Vermont Ski + Ride 2021 Summer Issue

VT

FREE! SUMMER 2021

SKI + RIDE

Vermont’s Mountain Sports and Life

SUMMER’S BEST...

New Mountain Bike Trails Gorgeous Gravel Roads Creemees & Ice Creams Mountain Music Fests

DIY FARMHOUSE MAKEOVER \ THE 1969 HIKE \ JESSIE DIGGINS’ SUMMER TRAINING www.vtskiandride.com

SOU THW ESTERN V E R MO N T ME D I C A L C E N T ER

O R THOP EDICS RESTORING

ACTIVE +

LIFESTYLES

Keeping you on the trail Keld Alstrup resolved his knee pain and returned to hiking with the help of SVMC Orthopedics. They use a team-based approach to provide a full range of surgical and non-surgical services and customized virtual rehabilitation programs that resolve pain and re-expand their patients’ horizons. Their goal is to get you back to “peak performance” as quickly— and painlessly—as possible.

SVMC Orthopedics patient Keld Alstrup resolved his knee pain and returned to hiking with the help of Orthopedic Surgeon Matt Nofziger, MD.

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00 September 2015 vtskiandride.com

PA R T N E R S H I P I S P O W E R F U L M E D I C I N E

TM

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MAKE IT A SUMMER THEY WON’T FORGET AT THE BEAST 2021 DOWNHILL BIKE CAMPS ARE FILLING FAST Our downhill mountain bike day camps are available in three and five-day sessions for riders ages 7-17 of all ability levels. Give your child the gift of confidence, new skills and the most fun, memorable summer camp experience of their lives.

Learn more and register at killington.com

vtskiandride.com September 2015 00

CONTENTS

FEATURES THE DIY FARMHOUSE MAKEOVER p. 30

When this couple in their 20s bought an old farmhouse, they had no idea how it would change their lives.

UP YOUR GAME p. 34

Want to mountain bike downhill a little faster? Lower your golf score? Here are the pros who can help you do it.

THE ROADS LESS TRAVELED p. 40

On two wheels and on four, here’s how people are discovering some of Vermont’s most beautiful old Class 4 roads.

FIRST TRACKS NEWS | BLAZING TRAILS,

p. 8

There’s a new lift-served bike park in Vermont. And it’s wicked fun. Plus, new sections to Velomont, a new MTB fest and the Red Bull dual slalom.

NEWS | THE SKIERS WHO CAME TO STAY, p. 13

Here’s how the pandemic is reshaping ski towns across Vermont. Plus, what’s coming up at ski areas.

NEWS | THE STAR GAZING OLYMPICS, p. 16

The best star gazing parties around Vermont.

MUSIC | VT’S HOMEGROWN BANDS,

p. 16

COLUMNS FROM THE TOP | A SUMMER TO CELEBRATE ,

Summer is back. And ski towns are ready for you.

APRES | WE ALL SCREAM FOR...

p. 5

p . 23

Our subjective guide to the best ice cream in Vermont.

COACH | JESSIE DIGGINS’ SUMMER SESSIONS

Want a good workout? Run up a ski hill with a World Champ.

p. 53

RETRO | THE 1969 LONG TRAIL HIKE p. 56

How John Caldwell led the U.S. Team on a 10-day Long Trail thru-hike.

How to catch Vermont’s best music acts this summer.

CHAIRLIFT Q/A | SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH, p. 62 .

David Goodman talks with Alison Bechdel about her new graphic memoir. ,COVER: Cruising the fern fields in Richmond near Cochran’s Ski Area. Photo by Brooks Curran THIS PAGE: Cooling off at Warren Fallls near Sugarbush. Photo by Ben Moffatt vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 3

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A SUMMER TO CELEBRATE “Are ski areas in Vermont even open this summer?” a college student from out of state recently asked me. It’s a fair question as last summer many of them were not. This summer, with Covid-19 in the rearview mirror, resorts are back in business with downhill mountain biking, golf, tennis, fly-fishing, zip-lines, discgolf, alpine slides, outdoor festivals and.. well pretty much everything you can think of. Not only that, we are seeing new mountain bike parks (hello Bolton Valley) getting built and new mountain bike events and new music festivals, such as the Vermont Roots Roadshow.

Places like Bromley Mountain Resort, Okemo, Smuggler’s Notch and Jay Peak are, in some ways, Vermont’s amusement parks and they target kids and young families while Killington, Sugarbush, Mount Snow, Burke and now Stratton, and Bolton Valley have become the gathering spots for anyone with a thirst for the adrenaline rush that comes with riding a lift up and then flying down a trail on two wheels.

And summer business is growing. Over the last year Vermont saw a huge influx of new residents as city folk fled the pandemic and people either bought second homes or moved here full-time. As the chart on page 13 shows, Vermont‘s ski towns saw the highest rate of growth with Stowe and Dover and Warren and Waitsfield leading the way.

This summer, hit up one of the ski areas for a concert, a zip-line ride, a game of golf, or to mountain bike. But don’t forget to slow down and take in some of the traditions of a Vermont summer. Explore the old roads, stop by a creeemee stand (we dish on a few of our favorites in this issue) or simply find a quiet meadow on a dark night and star gaze.

Because that’s what summer in Vermont is all about. —Lisa Lynn Riding the trails at Suicide6 is free this summer.

We couldn’t be more pleased with Kevin Birchmore and his crew from the McKernon Group. Finished our project on time and within budget… regularly going above and beyond in order to accommodate our every need. We had high expectations for this very specialized construction/remodel…. and we were not let down.

― Peter & Karen Dartley

CONTRIBUTORS Trying to keep up with Olympic gold medalist and World Champion cross country ski racer Jessie Diggins on a hike up Stratton is no easy task. But Todd Smith, co-author of Diggins’ memoir Brave Enough took her on and writes about it in this issue in “Jessie Diggins’ Summer Sessions.”

Summer intern Hannah Laga Abram had the tough assignment of finding the best creemees and ice creams in Vermont for our story “We All Scream For...” Abram is a student at Middlebury College studying for a major in Dance and Anthropology. And she really likes ice cream.

Olympian, former U.S. Cross Country Team coach and patriarch to a family that’s competed at the highest levels of ski racing, Putney’s John Caldwell shares the story of the grueling 10-day Long Trail hike he took the U.S. team on in 1969.

