A crew building Cochran's mountain biking trails
When Mother's Day rolls around each May, most kids give their moms the typical presents — flowers, a birdhouse, a handmade clay pot.
Dana Cabrera chose a different route. A couple of years ago, after his mom had knee-replacement surgery and couldn't ride the steep mountain bike trails that snake through the woods behind their Richmond home, the then-17-year-old built her an easier path. He named it, aptly, Mother's Day.
Today, Mother's Day is part of a larger network of mountain bike trails in Richmond that wind in and around Cochran's Ski Area. The ski hill, founded in 1960 by world-class Alpine ski racers Gordon "Mickey" Cochran and his wife, Virginia "Ginny" Davis Cochran, has long served as an affordable and family-friendly locale where Vermonters teach young kids to ski and snowboard.