Skip Horner knows an exciting or unusually adventurous experience when he sees it. Not only does he appreciate the spirit of adventure, he lives it, breathes it, thinks it, traverses over it, spryly leaps across it, and makes a living sharing such extremely bold and unique undertakings with others.

For Horner, participating in enlivening and original enterprises – whether it’s white-water rafting in Madagascar or Papua, New Guinea, scaling the summit of Mt. Vinson, the tallest peak in Antarctica, or ascending Gunnbjornsfjeld, the highest mountain in the Arctic – isn’t just a job, but rather a lifestyle choice melding together his self-happiness, personality and broad knowledge.

Horner explains: “The experience of seeing new foreign cultures and wildlife scenes keeps me going. This curiosity is always there. I’d love to be able to go to every country in the world to see what’s happening, but there are way too many places to go. If a year has gone by and I haven’t visited a new country or culture, then it hasn’t been a good year.”

Originally an East Coast guy, Horner moved to Aspen in 1969 to become “a ski bum” during a time which he refers to as the town’s “Golden Age”: the glitz hadn’t taken effect yet, open space was plentiful, and real estate prices weren’t so exorbitantly unreasonable. His second year there he discovered the fabulous fun of cross-country skiing, even using it as a mechanism to transport himself back and forth to town, and from the mountain where he’d downhill ski by day to the teepee he called home that winter.

Years later, Horner began teaching cross-country skiing. One day on his way to work he noticed a man putting out brochures for a local river expedition company, and after a little bit of schmoozing, he had a job guiding folks down the Grand Canyon.

After three summers and twenty-one trips guiding the indubitably demanding Colorado River, Horner went looking for a new direction in life. Law school was supposed to be a definite destination, but that never panned out, because he got hired by a different adventure travel company named Mountain Travel. This job established Horner with the foundation of what would become his life’s work.

“At that time I still thought that guiding was something I could only do before getting serious about life. I was still thinking that it couldn’t be a career.”

In 1974, Mountain Travel sent Horner off to lead climbing and trekking expeditions to just about everywhere in South America, as well as throughout the ruggedly remote expanses of the Himalayas. The early 1970s, he says, brought the emergence of the adventure travel industry. Then, the concept of world travel was far more obscure and mysterious, and, unlike today, guidebooks to every single country in the world weren’t available at every book store and coffee house in town.

“Basically, (back then) you would fly into a place and then start asking questions. They’d (Mountain Travel) send me a plane ticket to almost anywhere, could’ve been Katmandu, or Santiago, Chile, or Nairobi, and I’d pick the client up and take them on a trip.”

After leaving Mountain Travel, and doing his solo share of globe-trotting, Horner began offering his own guided services. Starting and maintaining an adventure company, he says, is something that he couldn’t ever have done (and still couldn’t do) without the inestimable help and the exuberant encouragement of his wife Elizabeth.

It’s been more than three decades since he began experimenting with world travel, and, still, Horner believes that a good guide doesn’t need to have previously visited the country he’s taking a client to in order to be a competent escort. In fact, he says that if a guide possesses a keen understanding of geography, topography, and cartography, and practices clear, logical thinking, then that person should be able to safely and successfully guide folks through unfamiliar terrain.

“My expertise isn’t in having been to a place and therefore knowing everything about it, my expertise is in knowing the patterns of places, how mountains work, how rivers work, and how travel works, so when I get to a new place, I can use this understanding of patterns and systems to make a new trip work. If you can understand the motivations of people, and have compassion for the people whose country you’re going to, you’ll be fine.”

However, such bold and risky undertakings are closely associated with uncertain outcomes and inherent danger, which does alarm Horner. But, fear, he says, is a critical emotion necessary for an adventure guide’s success: have it and it can be consciously counteracted to make a trip thrive, or used as an adrenaline boost to prevent things from becoming routine, lose it and things may become uninspiring. Either way, a good guide, he says, doesn’t mind sticking his neck out in a place with which he truly isn’t acquainted.

“The first time I took people to Mt. Everest I hadn’t been there. Some people like that type of adventure. My fear of falling has made me a successful climber, and, as a guide, I’m always afraid of having a disastrous trip. When pulling into any new town, I’m a little bit up on edge, a little bit excited, a little fearful, but you can control this fear and make a success out of it.”