Caldwell is author of The Cross Country Ski Book.

Serving Vermont and Upstate New York • 888-484-4200

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vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 5

EDITORIAL Publisher, Angelo Lynn angelo@vtskiandride.com Editor/Co-Publisher, Lisa Lynn editor@vtskiandride.com Creative Director, David Pollard Editorial Interns, Hannah Laga Abram, Sophie Hiland, John Vaaler Contributors: Brooks Curran, David Goodman, Ali Kaukas, Bud Keene, Brian Mohr, Lindsay Selin, Doug Stewart, Jeb Wallace-Brodeur

ADVERTISING SALES & DISTRIBUTION For general advertising and media kits: ads@vtskiandride.com | 802-388-4944 Greg Meulemans greg@vtskiandride.com Dave Honeywell dave_golfhouse@madriver.com Wilkie Bushby wilkie@vtskiandride.com Circulation & Distribution Manager: Bridget Sullivan subscribe@vtskiandride.com HEADQUARTERS VT SKI+RIDE is published four times a year by Addison Press Inc., 58 Maple Street, Middlebury, VT 05753 VT SKI+RIDE print subscriptions are available for $25 (U.S.) or $35 (Canada) per year. Digital subcriptions are free.

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6 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

Photo by Caleb Kenna

Fall in love with

Summer

Kickstart your summer fun with activities, history, cuisine, art and more here in the heart of Vermont.

IN MIDDLEBURY

Y

ou gotta love summers in Middlebury with epic swimming, mountain biking, hiking, canoeing, camping, and fishing. Did we mention road biking? Some of New England’s best riding is here. Brag about the LAMB ride over four Green Mountain gaps or soft pedal along the Lake Champlain coastline. When you’re ready to slow down, visit the UVM Morgan Horse Farm, Henry Sheldon and Vermont Folklife museums, a college campus full of summer language school students and galleries featuring local artists. Events are back! There’s live music during the Festival onthe-Green or films screened by the Middlebury New Filmmakers Festival. Cap off your visit by strolling down Main Street, enjoying local food, or visit our brewers and distillers on the Middlebury Tasting Trail.

Photo courtesy of ACORN Tour de Farms

LEARN MORE AT:

ExperienceMiddlebury.com vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 5

FIRSTTRACKS

BLAZING TRAILS Photo by Rick Levinson

This summer watch for a new bike park at Bolton Valley and new trails and MTB events around the state.

8 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

L

Zimmer Hayes launches Waterfall, one of the rowdier trails that has helped Bolton Valley earn its reputation.

ong before mountain bike parks were really a thing, some of the best riders in the state were cutting trails at Bolton Valley Resort. “Most of us knew each other,” says Zimmer Hayes, “and the trails were pretty sick.” At the time, he was ski racing for University of Vermont and spending summers honing his skills as a downhill bike racer.

Bolton Valley was owned at the time by the DesLauriers family. But after they sold the resort, the trails were not maintained.

Lifts stopped running for mountain biking 15 years ago and many riders moved on to the new networks around the state.

Now Bolton Valley is back with liftserved mountain biking starting July 1 and plans in place for a full-on bike park. Many of the old trails have been refreshed.

“They are really fun, some are superhard, and old-school. They are sort of to mountain biking what Mad River Glen’s terrain is to skiing: rough, natural terrain that’s super challenging,” says Hayes.

The trails are so good that Hayes, now in his 40s, drives from his home in Stowe to ride them. Hayes expect to compete in the Maxxis Eastern States Cup downhill and enduro event which comes to Bolton Valley Resort on August 1.

Right now, many of the trails are for advanced riders and make use of the natural terrain. There are plans for more than 7 miles of new trails to be built in partnership with trail designers Gravity Logic. The new trails will be aimed at all ability levels and work will start once state permits are secured.

“We want to add in more flow trails, jump lines and beginner trails,” says Bolton Valley president Lindsay DesLauriers.

Bolton will also offer mountain bike camps, lessons and rentals this summer and options to buy either a season pass with lift access ($280) or without, if you plan to pedal up ($100).

Season passes are limited but a lift and day pass is just $40, if you buy online.

—L.L.

vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 9

Velomont Breaks New Ground

Imagine a hut and trail system connecting the trail networks around the state. That is the plan for the Velomont Trail . This summer, a critical portion of the trail will be built to connect the Green Mountain Trails with the Rochester area trails. Velomont is the vision of the Rochester/Randolph Sports Trails Alliance founders Angus McCusker and Zac Freeman —the same two who spearheaded the Brandon Gap glades. Soon, you will be able to ride the trail from Killington to Shrek’s Cabin in Pittsfield to the Chittenden Brook Hut and, eventually, the length of the state, staying at huts along the way.

A NEW MTB FEST

RED BULL’S RAW DUAL SLALOM Red Bull athlete Aaron Chase is known for doing some wild-ass things on a mountain bike. Last fall he tested out a made-for-spectating dual slalom bike course at Killington with huge man-made berms and mandatory jumps. This July 17, the Red Bull Raw Dual Slalom will pit riders head to head on a course at Killington Chase helped to design. The event is as much about style as it is speed so watch for huge airs, tail whips and more. If we are lucky, Chase may compete, too.

10 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

Photo by Chandler Burgess/Killingtonl; Annsel Dickey, Flow State

In the 1990s, Vermont was home to one of the early mountain bike festivals.

It was sponsored by Pedro’s and held in a field in Randolph. Since then, festivals such as the New England Mountain Bike Festival at Kingdom Trails and the Vermont Mountain Bike Festival, put on by the Vermont Mountain Bike Association, have come and gone.

This summer, the folks at Mountain Flyer magazine (headquartered in Jeffersonville, Vt. —and that’s editorial director Tyler Cohen in the photo above) are partnering with Ascutney Trails to bring a new festival, Flow State, to the 30-plus miles of trails at Mt. Ascutney and adjacent 20 miles of trails on private land. Tickets to the three-day event are $50, or $75 with camping. flowstatemtbfestival.com

vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 9

Photo Credit: Lindsay Selin

Offering a drive-thru retail store and beer garden • Table reservations required at LawsonsFinest.com 155 Carroll Rd, Waitsfield, VT • 802-496-HOPS • Open daily • Sun-Thurs 11-7 • Fri-Sat 11-8

12 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

THE SKIERS WHO CAMETO STAY If you don’t know whose backcountry you’re skiing in, you may be trespassing.

