This is a biweekly column about all things skiing and snowboarding in New England.

Longtime owners of Berkshire East are expanding again and at the same time saving another struggling independent ski area in New England.

In May the Schaefer family, owners of the popular Western Massachusetts ski area, joined with other partners to purchase Burke Mountain in Vermont for $11.5 million.

The new owners are hoping to give the overlooked area the stability needed to survive after decades of turmoil, including multiple owners and at least one bankruptcy. Most recently, it has operated under receivership for nine years after a scandal over the misuse of federal funds sent its owner and two others to jail.

Jon Schaefer sees great potential in the often-overlooked Vermont mountain located off Interstate 91 and has faith Bear Den Partners can overcome its chaotic past.

“There is a lot of mountain biking, it has incredible glades, it has a beautiful hotel,” said Schaefer, who is serving as chief operating officer at Bear Den Partners. “It is another great independent mountain. The superlatives keep coming.”

With a vertical drop of 2,000 feet and 53 trails, Burke is larger than Berkshire East and Catamount but the mountains have a lot of similarities, Schaefer said.

Burke Mountain is a spot Schaefer said he has watched for some time. His wife is from nearby St. Johnsbury and he raced at the mountain and it has a lot of similarities to Berkshire East.

Bear Den Partners — which includes principals Ken Graham and his family which briefly owned Burke two decades ago, owners of the renown ski racing school Burke Mountain Academy and other investors — were finally able to secure approvals to purchase the mountain following a court ruling.

Since then, the partners have been working overtime to get Burke ready for this season. Boosted by improved snowmaking and favorable weather they were able to open on Dec. 6, one of the earliest starts in years.

“The infrastructure was already in good shape. There are two high-speed quads and a lot of snowmaking, despite being in trouble for years,” Schaefer said.

Still, it needed attention and the partners short-term plan is to invest some $10 over the next two years and $20 million long-term in trail improvements, lift changes and operation upgrades, officials said.

“We have done two years of work in five months with tons of snowmaking, lots of new guns,” Schaefer said. “We have an incredible team working there and doing great things.”

The priority has been to enhance the snowmaking power and there has been a lot of behind-the-scenes work to improve the electrical workings of the lifts to ensure they are reliable. The J-bar in the learning area has also been completely overhauled and the mountain has a new groomer, he said.

At the same time the partners are also working with staff to modernize operating systems to make it more efficient.

This isn’t the first time Berkshire East has acquired a struggling ski area. In 2018 it purchased Catamount, in Egremont, joining together two independent mountains in the Berkshires. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic it has made dramatic overhauls, adding a new lodge, replacing chairlifts, cutting new trails and overhauling snowmaking.

It also expanded summer operations at Catamount with zip lining and other summer activities.

The existing popularity and infrastructure of mountain biking in and around Burke through the more than 100-mile Kingdom Trail network, was one of the many things that made Burke a good fit for his company since mountain biking has become a huge success at Berkshire East, Schaefer said.

“Kingdom Trails is one of the most important trail networks with 133,000 visits a year and it is an amazing resource for the resort,” he said, adding he hopes to work with the organization to expand the network and offerings at Burke.

Already, the Massachusetts mountain is transferring some of its recipe for success to Burke. Longtime Berkshire East manager Gabe Porter-Henry has been tapped as general manager of Burke to replace interim general manager Tom Day, who stepped in to help but is retiring.

Burke has also joined the Indy Pass as a full member this year. Berkshire East and Catamount were both original members of the multi-mountain pass that gives holders two tickets to resorts across the world and have had great success drawing new skiers and snowboarders through it.

Shortly after acquiring Catamount, the Schaefers also created the joint Summit Pass, that gives purchasers access to both mountains, and the Unlimited Summit Pass also allows the holder to ski any time at Bousquet Mountain under a partnership plan.

“We are still working on the tickets but there is expected to be some exchange between the resorts,” Schaefer said. “This year will be different from next year.

The location of Burke Mountain also made the connection attractive. While many of the best-known mountains in Vermont are found off Interstate 89 and Route 100, Burke is directly off Interstate 91 and an about three-hour drive from Greenfield, Schaefer said.

Berkshire East also acquired the whitewater rafting, zip lining and other adventuring company Zoar Outdoors, also located in Charlemont, in 2020. Previously the two businesses had worked together.

It also owns Big Red Cats in Rossland, British Columbia, that brings skiers and riders into the backcountry via snowcats.

Two people were injured after U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents opened fire on a van in Maryland on Christmas Eve when the driver allegedly tried to run them over during a law enforcement operation, officials said.

Anne Arundel County Police Department spokesperson Justin Mulacahy said officers responded to West Court in Glen Burnie at about 10:50 a.m. Wednesday for reports of a shooting involving ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations agents.