After many years living a life fraught with extreme exquisiteness and dicey endangerment, the single most beautiful, powerful and emotional thing to ever affect Horner is a solar eclipse – an outstanding astronomical event he’s seen in some far-flung places, including once while cross-country skiing through the frostily cold confines of Mongolia, and yet another time when leading a caravan of camels across furrowed sand dunes deep in the Sahara. (Horner is already organizing trips to view the next four solar eclipses from unusual places.)

“A true solar eclipse is the most unbelievable event a person can experience. It’s so outrageous, so unbelievable, so moving, that you have to see it for yourself to understand it.”

Often Horner passes through and pops up in places so remote that his presence compels some locals to suspiciously scratch their heads; others wipe their eyes in disbelief as if they were looking at a mirage, and a few even fretfully hurry for the hills.

One time when Horner was guiding a white-water rafting trip in Madagascar, his party pierced through an eerily remote stretch of water, and waited on a quiet beach to meet a helicopter. (Horner was guiding for an adventure company named Sobek, which was receiving much positive public notice at the time in Madagascar; the helicopter, which was supposed to skirt the group around a singularly treacherous arrangement of waterfalls, was just part of the hullabaloo thought up by an oil company hoping to capitalize on Sobek’s newfound publicity.)

“We pulled ashore, with eight days’ worth of scruff and grunge, with our beards and boats and life jackets, and we landed along a village full of kids. They saw us, and as we got closer to them they ran away. It was very funny for us, because we could see them peeking at us through the brush and bushes.”

There, on this distant and far-off beach, an incredible scene took place, with boats arriving, a helicopter landing, and a pair of roaring twin engine planes circling, punctuated by groups of animated westerners, which included the U.S. ambassador to Madagascar, all dressed funnily.

“We had a cocktail party right there, and people were looking at us like we were from Mars. Who knows what kind of mythology came out of that day. Can you imagine what kinds of stories have been passed down in that village?” asks Horner, who was to fall violently ill that day, due to the fact he’d gotten bit by a mosquito on a previous trip and the nip incubated into cerebral malaria.

While pockets of relatively unchartered territory still exist in the world– i.e. there are some places where few people have ever ventured and others so remote that little human interaction transpires there – today’s trekking groups will take clients to nearly anywhere on the planet. And chances are that Horner’s already blazed those ill-defined trails. In fact, he will visit the same place twice if he really loved his experience there the first time around. Plus, if he keeps finding enthusiastic people who want him to lead them on a trip to a particular place or predicament, he’ll repeat such a journey as many times as wished.

In fact, he’ll be shepherding an expedition to Mt. Kilimanjaro in February for what’ll be his 24th time to the summit of Africa’s highest point. Even though he’s been there and done that many times over Horner’s enthusiasm for this approaching ascent is by no means lackluster.

“I love going with people that are excited, that get something out of the trip. I refer to the people that come with me on these adventures as friends. I see it this way: It’s a relationship that’s between friends. I’m doing what I love doing most and I’m doing it with my friends. I love taking people to places who desire to understand where they’re going, and that’s fun no matter how often I’ve been to a spot.”

Even after thirty years in the business and a few close encounters and unnerving brushes with doom – such as the time two years ago when Horner was buried under an avalanche in the Himalayas and watched with incredulity as thick snow slid, tumbled and disintegrated before his eyes, all the time thinking he was a goner – Horner scoffs at the very notion of the “r” word: retirement. To him, cozy couches, slow strides, and casual, unhurried living aren’t vicissitudes favorable to conducting a life, but mere episodic interludes between adventures.

“This is my life. My life is my work. For me to retire would mean that I’d have to quit traveling and guiding. I can’t do that.”

For more information about Skip Horner’s extraordinary adventures, visit www.skiphorner.com.

For Laura Way Wathen, the feeling of tremendous satisfaction that comes from capturing that special moment – both realistically and spiritually – is a bond that unites and ties her to the illustrative and decorative art of oil painting.

But, don’t call her an “artist,” because even after many years of accolades, artistic toiling and art exhibits, she’s still not comfortable with the word – preferring to be called “painter.”

“I know that when most people think painter, they think house painter, but a painter is what I am and what I do. I’ve always liked the term,” says Wathen, from the adequate and relaxing confines of her back yard Hamilton studio, on a quiet, chilly afternoon, with the grey sky above enveloped by dense blotchy fog.