Y

es, the lift lines seemed long last winter. But it was hard to tell if that was because lifts were loading fewer people and lines were spaced for Covid, or if it truly was more crowded. Now, the numbers are out. Nationwide, the 2020/21 ski season saw 59 million skier visits – the fifth highest season on record. However,Vermont which imposed strict quarantine guidelines, didn’t see that spike.

The Vermont Ski Areas Association estimates that paid skier visits dropped by 40% and food and beverage sales were hit the hardest, with 60% and 70% decreases. Overall, this contributed to over a $100 million loss for the industry.

Nearly 75 percent of Vermont’s ski area visits come from out of state or Canada and with the border closed and strict quarantine guidelines, fewer traveled to the Green Mountains.

Yet the very quarantine guidelines that out-of-staters complained about also gave Vermont one of the lowest rates of infection in the country. As of mid-June, Vermont had seen only 256 deaths from Covid-19 and fewer than 25,000 cases. It also had reached an 81% vaccination rate for those over 18. “We said from the very start, and in the face of criticism, that our vaccine strategy would prove to be the most effective in the nation,” said Governor Scott in a mid-June briefing when he announced that Vermont would be lifting all restrictions and the state of emergency was over.

While day skiers may have stayed home, many others came to ski and quarantine here and then stayed. Vermont saw a population growth of 2.8%, according to the 2020 census —not a huge gain but an unexpected one. And when the Vermont Center for Geographic Information analyzed property transfers involving out-of-state buyers, they found that more than 1,000 people had moved to Vermont between 2017 and 2020 and the vast majority to, you guessed it, ski towns.

Burlington, Vermont’s largest city was ranked 14th.

Not surprisingly ski towns where Epic or Ikon passes were prevalent fared the best with Dover (home to Mount Snow) drawing in 230 new sales and Stowe, 176 over last year. Along with that came an influx of new kids in the school systems, new shops and home prices that have started to skyrocket. The amount of money spent on new homes increased by nearly 80%, going from $799 million in 2019 to $1.43 billion in 2020.

So, what does this mean for Vermont for the coming summer? And next winter? “One thing is for certain: there is a huge pent-up demand for travel,” says Trevor Crist who founded Inntopia, the Stowe-based booking and resort marketing company that handles reservations for resorts worldwide. “’Revenge travel looks like it is going to fuel a very strong summer. The number of actual bookings since April 1st hasn’t yet gotten back to where it was two years ago – it’s still off by nearly 30%—but revenues are already exceeding two years ago by 10%. That’s driven by two things – people are booking longer trips, and lodging properties are charging higher rates due to anticipated increases in demand. We expect that Vermont, like a lot of other vacation destinations, will have a record summer for lodging this year as a result,” he says.

And as for next winter? With Vail Resorts dropping its season pass prices by 20 percent, book early if you are planning a vacation and don’t expect those Epic towns to empty out any time soon. —L.L.

More than 1,000 buyers from out of state purchased properties in Vermont this last year, according to the Vermont Center for Geographic Information.

The biggest influx was to ski towns.

“The amount of money spent on new homes skyrocketed, going from $799 million in 2019 to $1.43 billion in 2020.” vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 13

6 +4

Last summer might have slowed things down but ziplines and ropes courses are back in full force this year and trust us, these are not just for kids. Bromley Mountain Resort’s Aerial Adventure Park combines zip lines (above), with a canopy tour with a challenge course all in one. Climb to a platform, hook in, zip to the next platform or walk a rope bridge. It’s a fun workout. Stowe Mountain Resort has a similar set-up with more challenges (swing into a rope net and scramble up it like Spiderman). It will also be running its ZipTour Adventure this summer where you can zip from near the top of the gondola to the Mt. Mansfield base with a few stops along the way. The first span is nearly a mile and you can hit speeds of 60 mph. ArborTrek Canopy Adventures at Smuggler’s Notch Resort has more than 80 obstacles you can fly between on its Treetops Adventure Course and 4,500 feet of ziplines. A word to adults: plan on two to three hours. Some of these aerial adventures are a workout that will have you sleeping like a baby.

THE WORLD CUP IS BACK

In June, the Federation Internationale de Ski (FIS), the governing body for ski racing, announced that the women’s slalom and dual slalom World Cup races will be returning to Killington in 2021 and 2022. The events will again be held on Superstar over Thanksgiving weekend, Nov. 26-27. While the new K1 lodge may not be completed in time for this year’s races, it is expected to be done by 2022.

14 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

Gaining Access

This summer, Vermont Adaptive broke ground on a new $2.5 million, 4,000-squarefoot adaptive sports facility at Sugarbush Resort’s Mt. Ellen base lodge.

The building, which is accessible by wheelchair, will help the adaptive sports program get its athletes out in the snow. “Having an accessible building is key to accessible skiing,” says Mike Murphy. Murphy, the son of Sugarbush founder Jack Murphy, lost his leg in a motorcycle accident. With the support of previous owner Win Smith and current owners, Alterra Mountain Resort, Sugarbush has become a center for adaptive sports and learning. The new facility will be the second such one in Vermont (there is one at Pico Mountain) and a third is planned for Burlington.

Top, courtey Bromle Resort; Vermont Adaptive; Angelo Lynn

AERIAL ADVENTURES

This summer some of Okemo Mountain will be closed as the resort installs a new six-pack detachable chairlift (replacing the current Quantum Four) that will be capable of 2,900 rides per hour. A new Quantum Four bubble quad will also replace the current fixedgrip triple and will increase uphill capacity by 380 rides per hour.

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THE STARGAZING OLYMPICS

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n a dark summer night, fireflies and shooting stars may be the brightest things you see in rural Vermont. And between July 17 and August 24, the Perseid meteor showers will give fireflies a run for their money. During the peak, Aug. 12-13, you might see as many as 60 to 100 shooting stars in an hour.

There are few better places to watch this annual display than from a mountaintop. That’s one reason that for 85 years amateur telescope makers and star gazers have been gathering at the Stellafane Conference atop Breezy Hill near Springfield for a weekend of camping, telescope competitions and yes, the Observing Olympics (competitors are given a list of 15 deep sky objects to find in their amateur telescopes).