A preliminary investigation found that ICE agents were conducting a detail in the area when they approached a white van, according to police.

Police alleged the driver attempted to run the agents over, prompting ICE agents to open fire on the vehicle.

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The van then accelerated before stopping in a wooded area of a nearby residential neighborhood.

Mulacahy said one person inside the van was struck by gunfire and transported to an area hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.

Another person outside the van sustained minor injuries and was treated at an area hospital.

ICE ARRESTS CRIMINAL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANT ACCUSED OF FLEEING HEAD-ON CRASH THAT SEVERELY INJURED MARYLAND WOMAN

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said on X that the agents identified the driver of the van as Tiago Alexandre Sousa-Martins, an illegal alien from Portugal. Solomon Antonio Serrano-Esquivel, an illegal alien from El Salvador, was the passenger, DHS said.

According to DHS, the officers approached the van and told Sousa-Martins to turn off the engine, but he refused and attempted to flee. Sousa-Martins also allegedly began to ram his vehicle into several ICE vehicles before driving the van at ICE agents.

“Fearing for their lives and public safety, the ICE officers defensively fired their service weapons, striking the driver,” DHS said. “Sousa-Martins then wrecked his van between two buildings, injuring the passenger.”

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The agents rendered medical aid to both the driver and passenger, DHS added, before they were transported to the hospital for treatment.

“Our brave officers are risking their lives every day to keep American communities safe by arresting and removing illegal aliens from our streets,” DHS said. “Continued efforts to encourage illegal aliens and violent agitators to actively resist ICE will only lead to more violent incidents. The extremist rhetoric must stop.”

The incident has triggered at least three investigations. The Anne Arundel County Police Department’s Criminal Investigation Division will review the shooting, while the FBI will investigate the alleged assault on federal agents.

US MARSHAL, ILLEGAL ALIEN SHOT IN LOS ANGELES IMMIGRATION OPERATION

ICE will also conduct an internal investigation through its Office of Professional Responsibility.

Anne Arundel County Police Chief Amal Awad said the multiple investigations are standard procedure in incidents involving federal and local agencies and emphasized that her department was not involved in the shooting.

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“No Anne Arundel resources were involved in this incident, nor were they present,” she said.

No further details were immediately available as the investigations continue.

Harnois is an elementary school teacher in Boston Public Schools; together she and her husband make $175,000 a year. And their monthly rental costs are modest, considerably less than the typical household around here.

“If homes here cost $400,000, we’d be homeowners,” said Harnois, who is 32.

Such is reality now for Greater Boston’s next generation, particularly younger and middle class people.

The cost of buying a home has been steadily rising for decades, and recently it has exploded, growing far faster than incomes.

The typical house in Greater Boston sold for $833,900 in the second quarter of 2025, more than 7.5 times the region’s median household income. Five years ago, a household needed to earn $126,519 a year to afford the median-priced single-family home in this region, according to an analysis by Harvard University’s Joint Center for Housing Studies. Today, that figure has more than doubled, to $259,648.

The result is people who 20, 10, or even 5 years ago would have been able to purchase a home — teachers, nurses, and academics — can hardly even conceive of it.

“The door to homeownership in the Boston area has really been shut,” said Daniel McCue, a senior research associate at Harvard’s housing studies center. “There are hundreds of thousands of people here staring at these numbers saying, ‘Who can actually afford this?’ ”

The consequences are being felt by an entire generation, forced to make a choice their parents did not: Stay in Massachusetts, and rent forever, or leave, and put down roots somewhere less expensive.

“We work really hard, and we feel like we’ve done everything right,” said Harnois. “It is difficult to accept that there is no pathway for us to own a home in the neighborhood I’ve spent my whole life in.”

Since the 1940s, when the 30-year mortgage emerged and made home buying more accessible to many workers, owning a home has been a symbol of success. To achieve the American dream was to work hard, save up, and buy a house, which would serve as both a stable home and a valuable asset that would appreciate with time. For many working class families in Massachusetts, homeownership was the ticket to the middle class.

It was exactly that path that Ben Watts hoped to follow.

Growing up, Watts’s parents did not own their home, a fact he became aware of when he visited friends’ houses as a kid. As he got older, he came to assume that he, someday, would.

“It was ingrained,” said Watts. “That’s what you’re supposed to do, right?”

Now his goal has collided with economic reality. Watts, who is 33, works three jobs — as a bartender and for a French spirits company — and earns nearly $90,000 a year. His rent for a two-bedroom apartment in Belmont, which he splits with his fiancé, is $2,850.

Watts has effectively given up on owning a home. He can hardly find any listings on Zillow for less than $700,000, at least not ones that look like they wouldn’t require tens of thousands of dollars in maintenance. At that cost, Watts would be more than doubling his monthly housing payment, and likely paying at least half of his income toward a mortgage. And that’s after a six-figure down payment, cash he simply does not have.