Indeed, it seems that – similar to the clichéd characterization – she was born to be a painter. Since childhood, Wathen has been interested in and focused her attention on the lasting values of fine drawing, color, and composition, and the appreciation of light.

“I’ve always been coloring and drawing for as long as I can recall. I’ve always known that I was born to do this, and I can remember since the age of four making images come alive for me,” she says.

While Wathen has been able to create works of sheer aesthetic value in the fine arts, mostly by utilizing her own innate virtues of imagination and talent and skill, she does credit her parents with nurturing and maximizing her artistic inclinations.

“I was encouraged to do things growing up that were creative – and those are wonderful memories,” says Wathen, who was born in Kansas and earned a B.F.A. in Painting and Drawing from the University of Kansas.

Before coming to Montana, she did her share of globe-scampering, living in Indiana, France, and Warsaw and Krakow, Poland. Indeed, it seems that Wathen has made a successful landing after making the logical leap into the realm of becoming a full-time painter.

See, Wathen’s oil paintings force the viewer to be fascinated by the details, to be awed by the ordinary, to ponder life’s transient joys and myriad simplicities. Producing works that are primarily subject to her own strict aesthetic criteria, and which advance and apply her knowledge of design, drawing, and painting, is her eminency.

“I strive for that moment when the painting I am working on comes to life. I have always been fascinated with the idea of revealing some aspect of a subject’s nature.”

Representational in conclusion, her approach combines strong, almost sculptural compositions with abstract design, subtle color, and floating, fresh brushwork. Consequently, Wathen’s artistry conveys her impressions of both the grand vistas (like in a piece of artwork titled “Mill Peak,” where the arresting beauty of immersion and the subtle tranquility of meditation meet) and intimate scenes of the western landscape through details rather than suggestion. The latter description is epitomized in Wathen’s resplendent rendition “Close to Home,” which uses saturated colors to express the extraordinarily unadorned beauty of a country home and its surrounding fields deluged by spring runoff.

“My art is about being part of this world. Time and space merge in my work…and I want to convey the transience of time and the importance of the moment.”

These days Wathen’s daily commute takes about twenty steps and thirty seconds. The structure she now uses as her painter’s studio was once part of a local tree nursery, which she bought from a dying local business last year, then had delivered, and has since repurposed into a thoughtful and helpful art environment. (Before the studio, the back porch of her log cabin home served as the setting where she’d artistically unleash her skills.)

Still, nothing worthwhile in life ever truly comes easy, and putting the paint brush to the paper doesn’t always feel natural, and it can be a struggle sometimes for Wathen to get her mind to jibe with what her eyes are seeing and her body is feeling. Often she finds that creativity has more to do with discipline, precision and the intoxication of pure dedication.

“It’s nice to have a studio and to come here and just shut the door and concentrate. Some days I’ll spend 4-6 hours here straight. It offers nice light and good views. It provides me with a sense of place and something meditative. When I’m here I really do feel lucky.”

Some of Laura Way Wathen’s artistic creations can be seen at the Darby Public Library, 101 S. Marshall Street. For more information, or to see more of the artist’s work, contact Wathen at 961-3104.

One of the more exciting developments in the realm of women’s health is development of a vaccine to protect against the human papillomavirus, a common and prevalent virus, and the leading cause of cervical cancer that kills as many as 3,700 women in the U.S. each year.

GlaxoSmithKline, the London-based pharmaceutical giant with a research and development laboratory in Hamilton, is developing Cervarix, a vaccine currently awaiting marketing approval in Europe.

Cervarix is one vaccine under development by GSK to use monophosphoryl lipid, or MPL, a drug adjuvant – ingredients added to a vaccine to prompt a better response from the body’s immune system.

And MPL was developed by the late Dr. Edgar Ribi, a Hamilton scientist who, along with his colleagues, studied the body’s immune system at the Rocky Mountain Laboratories, also in Hamilton.

Ribi discovered a method to detoxify endotoxin, a bacterial cell wall component, without destroying its ability to stimulate the immune system. His research “in its most basic form was at RML, where he was really studying the immune system,” says Gary Christianson, site director at GSK, formerly RibiImmunoChem, the lab begun by Ribi in

1981 after his departure from RML. RibiImmunoChem was purchased by the Seattle-based biopharmaceutical company Corixa which, in the spring of 2005, sold it to GSK for $300 million and assumption of $100 million in debts.