16 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

It started back in 1920, when 15 men and one woman gathered in Springfield on Aug. 17 to learn how to grind their own mirrors. Their teacher was Russell W. Porter, a surveyor for a number of expeditions, including one that tried to reach the North Pole. As Stellafane’s history states: “After successfully completing their telescopes and using them for a while to explore the wonders of the universe the men decided to build a hilltop observatory and form an official club.” On December 7, 1923 the first official meeting of the Springfield Telescope Makers, Inc. was held.

Their clubhouse, Stellafane, was completed soon after.

The pink clubhouse still stands today at 1,300 feet atop Breezy Hill and is on the National Historic Register. And the conference has grown to attract telescope aficionados from around the world. This year’s

Photo by Abhijit Patil

Stretch out a blanket on a dark night this summer and join one of the stargazing parties going on around the state.

Photographer Abhijit Patil captured the Milky Way on one dark clear night from a golf course in Wells, Vt. .

conference is August 5-9 with keynote speaker, Dr. Stella Kafka (yes, that’s her real name) hosting a talk entitled “What’s the Deal with Betelgeuse?”

Ron Lewis, the founder of Green Mountain Astronomers has been attending Stellafane since 1979. “I went to a fair when I was 11 years old and for 5 cents a man with a telescope there offered to show me the moon and Saturn,” he says. At 71, he’s still hooked.

Green Mountain Astronomers, as well as a number of other groups typically host stargazing parties. “We’ve had as many as 100 people gather at the Hubbardton Battlefield,” Lewis says of the Rutland County historic site. Members bring their telescopes and encourage others to use them. Says Lewis, “It’s amazing when you see Saturn for the first time. I brought telescopes to the Middlebury College Breadloaf Writer’s

conference one year and a woman actually cried when she saw Saturn.”

This year, with the uncertainty around Covid, events were still being planned as of press time and Lewis suggests checking in with the Green Mountain Astronomers Facebook page for updates. Middlebury College’s Mittleman Observatory is also hosting virtual talks about stars and planets as is the Fairbanks Museum and Planetarium.

Typically, Mark Breen, the planetarium’s director has hosted a live radio broadcast on VPR during the Perseids. In 2018, Breen also presided over what the Guinness World Records has certified as the largest astronomy lesson when nearly 1,700 people gathered at the St. Johnsbury museum.

Now that’s a party with star power. n

vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 17

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Gear VT SUMMER WEAR You know them as winter brands, but check out what these Vermont apparel companies are making for summer.

MOLA (MOUNTAIN AND LAKE) HOODIES As she was quarantining during Covid-19, Caroline Patten got the idea to make tech hoodies that would work for a variety of sports, summer and winter.

Patten, who worked as a sailmaker, does just about every sport and wanted something that would fit well and dry quickly. She named the brand MoLa for her two favorite playgrounds – mountains and lakes. The Juniper Hoody ($69) is lightweight (just 7.2 ounces) and made with a Polartec PowerGrid fabric that has a breathable, wicking waffle fleece on the interior.

The fit is tighter than a sweatshirt but stretchy enough to move in and super soft against the skin.

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There are few pieces of clothing that are as iconically Vermont as a warm Vermont Flannel button down. But when it’s 85 degrees out, that may not be what you want to wear. That’s why the folks at Vermont Flannel launched a sister brand, Sea Sucker, showcasing an updated look for the summer classic, like this Long Sleeved Shirt ($73.80) in pastel blues and grays with a white plaid overlay. The imported all-cotton seersucker fabric is designed for the heat, and puckers to help keep the shirt off your skin. The look is intentionally wrinkled so no need to iron.

The company sews all of its Sea Sucker items —shirts, hats, bathrobes, boxers—here in the U.S. and you can find them at the five Vermont Flannel shops around Vermont or online.

SUMMER HATS FROM SKIDA You know Skida for the cute stretchy hats that have become functional staples of Nordic skiers ever since founder Corinne Prevot began making them for her Burke Mountain Academy teammates. Now, Skida is making hats for summer in cotton fabrics with many of the playful patterns that have made their winter headgear so popular. Skida makes both bucket hats ($54) and brimmed caps ($48) in prints that feature everything from fish to strawberries. The hats are 100-percent polyester and lightweight, packable, water resistant and quick-drying.

EASTWARD FROM SKI THE EAST Ski the East started out making ski films and hosting freeride events and then moved into apparel. The company, now based in Hula’s new waterfront business incubator in Burlington, is focusing on summer with its Eastward Supply line of apparel. At present, it’s limited to t-shirts, hats and a line of button downs that you could wear to the office – if you ever go there again. Best yet, the company supports 1% for the Planet and uses organic cotton. The Outpost Shirt, $78, is a lightweight cotton/ Spandex blend imprinted with tiny maple leaves and lighthouses, icons of summer in New England. Online only.

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Music Notes

HOMEGROWN BANDS BANDS ARE BACK

Concerts are back this summer —and showcasing a new crop of talent around Vermont. Here are some local acts not to miss.

Photo by Angelo Lynn top; Lisa Lynn

T Gracre Potter, top, perfoming at the Killington World Cup in 2019. Trevor Crist, above, of Maple Run Band, is putting together the 2021 Vermont Roots Road Show.

he last time Grace Potter, Vermont’s best-known rockstar, hit the stage in the Green Mountains was at the World Cup in Killington in late 2019. Potter had released her new album Daylight two weeks earlier and debuted her wrenching hit single, “Release.” The album would go on to be nominated for two Grammies for Best Rock Performance and Best Rock Album.

Since then, Covid-19 shut down live concerts and Potter had to cancel the 10th anniversary of Grand Point North, her two-day music festival on the Burlington waterfront. Now, Potter has moved back from California and recently bought a farm in the Mad River Valley, near where she grew up Grand Point North won’t happen this year, either, but Potter will perform at the Green at Shelburne Museum, Sept. 11-12.

Guster (lead singer Ryan Miller lives here) will also play at the Green at the Shelburne Museum on July 10 and Vermont’s cult jam band Twiddle will play Aug. 6-7 at the Champlain Valley Expo.

