Summary: This article is the third profile in the ‘Where Are They Now’ series, made possible through the generous support of Fischer Sports. Learn more about their products at www.fischersports.com. Mike Gallagher, a three-time Olympic cross-country skier and former U.S. Ski Team head coach, stands in front of his home in Pittsfield, Vt., on Nov. 1. FS Podcast Short: Mike Gallagher discusses the evolution of skating with Alex Matthews (You can subscribe to FasterSkier Podcasts in iTunes here) PITTSFIELD, Vt. — The “XC1” license plate on the Subaru wagon should have been a dead giveaway. Instead, it took a minute to be sure the man walking across the general-store parking lot was Mike Gallagher, one of the pivotal players who put U.S. nordic skiing on the international map. Inside the store, appropriately named the “Pitt-Stop” after the town with about 550 residents, Gallagher greeted a few familiar neighbors and affectionately asked the clerk to prepare his turkey-BLT sub without onions. “They don’t come with onions,” she said, kindly. “Oh, no?” the 70-year-old Gallagher said about one of his favorite grinders. “Well, all right then.” Pittsfield and Irene: When Tropical Storm Irene swept the country in late August, it devastated several communities in central Vermont, including Pittsfield. High atop a mountain road, Gallagher lost his driveway. With his power out, he thought, “Poor me,” he said. Then he walked into town. In the river valley, 22 homes had been condemned or destroyed in Pittsfield, he said. Residents were stuck without a way out for more than a week. The Pitt-Stop rationed gas to five gallons a day per household, the National Guard and FEMA flew supplies in, and people met every other day at town meetings. “The town came together like it never has,” said Gallagher, who has lived in Pittsfield since 1967. “We’ve had what we call floods, but nothing. We never lost bridges, we never lost homes.” With his wife, Tyna, in Boston during the storm, Gallagher couldn’t talk to her for four days. He had to walk to town and stand in one spot to get cell service. When Tyna arrived home later that week, she was covered in scratches from walking through the woods, Gallagher said. They couldn’t use their driveway for nearly a month, he said. It took 63 dump-truck loads of gravel to fill in. Before proceeding a few miles from town to his home at the height of the land, the three-time Olympian and former U.S. Ski Team head coach visited the postmaster. Up at his log cabin on 50 acres of land surrounded by national forest, Gallagher revealed four green-and-spotted apples the postmaster gave him. She thought they were interesting, he said with a laugh. He had apple trees in his yard. Placing them on the woodpile that filled his front porch, Gallagher explained he used to chop the wood himself. Now, he had it delivered, but even after having a hip replacement a year and a half ago, he still stacked it. Before eating lunch inside the house he built in the 1970s, Gallagher pointed to a green square nailed outside his garage. High above the ground, the original “XC1” Vermont license plate attested to his ski career; the nine-time U.S. nordic champion received it in the ’70s upon being the top racer in the country. With prestige came egos, Gallagher said. He had plenty of stories to illustrate his. A veteran member of the U.S. Ski Team in 1968, he remembered when about 10 teammates set a running record on Vermont’s Long Trail, which extends nearly 300 miles from Canada to Massachusetts. A year later, he and the team took on another training excursion: bicycling some 1,000 miles around Vermont. “I had this license plate, but I was not a biker,” Gallagher said, with a smile. “I had a 10-speed bike. … It didn’t have those fancy toe clips. I didn’t wear those fruity-looking black pants and those pointy Italian shoes with these clips on the bottom. I was a real man. I [...]