“There were a couple of things at play,” says Christenson about the GSK buy-out. “GSK was looking for new purchases to help support adjuvant development.” The production of MPL at the Hamilton facility was key to the GSK purchase since two-thirds of GSK’s vaccine pipeline – from pre-clinical testing to regulatory approval – is supported by adjuvants.

MPL starts out as a living organism, but is purified during the manufacturing process. In clinical trials, Cervarix, with its MPL adjuvant, proved to be 100 percent effective in the protection against HPV 16 and HPV 18, the two strains of human papillomavirus responsible for 70 percent of all cases of cervical cancer.

The impact of Cervarix on women’s health promises to be significant.

Cervical cancer is the number one cancer killer of women in the developing world. Each year, a half million women are diagnosed with cervical cancer worldwide; it is the second most common cancer and third leading cause of cancer death among women globally. While screening in the form of regular Pap smears is an important part of health care maintenance, screening can miss pre-cancerous lesions, and not all women want to go through the discomfort of an annual Pap smear, making a vaccine a simpler and more desirable method of prevention.

GSK expects to submit an application for approval from the Food and Drug Administration for Cervarix in 2007. If successful, MPL may give it an edge over a rival vaccine produced by U.S. biopharmaceutical company Merck, and which is being marketed under its trade name, Gardisil.

A government advisory committee has recommended that a cervical cancer vaccine be given to girls and women ages 11-26 as a matter of routine, so the financial stakes are high. If it receives regulatory approval, Cervarix promises to be a huge money maker for GSK, with estimated eventual sales of $4 billion a year, making it the most financially successful vaccine ever produced.

But Cervarix is not the only vaccine in GSK’s pipeline boosted by MPL. It has also been approved in Europe as an adjuvant in a vaccine for hepatitis B. Its use in a vaccine for malaria, a mosquito-borne viral disease that kills 3,000 children a day, mostly in sub-Saharan Africa, is being tested by GSK in conjunction with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. A malaria vaccine is especially critical in a world in which 10 percent of the population is at risk of infection at any given time, and where mosquito control efforts have failed or have proven insufficient, and where the disease is becoming drug resistant.

GSK is also researching MPL as a key component in other immunotherapeutic vaccines for the treatment of breast, lung, prostate and melanoma cancers.

The GSK buy out and the production of MPL have necessitated an expansion of the Hamilton facility northeast of town. The square footage will increase from its current 60,000 to 90,000, with a scheduled completion date of September 2007. Another 60 to 70 employees will be added to the 200-plus workforce, and the additional space will house additional MPL production facilities and production support.

The line from Dr. Edgar Ribi’s early studies of the human immune system to a cervical cancer vaccine that may someday be as routine as a flu shot is not a straight one. And to paraphrase an old line from the scientific community, the makers of the humble but crucial MPL are standing on the shoulders of giants.

Ribi was one of those giants that the Bitterroot Valley has been losing in distressing numbers in the past few years, and though he is missed, his legacy my well will live on in the saved lives of countless women he never met.

Nigeria – a West African republic on the Gulf of Guinea – may seem more than a terrestrial sphere away and apart from western Montana’s unique topographical surroundings, individualistically inclined population, and ubiquitous outdoor and wildlife themes. Thousands of oceanic and dirt miles separate the most populous country in Africa (one in every four Africans is a Nigerian) from the Bitterroot’s winter wonderland of warm ambience.

Distance has a strange way of being a catalyst in the dissemination of false impressions and wrong ideas, and today the American people are quite misunderstood throughout Africa and Nigeria; many Africans view the present U.S. government with deep distrust and disfavor, and feel that it has ignobly turned its back on noble democratic values – and that’s a generous interpretation of current events.

“It’s hard for many Africans to understand that this is the same America that produced (John) Steinbeck, (Henry David) Thoreau, and (William) Faulkner, and (Ralph Waldo) Emerson, when the government of today is opposed to what Thoreau and Emerson espoused,” says Henry Onwubiko, a Nigerian research scientist working (and living) in Hamilton as part of an educational science program, who’s lived on and off in the United States for three decades.