Trey Anastasio (formerly of Phish) was living in Vermont when he developed an opiate addiction. While there are no current plans for a concert here, he still owns a recording studio in Waterford and announced recently that he is working to build a non-profit addiction

treatment center on a property on Okemo Mountain in Ludlow.

Around the state, other Vermont musicians have been working on new material and are itching to get out and perform.

“We had just finished recording our first album before we went into lockdown,” says Trevor Crist, the lead songwriter and singer of the Stowe-based band Maple Run. The self-titled Maple Run album is all Americana or roots, a mix of country and rock. Its single, “The Queen of Labrador City” was a predictable hit in Newfoundland but the album also started getting play in Europe and in Japan, as well, Crist says.

During Covid, Crist, founder of the software booking company Inntopia, began thinking about a tour. “There are so many good roots bands here in Vermont. I think of roots as the crossover of hillbilly and hippy cultures and that’s so Vermont,” he says with a laugh.

Crist reached out to Saints and Liars, a popular southern Vermont roots band. “We started rattling off names of other bands and Vermont has about 20 in this Americana genre.”

The result, the Vermont Roots Road Show will tour this summer with stops at Magic Mountain on Aug. 7, Jay Peak on Aug 14 and Higher Ground in South Burlington on Sept. 24. Also joining are Ida Mae Specker and the Terrible Mountain Stringband, Sarah King, and Western Terrestrials.

This magazine is a tour sponsor.

You can also find some of Vermont’s best talent playing smaller venues. Sultry rocker Kat Wright, for instance, is playing around the state from the Weston Playhouse to the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro, with a special benefit planned for Knoll Farm in Waitsfield, Aug. 14. (G Love, though not a Vermonter, recently played at the Country Girl Diner, in Chester. ) Perhaps the best places to catch more emerging Vermont acts are at ski area’s free outdoor music festivals.

Killington’s Cooler in the Mountain Series has free outdoor concerts at the Snowshed Base Area on Saturday afternoons, July 17-Sept. 4. Stratton has free live music in the village on Friday evenings. On Thursday evenings, Sugarbush has live music and a corn hole tournament at Lincoln Peak.

For more on concerts and festivals around Vermont, see Calendar, p. 54. n

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WE ALL SCREAM FOR..

Vermont is known for its cheese, its dairy and yes, especially its ice cream.

Here’s our scoop on the best in the state. By Hannah Laga Abram

Courtesy CanteenCreamery

A work of art, Canteen Creemee Company’s Apple Crusher features a ginger-cinnamon creemee twist and apple chips with cider-caramel.

R

ituals to a Vermont summer include plunging into an icy swimming hole, watching a bonfire roar into the sky and, of course, slurping a maple creemee at a roadside stand.

While there’s some debate about how you spell creemee, there are two things that most experts agree on: creemees are part of Vermont summer and no, they are NOT just soft-serve.

As Erin Torres, the author of the blog Travel Like a Local, puts it: “A creemee is soft-serve ice cream, yes, but it typically has a higher fat content than your run-of-the-mill soft-serve, making it creamier in texture and richer in flavor, hence the name creemee. Most Vermont creemees have a fat content of 5 grams or so per serving, adding to

their silkiness (and splurge-worthy goodness), although some can reach up towards 12 grams of milk-fat.”

Torres has traveled the state in search of the ultimate creemees. She’s visited,by her own estimate, about 40 stands. Right up there on her list is Canteen Creemee in Waitsfield.

Whether that is the best creemee is a matter for a hot day’s debate. If you ask locals in southern Vermont, they will tell you there’s no beating The Creemee Stand in Wilmington, whose maple creemees (made with syrup from maples tapped right on site) were named the best dessert in Vermont by The Food Network.

And it’s that high-fat, creamy richness and the freshness of the dairy that make ice creams ranging from Canteen Creemee’s sundaes to the flavors Wilcox Dairy has been mixing for five generations, something special. While many source their milk, cream and ice cream mixes from Kingdom Creamery or other wholesalers, it’s the creative concoctions these ice cream makers come up with that makes each a little different and worth seeking out.

BEN & JERRY’S, WATERBURY CENTER This is the big daddy of Vermont ice creams, the hippy brand that started out as a scoop shop in Burlington in 1978. It went global and took many of the progressive views of its founders, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, with it. Though the two founders (who used to sing the minutes of their annual shareholders meetings, which were held in a tent in a field) are no longer involved and the brand is owned by Unilever, the zany energy of their philosophy remains. Human rights and dignity, social and economic justice and environmental protection, restoration and regeneration are the three central pillars the brand stands on. After all, “At B&J’s we believe that ice cream can change the world,” spokesperson Laura Peterson says. Much of the ice cream served here comes from Vermont dairy and the pints still feature the brightly colored artwork inspired by the signature Holstein that Middlebury, Vt. artist Woody Jackson designed in 1972. Though since Covid-19 the Factory Tour (as fun for adults as it is for kids) has been put on a hiatus, you can still find pints and scoops that feature new flavors. In January, the company introduced the Topped line, featuring a layer of chocolate ganache topping over

vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 23

CANTEEN CREEMEE COMPANY, WAITSFIELD “I thought that the iconic Vermont creemee could go to the next level,” says Charlie Menard who serves stunning creemees out of a takeout window at his shop, Canteen Creemee Company in Waitsfield. These are not your ordinary creemees, but art forms that come in a variety of colors and shapes with elaborate toppings. A Vermont native from Colchester, Menard wanted to rework creemees and the concept of sundaes and put a new spin on both. That is how he ended up with menu items like the “Apple Crusher: Cinnamon and ginger creemee, apple chips, apple sauté, cider donut, and cider cream.” His biggest hit flavor is basil, though the most outlandish flavor he ever made used butterfly peaflower tea and was bright blue. Menard uses Kingdom Creamery creemee mix as a base for his wacky and delicious flavor combinations. “My hope for the ice cream is that people realize they can be a little adventurous,” Menard says. And at “C.C.C.” ‘adventurous’ extends to other things on the menu which now includes everything from Duck Leg Salad to Bahn Mi to Rosemary Asiago Fries. It is hard work to keep up with, since everything is made in house, but as Menard says, “It’s so worth it, I feel like I’ve done something different...it’s thrilling.”

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Top: Ben & Jerry’s new line of non-dairy ice creams updates some of the classics. Right: Young Gabe Michaud with ice cream and a friend who helped make it.

