Adirondack Sports February 2024
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20 <strong>Adirondack</strong> <strong>Sports</strong><br />
ATHLETE PROFILE<br />
Walter<br />
Kersch<br />
■ TERRI AND WALTER OUTSIDE<br />
THEIR FRONT DOOR.<br />
RESIDENCE: East Poestenkill<br />
AGE: 86<br />
FAMILY: Wife, Terri; daughters, Susan<br />
and Heather; four grandsons<br />
OCCUPATIONS: Tree Farmer, School<br />
Principal, Guidance Counselor,<br />
Math Teacher, Ski Instructor,<br />
Ski Area Owner<br />
HOBBIES: Cross-Country Skiing, Hiking,<br />
Gardening, Hunting<br />
■ WALTER SKIING<br />
IN 2019.<br />
■ WINTER BEAUTY<br />
IN THE FOREST.<br />
By Alex Kochon<br />
■ PINERIDGE LODGE DURING<br />
A BOUNTIFUL WINTER.<br />
As a first-grade student in a oneroom<br />
schoolhouse in the town of<br />
Wethersfield in Wyoming County,<br />
Walter Kersch cross-country skied to<br />
school on a pair of skis his dad made with<br />
leather straps. It was just under a mile<br />
each way, but rural roads weren’t plowed<br />
back in 1944.<br />
“We didn’t think of that as cross-country<br />
skiing,” Walter recalled.<br />
Without buses or viable transportation<br />
in the winter months, skiing to and from<br />
school was a necessity.<br />
Eighty years later, Walter, now 86, has<br />
seen his life come full circle as the co-owner<br />
of Pineridge Cross-Country Ski Area in East<br />
Poestenkill, located 14 miles east of Troy.<br />
Situated on over 700 acres of land on the<br />
Rensselaer Plateau with 50 kilometers of<br />
trails, 35 kilometers of which are groomed<br />
for Nordic skiing, Pineridge is celebrating<br />
its 40th season in business this year, with<br />
Walter and his wife, Theresa (also known<br />
as Terri), at the helm since the start.<br />
“It doesn’t feel like 40 years,” Walter<br />
said. “I kind of marvel when I walk on<br />
some of the ski trails, especially at different<br />
times of the year, and see the pattern<br />
and development of all these trails. I look<br />
back and say, ‘How did I ever do that?’”<br />
Growing up on a farm with a father<br />
who logged trees by hand with a crosscut<br />
saw and a team of horses, Walter was<br />
exposed to an outdoor lifestyle and living<br />
off the land. His family’s dairy farm also<br />
sold Christmas trees, and Walter made<br />
extra cash as a child tapping maple trees<br />
and selling five-gallon buckets of syrup to<br />
a local distributor.<br />
After graduating from the State
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