Onwubiko, 47, grew up in the midst of the Nigerian Biafra War. Nigeria is a federation of states segregated by three major ethnic categories: the Ibo (to which Onwubiko belongs), Hausa/Fulani and Yoruba. These three large ethnic groups were brought together through European colonial efforts to divvy up Africa amongst themselves.

In the mid-1960s, mounting ethnic tensions between these groups caused the Biafrans (the Ibos and other minority ethnic groups) in the south-eastern region to battle for their independence from the federation. The Hausa/Fulani refused to grant the Biafrans their independence in order to maintain access to oil reserves in the southern Niger Delta.

Its low sulphur content makes Nigerian oil uniquely attractive, and the country’s healthy share of “black gold” has been providing large international demand for decades. Oil extraction in Nigeria started 50 years ago in the southern Niger Delta.

Onwubiko says: “Today, the government of the United States is aligned with the military juntas, and the Nigerian government, backed by the United States, attacks and intimidates people in the (oil rich) River Rhine, and pollutes poorer areas of the country where there’s oil. While the crude oil flows (and makes foreigners prosperous), Nigerians sell mangos and bananas, with no future.”

The Biafran war seethed from 1967-1970, resulting in more than 100,000 military casualties. Between 500,000 and two million Biafran civilians are believed to have died from starvation during the war.

Onwubiko recollects the terrible hardship, grief and danger with which he grew up around: “It was like hell on earth. There were starving children and food blockades. I remember looking up at the sky and seeing bombs. People were roaming around for food. In the mornings I’d go to the military barracks and collect the soldiers’ dirty plates, before washing them I would eat the scraps to survive.”

These desperate conditions – the lack of food, clothing and other necessities – put Onwubiko in a constant state of danger. What may have very well saved the young boy’s life was that he happened to know a little bit of French and English, and somehow he convinced members of an American mobile clinic he could be an asset interpreting both.

After the Biafran war ended, Onwubiko used contacts he made during the war to help facilitate his coming to the United States. Alone, he settled in California. It was 1973 and he was only 13 years old. New and alien cultural realities confronted him.

With his profound ability to make real the experience of human nature at the limits of its endurance, Onwubiko learned how to exist in a country which itself was rectifying its own inner struggles, (palpable disillusionment brought about by Watergate’s scandalous scenarios was strong) as well as coming to grips with divisive, historical conflict – the resolution of an unpopular, ill-defined war with Vietnam. Subsequently, he graduated high school, finished college, and came to better understand a culture that’s not always so easy to read, discern, or comprehend.

Throughout the 1970s when Onwubiko lived in California he visited his home country frequently. In 1982 after finishing his education he returned to Nigeria, where he later fathered five children.

When pressed to share his fondest memory of the United States, Onwubiko struggles to find an acceptable answer, but moments later he rearranges the question, supplanting his finest memory for his worst, and by opting to share his gloomiest remembrance instead of loveliest.

Onwubiko says: “John Lennon’s death was like having the lights turned off. It was a very horrible and very evil thing. What made it so sickening to me was that he was a very good, very truthful man. He cared about the earth and its future and he really loved everybody. The fact that he was killed here made me very worried about America.”

Two months ago, Onwubiko returned to the United States, this time to western Montana, to work at Hamilton’s Rocky Mountain Laboratory. (Onwubiko brought his wife and five children with him here to live, thinking it wise for them to get exposure to our country’s customs and practices.)

Recruited by the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education (ORISE) to participate in a program in which scientists from developing countries get the opportunity to enhance their research skills, Onwubiko has an intense one-year commitment ahead. ORISE-administered research appointment programs provide a plethora of research skills to prepare scientists for the future.

“There’s a lot to learn here. I’ve met some very interesting people already. People appreciate their individualism here and work hard,” says Onwubiko, who’s working with chewable leaf and root extracts that stimulate the immune system, control infectious diseases, and which are more potent than vitamin C.

Onwubiko also works with proteins and cultured cells to test these extracts, as well as with atomic and genetic engineering, in an effort to find solutions to painstaking scientific problems.

When he returns to Africa next year, Onwubiko plans to continue working at the University of Nigeria, where he’s employed as a biochemist. He speaks of setting up a functional laboratory there and doing future work that’s similar to what he’s doing here right now at the Rocky Mountain Lab.

“Nigeria lacks the proper facilities to do such work, but not the desire to do it. We are not beggars. If I can bring back something, my knowledge, or older equipment, then I would consider that I’ve achieved something in this trip.”