Producing ice cream was a way for the Michaud family to keep the next generation in farming.

KINGDOM CREAMERY OF VERMONT, EAST HARDWICK “Where the milk comes from makes a big difference,” says Leslie Michaud, who runs Kingdom Creamery with her husband Jeremy and her in-laws Denis and Claire. Though the Michaud family only began making ice cream in 2011, they have been dairy farmers in East Hardwick for three generations. They milk 325 cows and have a herd of 800 that grazes on 500 acres of rolling fields. In the past ten years the Michauds have become a major supplier of the ice cream mix that companies throughout New England use as a base for their ice cream.

Ice cream and creemee mixes are made to order in collaboration with partners and involve combining Kingdom Creamery milk, cream and eggs with varying amounts of sugar and stabilizers. Michaud says that 200,000 gallons of milk goes into making these mixes each year, and mixes always look different. “If it has milk and cream in it, we can make it,” she says, adding that they are glad to partner with other businesses.

But it takes a lot of work. Leslie and Jeremy have four teenage sons, all of whom can “work anybody under the table,” Michaud says. The initial push for the ice cream project began “in order for our kids to have the opportunity to farm,” she says. “It’s in our blood.”

Kingdom Creamery doesn’t currently have a scoop shop, but that doesn’t mean you can’t drop by the farm. Michaud said they welcome visitors, particularly those willing to learn. “It’s so important to educate people about how much work goes into that gallon of milk or scoop of ice cream, how much goes into food in general,” she said.

Kingdom Creamery continues to sell over 30 flavors of their own ice cream, including Blueberry Blush (made with fresh blueberries) and Maple on Snow, a buttery maple ice cream with a maple caramel swirl

Photo by Leslie Michaud

flavors such as Salted Caramel Brownie and Tiramisu as well as some dairy-free versions of its favorites.

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made with syrup from their own sugarbush. “It’s the food system full circle here at Kingdom Creamery,” Michaud said.

LU.LU , VERGENNES Vergennes is the state’s oldest (and now smallest) city. But even if you don’t care a whit about history, go for the standout ice cream. Located in the heart of town, lu.lu moved here in 2018, after starting off in Bristol.

You’ll find flavors like “Slumdog Millionaire,” a curried peanut butter ice cream (invented by owner Laura Mack’s dad), Basil, and Fresh Mint are always around, but most days Mack creates new flavors, lu•lu (loo-loo) noun: one that is remarkable or wonderful – MerriamWebster. Owner Laura Mack named her shop for what her small-batch, hand-crafted ice cream is – remarkable and wonderful.

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too. “Making ice cream is my Zen mode,” she says. One of her most recent concoctions that involved brown butter, brown sugar and chocolate shavings had Mack saying to herself: “Damn, I’m really good at my job.” lu.lu makes all of its ice cream 100% from scratch, using ingredients from “down the road,” Mack says. Dairy comes from familyowned Monument Farms in Addison County, and there’s a reason for it. “The backbone of Vermont is the dairy industry,” Mack says. “It is so important to support local dairy farmers, and I’m just helping one tiny scoop at a time.”

This remains true for those dairy-free folks out there. “Even if you’re dairy free, come and have some of our dairy-free ice cream and that will help us buy dairy from local farmers.”

In this way, Mack said, her ice cream is really about “getting a taste of the landscape of Vermont.” lu.lu ice cream can be found at the scoop shop in Vergennes and several local farmer’s markets, as well as ordered online.

SISTERS OF ANARCHY, SHELBURNE You can’t miss Sisters of Anarchy. Bold black-and-white packaging and flavor names like “Raspberry Beret,” “Respect Your Elders” and “Token Male,” are hallmarks of the Shelburne-based brand that the founders, Becky Castle and Bob Clark, named after their three “powerful, chaotic” kids. Castle and Clark met skiing at the Middlebury Snow Bowl when both were students at Middlebury College. After working out West as ski instructors, baristas and adventurers, the two returned to Vermont and started the Fisher Brothers Berry Farm in Shelburne.They started making ice cream by hand in 2016, producing a total of 250 gallons in their first year. This year, they estimate they will produce 10,000 gallons.

Starting with ice cream mix from Kingdom Creamery, they make flavors that showcase the six miles of berry rows they grow: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, aronia berries, elderberries and Marquette wine grapes. “We are the farmers,” Clark says.

The ice cream is sweetened with honey from Champlain Valley Apiaries, which keeps several hives on the berry farm. All of the flavors are an adventure, but definitely try “Crystal Blue Persuasion” – blueberries in a vanilla base. If you’re feeling wild, the newest flavor, “Beefy Blonde,” features bacon, as well as blueberries and maple.

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discussion.” Nearly all of Sisters of Anarchy’s summer workers—from ice cream scoopers to the berry-picking crew—are young women.

Their website, also a hub of “WomAnarchy,” takes online orders and ships ice cream, making Sisters of Anarchy one of the few Vermont ice creams you can have mailed to you.

“We want our ice cream to bring people happiness and well, a desire for more,” Clark says.

It surely seems to do that at the weekly “Broccoli Bar” nights at Fisher Brothers Farm–where the Burlington-based Broccoli Bar food truck shares its healthy fare, and ice cream desserts are abundant. This summer those take place on Wednesday evenings from 5-8pm. Bring a blanket and your tastebuds. If you’re not nearby, no worries, as Sisters of Anarchy also show up at over 200 off-site events each summer.

STRAFFORD ORGANIC CREAMERY, STRAFFORD Strafford Nordic Center, is one of eastern Vermont’s loveliest crosscountry ski centers. Just up the road, Rockbottom Farm turns out some of the state’s freshest ice cream, thanks to Strafford Organic Creamery.

The Creamery sits on the 600-acre farm where Earl Ransom grew up milking dairy cows. Now, he and his wife Amy Huyffer and their four sons share the land with a herd of 76 Guernsey cows.

The couple began bottling milk in glass bottles and making ice

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milking cows on the 600acre Rockbottom Farm where he and his wife Amy Huyffer now milk Guernseys for their Strafford Organic Creamery ice creams.

cream in small batches in 2001 in an effort to keep the farm going as larger companies began to dominate Vermont’s organic dairy industry.

Ransom, one of the few Black farmers in the state, has become a vocal advocate for small farmers and the BIPOC community.

