm in western New York. He followed in his father’s footsteps, planting Christmas trees and supplying a shopping center in Tampa, Fla., with thousands of trees over a 10-year span.

Meanwhile, Walter taught math in Angola and obtained his master’s degree in Counseling at Canisius College in Buffalo. He moved to the Capital District in 1964, earned advanced certification in School Administration, and met Terri, a research chemist at Sterling-Winthrop (now Regeneron), whom he married in 1967.

Two years later, in 1969, Walter became principal at Berlin Junior-Senior High School. That same year, he and Terri bought a house and 10 acres of land in East Poestenkill. They expanded their property holdings and deepened their roots in 1972, purchasing a 400-acre parcel across the road.

“We tried to think about how we would share this land with other people, and we looked at a lot of different options,” Walter explained. 

They considered building a campground but came up with a new idea after visiting a small ski center in Carlisle, Mass., called Carlisle in the Woods. 

“We just had such a great time,” Walter recalled of the day trip with his wife and daughters, Susan and Heather. “On the way home, when we stopped to get a bite to eat, we said, ‘That’s what we need to do!’”

Aside from skiing to and from school at age seven, Walter’s ski background was mainly in alpine as a skier at Kissing Bridge in western NY and instructor at Petersburg Pass on the NY/MA border. With the help of Cross-Country Ski Areas of New York colleagues, such as Olavi Hirvonen (Lapland Lake, Northville), Joe Pete Wilson (Bark Eater, Keene), and George Heim (Garnet Hill, North River), Walter began planning trails in 1981 and opened Pineridge with a new lodge in place of an old fish-and-game club building in 1984. 

What started with a few kilometers of winding trails through a dense forest evolved into 25 trails for cross-country skiing, backcountry skiing and snowshoeing. Over the years, Walter and Terri have purchased four additional contiguous land parcels for a total of 769 acres along Poestenkill Creek. 

Nestled in the foothills of the Taconic and Berkshire mountains, Pineridge boasts 350 feet of elevation gain from the lodge, and is about a 30-minute drive east of Albany and 15 minutes from West Sand Lake.

Walter’s favorite beginner trail, Meadow Watch, explores an old potato field with young balsam trees enclosing both sides of the trail. His favorite challenging trail, Mogul Twister, took about three years to create. Its “ups and downs and switchbacks” lead skiers to the area’s 1,746-foot summit, which offers views of the Taconic Range and Mount Greylock in Massachusetts. 

The trails are narrow, measuring about eight to 10 feet wide, and most have a canopy of trees over them. They are also rich in history; the Round Top trail follows a portion of the horse-and-buggy “Albany to Bath Road,” completed in 1777. One hill still contains a wooden barrel from that era, which was built into a spring to water the horses. Pineridge is home to several old homesteads and charcoal pits, where Walter has led hikes for children and adults to create charcoal drawings.

“We’re not as commercial as most areas,” Walter noted. “I’ve developed the trails so that people have a relationship with the forest.”

After retiring from teaching, Walter became a certified Master Forest Owner (MFO) through Cornell University to further educate himself and landowners on forest preservation. Today, he meets and walks with private landowners to discuss their woodlots and how to care for them.

In the early ‘90s, Walter spent about a week and a half with his daughter, Susan, planning a trail under a forked tree.

“We spent a whole Christmas vacation marking, flagging, doing a little bit of cutting, not much until you knew exactly where you wanted it to go, but we wanted it to go underneath that tree,” he recalled. 

Sue’s Trail is still a unique favorite, and Walter has been creating new trails up until the last few years.

“As I’m out there and looking around working in the woods, you see areas that you want people to visit,” he said.

Walter still works at the lodge every day it’s open. Until a few years ago, he was Pineridge’s primary groomer – setting track and corduroy with a large snowmobile. As of late January, the Nordic center was closed due to a lack of snow, warm temperatures and rain, but they’ll reopen as soon as they’re able so go visit them!

Over the years, Pineridge has weathered everything from being open just one day to a high of 120 days another winter. These days, Walter hopes for at least 40 days of operation to break even with operational costs, including employing about a dozen part-time employees. This year, he’s expecting less than that. Asked about the future of Pineridge, Walter wasn’t sure what is in store.

“A lot of people are concerned about what’s going to happen,” he said. “It could be the weather is going to control what happens… If this continues this way, Pineridge is going to disappear.

“It’s just so much warmer, and storms are coming through with rain behind them or in front of them,” he continued.

On the bright side, owning a cross-country ski area in the Capital Region has been a highlight of his life. He remembered buses of school children coming to ski with after-school programs in the ’80s and ’90s. He and Terri have met visitors from different states and countries, including Argentina and Switzerland most recently.

“It’s these people that are coming in, smiling, and having a good time; that’s the real reward,” he said.

His grandson, Alex Kibbler, spent his college winter break working with him on the trails. Walter noted that his employees, including Nate Gilbraith and Gerlinde Wolfe, have brought youthful energy to Pineridge in recent years. Nate is also a certified Master Forest Owner.

A longtime member of the town of Poestenkill’s Conservation Advisory Council, Walter is a founding member and former treasurer of the Rensselaer Plateau Alliance (RPA), which works toward the conservation of the Plateau’s undeveloped and unfragmented forests and other ecologically important areas.

“There’s so many of these things I knew little about when I started,” Walter said. “All the emphasis on climate change has made a lot of people think about really trying to protect our water, our air and our forests, and do something about it. Pineridge has been our attempt to address these issues, provide conservation of our forest, and share our forests with our friends and community.”

Alex Kochon (alexkochon@gmail.com) of Gansevoort is a freelance writer, editor, and outdoor-loving mom of two who enjoys adventuring in the Adirondacks. A journalist and former ski reporter, she has covered Olympics, world championships, and athletes of all calibers. She’s the cofounder of Ride On! Mountain Bike Trail Guide and assists authors for iPub Global Connection.