FOR Correspondent Karsten Prager, the trip to the Colorado Rockies in search of Peter Seibert, creator of the Vail skiing complex, reached new heights in participatory journalism. Like other TIME correspondents round the globe, Prager had gone to the mountain to gather material for this week's cover story. Unexpectedly, he found himself an active participant--at 11,250 ft.--in one of the world's fastest-growing sports. Though first put on skis at the age of three, Prager had not set boot to binding for 26 years. His talks with Seibert provided all the inspiration he needed. After a few hours at the Vail ski school, he recalls, "I discovered to my pleasant surprise that some of the old balance and ski sense were still there.

Not all, mind you. I also discovered the value of safety bindings (unknown in my youth) in the midst of a giant cartwheel for which I was the hub."

While Prager practiced his parallels in Colorado, his fellow reporters were scrutinizing other terrain. Los Angeles Correspondent Sandra Burton, a skier since her Middlebury College days in Vermont a decade ago, visited mountain resorts in New Mexico, Utah, Wyoming and Idaho. In the Northeast, New York Correspondent Marcia Gauger returned to visit some of her own favorite skiing haunts. Gauger, who has had lessons in four languages at ski schools round the world, is a veteran of pulled ligaments, frozen feet and broken bones (foot and leg). When her reporting in Stratton, Vt., was interrupted by 14 in. of new powder, however, she strapped boards to her feet once again and conducted her interviews on the mountain's lifts.

Another alumnus of international ski schooling is Contributing Editor Donald Morrison, who wrote the cover story. Though raised in the flatlands of Illinois, Morrison took up skiing in Austria four years ago while on vacation from the London School of Economics. Contributing Editor Peter Stoler, who compiled a box on the world's best ski areas, is himself a former ski patrolman who still keeps in shape for the slopes by jogging two miles every morning. And Reporter-Researcher Jean Vallely, who filed on new equipment and instructional techniques and also checked the story for accuracy, got her start on snow at the age of twelve.

As for Prager, his 26-year hiatus has come to an end. "Day after Christmas," he vows, "I'm taking the family to the Sierras for a couple of days. I'll make advanced beginner yet."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.