Forrest Lagace: Artist, Web Designer, Developer, Shredder

Name: Forrest Lagacé

From: Fountain City, WI

Primary Sports: Skiing, white water paddling, biking

Years At OGE: 3

OGE: How did you end up in VT?

FL: I was out of college and staring down a future corporate life and didn't much care for what I saw. I was working in the steel industry in quality assurance doing a mixture of product testing and writing data sytems with what many would have considered a solid career path laid out. It just wasn't the right path for me so I decided to leave the position and take some time to figure out what I really wanted to do. I am an outdoors person and had been a ski instructor and volunteered as a ski patroller so I decided to spend a winter on the snow. I took a position at Sugarbush because were willing to let me patrol on telemark gear and I had friends in the area. I didn't even own alpine gear at the time, and most of the western mountains weren't interested in free healers. That was a long time ago and I am still here. I have considered leaving New England, but the people are something special. It's home!

OGE: Did you grow up being active?

FL: Somewhat. I raised horses on a small farm. I ran track and cross country from junior high school through college. Family friends got me into snowboarding, but my first real solo outdoor pursuit was mountain biking. When I was about 14 I decided that mountain biking was going to be my sport. I saved money from working at a camp, odd jobs, and any other cash I could scrounge up to buy my first mountain bike. It was a Trek 8300 with suntour components. I used to hang out at the local bike shop and help out in trade for parts and repairs. The owner taught me how to maintain my bike and helped me get into road biking when my running coach decided mountain biking was to risky.

In college I spent a year in England and joined a whitewater kayaking club. I got addicted to whitewater kayaking, and became a kayak instructor, raft guide and sea kayaking guide. I have guided trips ranging from day trips to multi-week trips sea kayaking trips on Lake Superior.

OGE: When you drove to Vermont, what toys were on your car?

FL: Three whitewater kayaks, a mountain bike, a road bike, a couple of pairs of skis, a snowboard and my camping gear.

OGE: Have you picked up any new sports since you moved here?

FL: I started kiteboarding or at least I am trying to start kiteboarding. Vermont is not the easiest place to learn to kiteboard. The sports I did before are a big part of why I came to Vermont and probably the biggest reason I have stayed.

OGE: What do you consider your greatest accomplishment?

FL: Never really growing up. As I get older I play harder, but not less.

OGE: What's your favorite piece of gear?

FL: For my current favorite piece of gear I have to go with clothing. My RAB Traverse shorts and my Chaco flips are indispensable right now. I live in them. Come fall, my most used gear will be an Icebreaker Kodiak Real Fleece and my RAB puffy.

OGE: What's on the lifetime bucket list?

FL: To get confident and comfortable kiteboarding. To turn the rusty and incomprehensible mixture of French and German words floating around in my head from school into fluency in at least one language other than English. I am a general adventurer and I jump at opportunities. The Long Trail, is in my back yard and so is the Northern Forest Canoe Trail so they will probably happen, but I also want to see the world. I want to travel in the Himalayas (Nepal, Tibet), The Andes (Peru, Chile), South Africa, Mongolia, New Zealand to name a few specific places, but I will probably go just about anywhere I can look up and see stars given the opportunity. OGE: What's your most memorable outdoor adventure? FL: It was a four-day paddling trip to the Lake District in 2000: We camped in a field, It rained constantly, Sheep paraded around our tents from nightfall to sunrise, We consumed what should have been a lifetime supply of Cadbury's chocolate + prodigious quantities of scotch, I ran my first waterfall, and became hopelessly addicted to kayaking. Had I skipped that trip I would probably be working a desk job for some large corporation in the Midwest today. A close second was getting bottomless powder in VT on lines that I may never see enough snow to ski again in the weeks after the Valentines day storm in 2007. I know it's a little general, but I will never forget the winter when skiing the east was as or more epic than skiing the west.