The prevailing feeling, he said, is resentment.

“I’m being priced out because I’m working to try and make the city that I love better with great bars and restaurants,” said Watts, who grew up in Arlington. “It feels like I’m being told that there’s no place for me here anymore.”

Perhaps what is most frustrating to people like Watts: They know it wasn’t always like this.

Home prices have been on the rise for decades. But the biggest shift in housing affordability began in the aftermath of the pandemic, as home prices rose even faster, and mortgage rates more than doubled, leaving prospective buyers to pay both sky-high total price tags and huge monthly payments.

In 2010, for example, the median home price was $360,800, but the average on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage was 4.75 percent, meaning the mortgage payment on that median-priced house was only $1,816 a month, almost the same as it was in 2000. Now, with a median house price of $833,900, and a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage around 6.79 percent in the second quarter of the year, the monthly mortgage payment on that median-priced house is $5,240 a month — before homeowners insurance, property tax, and mortgage insurance, which can tack on $1,500 more each month.

The shift is pricing a startling number of would-be homeowners out of the market. Roughly 100,000 people who made enough money to afford an entry-level home in 2021 could no longer afford that home in 2025, according to data from Boston Indicators.

“Tell me how many people can afford to buy an almost million dollar single-family home?” said Gail Latimore, executive director of the Codman Square Community Development Corporation. “Tell me how many people can afford to buy an $800,000 house and pay $5,000 a month for the mortgage? We’ve always been an expensive area, but this is unmanageable.”

What happens when so many people are priced out of homeownership all at once?

Right now, a generational wealth divide is emerging, said Albert Saiz, an associate professor of urban economics and real estate at MIT.

While 50 years ago, nearly half of young adults age 25 to 34 in Massachusetts owned a home, today barely one-third do, and a recent analysis by Boston Indicators suggests the true rate is even lower, roughly 24 percent. Those people who were able to buy in the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s have seen their investments turn into a launching pad for generational wealth: Those homes, in many cases, are now million-dollar nest eggs that have double or tripled in value, particularly in Boston and its suburbs.

“Unless we do something about housing stock — building, building, building — this is a dangerous situation for working class folks who used to depend on housing as their main way to accumulate wealth,” said Saiz.

Take Coire Jones, 38, who makes almost $50,000 doing administrative work at a real estate law firm. Jones sets aside roughly $200 a month, mostly by cutting out extraneous spending, and by choosing to rent a small room in an apartment in Somerville for just $750 a month.

This is not how he pictured things going. Jones’s family has been in Massachusetts for generations, and he loves it here. He graduated from college with a history degree in 2009, in the middle of the Great Recession, and struggled to find a job.

He’s now switched career paths and found stable income. But Jones can do the math. He knows that at his current income, he’ll never be able to afford even a tiny home of his own.

“We millennials were told that you could be whatever you wanted to be and if you went to college you’d be in the middle class,” he said. “I don’t mind renting for the rest of my life. But the foundation of the American economy is that everyone buys a house, and that equity allows you to do a lot of different things and achieve financial stability. And that no longer exists for my generation.”

That doesn’t stop people from trying.

Every year, 200 to 250 people enroll in first-time homebuyer classes at the Chinatown-based Asian Community Development Corporation, one of countless groups that aim to teach would-be buyers the ropes of mortgages, property inspection, and other intricacies of the biggest investment most people will ever make.

In previous years, it was common for 20 to 40 people who took the class to purchase a home, said Angie Liou, the Asian CDC’s executive director. Last year, only six did.

Latimore, of the Codman Square CDC, said a lucky few are able to purchase with the help of down payment and mortgage assistance programs sponsored by the city and other public entities.

Those who aren’t able to buy are left to grapple with what it means that they may never access homeownership.

Some, like Harnois, are willing to stick it out as renters. She is too connected to the neighborhood where she grew up and today works in to consider leaving.

And then there are people like Lillian Rotondo, an East Cambridge resident who works in biotech sales. She said she can’t quite believe the prices of the homes she sees on the market.

She has a familiar story: She and her husband, a chef who works in the Seaport, make good money — roughly $240,000 a year. But it still doesn’t feel like enough to afford a $600,000 or $700,000 place, especially because Rotondo is pregnant with their first child, which they know will be expensive in its own way.

Rotondo’s parents migrated to the US from El Salvador with $20 to their name, she said. Years later, they were able to save up enough to buy a home on Long Island.

It’s important to Rotondo, who is 40, to do the same. And because they cannot afford it here, Rotondo and her husband are going to move, most likely to Rhode Island, somewhere near Providence.

“We have worked hard our entire lives,’ she said. ”We should be able to afford a two-bedroom. So we’ll go somewhere we can.”

Andrew Brinker can be reached at andrew.brinker@globe.com. Follow him @andrewnbrinker.