Guernsey cows are famous for their rich yellow cream and the response to their bottled milk and ice cream was immediate and incredibly positive, Huyffer says. As a result, all of Strafford’s flavors— which include some made with fresh, hand-picked mint and black raspberries—are meant to complement and showcase the flavor of the Guernsey cream.

Huyffer prefers to keep the ice cream’s fat

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content to herself, but says it is “higher than anyone else,” and notes that the ice cream includes significantly less added sugar than comparable products. “The other flavors sit back and let the cream do its work,” Huyffer says.

And boy do they. Sweet Cream says it all and ginger and cinnamon flavors are mind-blowingly good. Huyffer and her family treat the cows with an enormous amount of care. So much, in fact, that Huyffer would “like to come back in a next life as one of our cows,” she says.

WILCOX, EAST ARLINGTON A 20-minute drive from Bromley Mountain, nestled into the town of East Arlington, is Vermont’s oldest ice cream company. Wilcox Ice Cream began as Wilcox Dairy in 1892 churning milk from their own cows, and they began making ice cream in 1928. At the time, freezers didn’t exist, so the ice cream was made in small batches with rock salt and ice and served immediately.

More than a century later, the fourth, fifth, and sixth generations of the Wilcox family are still hard at work making artisanal ice cream.

“What we do here we don’t do for money, but for the love of something that started long before us,” Chris Wilcox, 50, says. Chris currently heads up the business together with her brother Craig, 53, and their 78-yearold father, Howard. Together, they produce about 80,000 gallons of ice cream every year.

Wilcox Dairy started in 1892 and began making ice cream in 1928, before refrigeration.

Today the dairy has fourth, fifth and sixth generations working there.

The team creates myriad flavors with an ice cream mix from Kingdom Creamery in East Hardwick. The ice cream’s fat content is a rich 14%. Though vanilla is the best-selling flavor to this day, they’ve also gotten creative with ice creams such as Raspberry Cheesecake and Mocha Mud Pie. And that’s just basic hard ice cream. Wilcox also makes hand-dipped chocolate-covered ice cream bars with black raspberry, espresso, and peanut butter ice cream inside. In addition, Wilcox is on the verge of launching a non-dairy/plant-based product line with a very smooth mouth feel.

“We think we have nailed it,” Chris says. “If we’re lucky, these plant-based goodies will hit the shelves in July.”

Wilcox Ice Cream currently isn’t open to visitors, but you can find their products at stores and markets throughout Vermont and even in New York. Don’t forget to keep an eye out for their weekly and seasonal specials, like Orange Pineapple or Maple Gingersnap. n

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Dream Home It took more than a fresh coat of paint, a new roof and a reclaimed brick walkway to make over this 1864 farm house in Stowe (opposite), but that wasn’t a bad start. The Brys raised the ceiling and used floorboards from the old attic for the kitchen floors and milled the joists for the peninsula top.

30 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

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vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 31

W

hen Tyson Bry and Lisa Mara bought an old farmhouse in Stowe in 2016, it was their first home. They were in their late 20s and had no experience designing homes. Tyson had been working as an engineer for large municipal projects in Boston. Lisa owned and managed a dance company.

“We weren’t even engaged when we bought this place,” Lisa says ,looking at Tyson with mock horror. Tyson had grown up near Pomfret, Vt. His father, Brian ,started and owned a Nordic ski area in Stockbridge, where he also worked as a carpenter. He later became a schoolteacher and the family moved to Pomfret.

Lisa grew up in Bedford, Ma., a town where she had 140 people in her graduating class. Her mother passed away when she was six and her father often took her on daytrips to ski Killington. She knew Vermont, so when Tyson proposed they move there, she agreed to give it a try.

“We had been living in the city but at heart, we weren’t ‘city people’” she says. They had looked around Woodstock first, then came to Stowe on vacation and started to look at houses there.

An 1864 farmhouse a realtor showed them had been in one family for 60 years, and had seen few changes in that time. Like many traditional farmhouses, it had a warren of small rooms nestled into its 1,688 square feet. Trees blocked the view across the Mountain Road to the Little River and the iconic white steeple of Stowe’s Community Church. The three-quarter-acre lot was overgrown.

But the property backed up to Stowe Land Trust acreage and the mountain bike trails on Cady Hill. The view out front could be opened up and the house… well, the house they had a vision for.

Five years later, Tyson and Lisa are married. They have rehabbed and redesigned six other homes. In December 2020, they opened The Farm Home Marketplace, a home and lifestyle shop on Main Street in Stowe.

As for that old farmhouse? “The Farm Home,” as they have branded it, has been featured in Modern Farmhouse Style magazine and it books on Airbnb for over $600 a night.

While the footprint and the structure of the old farmhouse (in its 2014 state, top photo) hasn’t changed, the Brys had to put in a new foundation for the kitchen wing, which is on the left side of the house. The chimney in the upstaiors guest roo, though decorative, picks up from the wood stove chimney downstairs.

32 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

“We had to recoup some of the money we put into this so we started by renting the house out,” explains Lisa. The couple are currently living in a cabin nearby and hoping to make the shop, which has just two employees — themselves —their main business.

Looking at the home, the stylishly curated shop, the fresh photos on the website and Instagram account,you would never know that “Farm Home” wasn’t the work of seasoned design professionals or an offshoot of a large corporate brand.

“Lisa is really particular and was the one who had a vision for all of this,” says Tyson. “I’ve always been creative,” says Lisa, who graduated from the Syracuse’s Newhouse School of Communications. “When I saw the house, I could see the potential in it, but it was Tyson who could build it and bring that vision to life.”

The Brys started by demolishing much of the interior themselves, and knocked down the wall between the kitchen and the old living room to create an open kitchen/dining room.

They wanted their family and friends to visit so they kept the four small bedrooms and two and a half baths. “We lived here during the demo, making the downstairs bedroom into our entire living space while we tore apart literally everything around us,” Lisa remembers.

The biggest project was the part of the house that is now the kitchen and living room. That needed a new foundation and the couple decided to do away with the small attic above to make a cathedral ceiling.

The old floors were a patchwork of woods so the couple took the old attic floorboards, and turned those into the kitchen floors.