Onwubiko’s assessment of life in his native country today isn’t rosy. He sees Nigeria, which gained independence from Britain in 1960, as a country in dire need of myriad social, political and economic reforms. Corruption and shady dealings are the norm in Nigeria, he says.

“There’s a lot of work to do. The level of corruption and mass poverty and social destruction is so great. We need a government which is truthful to the Nigerian people, that will use and channel resources to health and education, and try eliminating and controlling our mass poverty.”

While a mutual ignorance of one another’s creeds and motivations luminously flourishes in both countries, Onwubiko says that most Nigerians know nothing else about the American people other than the notions they base on films, movies and the activities of the U.S. government. “There’s a danger there, because the American is looked at as someone that isn’t even human – as people that are out to destroy us with their gadgets, or to pollute our drinking water, or bully us while holding tactical nuclear weapons behind (their) back. There’s a real fear of this in Nigeria.”

Furthermore, Onwubiko feels that American culture itself – the Declaration of Independence, its literature, its founding ideologies – should serve as the country’s greatest weapon against terrorism

“Through teaching about what Americans, as a people, really are like – hard-working, generous, wonderful people, that’s their character – and allowing people to get to know these traits, these bad impressions can be changed.”

Philipsburg, MT -- After a successful decade of growing its summer tourism, little Philipsburg is setting it’s sights on warmimg up it’s winter business. And a lot of it has to do with an asset sitting, literally, in Philipsburg’s backyard.

“Discovery is a gem,” says Susan Jenner who owns the historic Broadway Hotel in Philipsburg, “What we need to do is get more Montanans to realize that the Discovery Ski Area and Philipsburg are the same destination.”

For over thirty years Discovery has loomed less than five miles south of Philipsburg, but circumstances have prevented the two locations from being connected in the skiing public’s mind.

For one thing, even though all of Discovery’s 61 runs are in Granite County, the mailing address for the ski hill is a Post Office Box in Anaconda. This clerical quirk resulted in tourist websites, ski magazine listings and hundreds of other reference points naming Anaconda as the nearest town to the ski hill, often without even mentioning Philipsburg.

In addition, historic Montana Highway One, leading to Discovery from I-90, bypassed Philipsburg years ago. And, while it’s only a mile off the main highway, literally thousands of skiers drive past Philipsburg annually, never entering the historic district.

“You don’t realize how significant that bypass is until you talk to people from out of the area who ski at Discovery”, said Bill Dirkes who owns the Sunshine Station, located on the main highway outside of Philipsburg, “You find there are a lot of people, Montanans, who have never been in the old part of town.”

For all of Philipsburg’s “can do” attitude about improving winter business, an obvious key is how Discovery sees the future. And that is where little Philipsburg’s hopes seem to be gaining traction.

“We want to help Philipsburg generate more winter business”, says Beatriz Pitcher who, with her husband Peter, runs Discovery Ski area. “It’s a wonderful small town and our skiers who visit there love it.” Part of Discovery’s interest in Philipsburg is understandable considering the company is working to connect the north side of the ski area with a road near Philipsburg. The new route would eliminate much of the winding 12-mile drive from Philipsburg on Highway One.

“We think Philipsburg and Discovery appeal to the same type of people.” Said Beatriz Pitcher, “We’ve been written up as a friendly family place, with great affordable skiing. Well Philipsburg is a charming small town, with friendly people and they work so hard to take good care of visitors. And their new lighted ice rink is a great addition to winter events.”

The rink she’s referring to is the new NHL-sized outdoor rink that the local Rotary Club has developed in the heart of the old part of town. It’s expected to attract families who like to ski & skate.

To help that effort along Discovery has been working with local businesses and lodging outlets to attract more weekend visitors to Philipsburg. This includes participating in weekly Friday night receptions for visitors to meet local folks, as well as providing a free half-day ski pass to couples who book a Friday and Saturday night stay in town. In addition, local merchants are contributing gifts and coupons to the cause. “It’s great to see the ski hill excited about working with us.” Said Davee Letford who owns the Quigley Cottage B&B in town. “It won’t take much to help our winters; even a few dozen more skiers or skaters or snowmobilers. Just that little bit more business, is the break we need.”

That said, other ski towns take note, like the little engine that could, Philipsburg has a habit of knowing how to make the most of any breaks that come its way.