They had Treehouse Hardwoods & Mill Shop in South Burlington mill the old ceiling joists to create the peninsula in the kitchen. “I must have tried 27 different stains before I settled on this one,” Lisa says, rubbing her hand across the polished wood surface. Above, old rough-hewn beams Tyson lugged from an old barn in Hardwick span the cathedral ceiling.

The walls were plaster and lath so on some of the walls in the kitchen

Lisa found the living room’s twin barn doors at Mason Brothers Salvage in Essex Junction, Vt. The right one slides open to a downstairs bedroom and an adjoining bathroom where Tyson put in a cut-stone facade (bottom). The old living room (right), had been separated from the

All photos courtesy Lisa Mara

kitchen. The old fireplace was removed and they reused the bricks for the wood stove chimney.

and bedrooms, Tyson nailed, primed and painted pine shiplap. On the ceiling of the master bedroom, he used strips of weathered barnboard salvaged from a barn on property his family still owned in Stockbridge.

In the downstairs bathroom, he installed a cut-stone facade in back of a small antique clawfoot tub.

“We were working around the clock,” Tyson remembers. At the time, he had taken a job with the state of Vermont and was commuting 30 minutes each way to Montpelier and then working on the house at night —sometimes until two in the morning. “I think at one point I was about to have a mental breakdown,” he says with a laugh. Lisa called around and they hired Aaron Flint builders out of Waterbury to help.

“Aaron’s crew would be leaving just as we would get home and start in on our projects,” Tyson says. “They called us ‘The Night Crew.’”

The windows, which still held the old wavy glass, were in good shape but Flint helped replace one with second-hand French doors.

Lisa had been planning to make barnboard doors to separate the downstairs bedroom from the living room but after a year, that hadn’t happened. On a hunch, one day she called Mason Bothers Salvage in Essex, Vt. Three barnboard doors the perfect size had arrived that morning. “The minute I heard that I said to Tyson, we need to go there right now!” They bought two and hung them on sliders.

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The Brys now sell many of the linens and textiles they used in The Farm Home in their shop on Stowe’s Main Street. One of Lisa’s design tips is to mix old with new. The farm table she found at the Brimfield Antiques Market but the metal Tolix dining chairs and light fixtures are new.

The old hutch got a coat of gray milkpaint and was filled strategically with old measuring scales and essentials. The French doors (a new addition, replacing what was just a window) lead out to a large back patio where the couple have seating, a firepit and grill.

Much of the furniture and décor Lisa found at salvage yards or antiquing but mixed in newer pieces and new lighting. In the upstairs hall, framed black and white photos line the wall. Most are prints from the Stowe Historical Society but Lisa added in a few black and white shots of old barns she took, as well. In the stairway, decorative wood pulleys hang from hemp ropes.The warehouse cart that serves as a coffee table she found at the Brimfield Antiques Flea Market, in Brimfield, Ma. “You know how some women love to buy shoes?” Tyson asks as we tour the house. “Well, Lisa loves to buy old furniture. She would buy furniture all day if she could,” he says with a laugh.

That shopping passion fed the idea to open a retail store. “A lot of our Airbnb guests kept asking where we got things like our linens or towels so we started out by stocking many of the same things we used in our house,” she says.

They have also worked closely with local businesses. Guests to the Airbnb find bath products form Ursa Major (an all-natural skincare company based in Waterbury), Carrier Coffee (out of Northfield, Vt.) and gift cards to Doc Ponds, the hip bar that’s just a short walk down the road.

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Shop photos, top left and right by Lindsay Selin; others by Lisa Mara Bry

Though the house is not big, Lisa and Tyson (above) wanted to keep all the bedrooms and to have a place where their extended families could gather. The dining table seats 8 and there are 6 beds in the house, including two carefully stacked bunkbeds. “I had a helluva time trying to get those pipe railings to fit for the bed ladders,” Tyson recalls. In the bedrooms Tyson used pine shiplap that he primed and painted to cover the walls. In many of the bedrooms antique trunks serve as night tables and provide storage.

In Dec. 2020, the Brys opened The Farm Home Marketplace, just a short walk away, on Main Street. The shop carries everything from linens to dishware, a “Refillery” with natural liquid soaps, and antiques such as a printer’s vintage typeface cabinet, a washbasin and the wood pulleys. There are also bottles of maple syrup from trees the Brys tapped, and dried lavender from the more than 70 plants Lisa grows along The Farm Home driveway.

You might think that with the house finished that the Brys would be ready to kick back for a bit. But as serial DIYers, that’s not the case.

This past spring, they planted 34 grapevines, the start of a vineyard.

On a gravel patio just above are raised vegetable beds, and to one side of the property off the new cobbled driveway, a blueberry patch.

The old barn is the next project. “We’re hoping to turn it into a tasting room with a studio for private dinners or entertaining,” says Lisa.

An avid cook, she is already thinking ahead to events there and glasses of wine made from the grapes they will harvest.

“Ultimately, this is about sharing what we love about this place and about Vermont with others,” says Tyson. “That’s a Vermont thing.” n

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Killington’s summer-long series of bike clinics start with flow and end with getting air.

UP YOUR ot goals this summer? Want to ride a trail you have never been able to master? Or maybe golf a hole in one?

Ski resorts around the state specialize in helping people get better at a variety of sports. In the winter, that might be through a lesson with a PSIA-certified ski or snowboard instructor.

Many resorts have traditionally had strong tennis or golf camps. Now, they also have pros who can teach you to mountain bike better or perfect your fly-casting. These are people who are not only masters of their sports but who excel at teaching. Here, four pros share their best tips.

Go Downhill, Faster Sure, you can ski anything at Killington. But can you ride all 35 miles of the resort’s carefully built downhill bike trails? If not—or if the mere thought of donning knee and elbow pads, a helmet with face guard and pointing the knobby tires straight downhill petrifies you—listen up:You can do it.You just need to learn.

For women, one of the best ways to learn is to ride the regular free Friday afternoon Divas of Dirt group rides (with discounted $33 bike park tickets and rentals), led by Amy Alton.

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Riding with Alton on the downhill trails at Killington Resort’s bike park is a little like going on a roller coaster ride with a stand-up comedian/therapist.

“Your knees need to be wide, like a cowgirl,” Alton says to a group on one Friday afternoon. The riders before her range from a retired schoolteacher to a semi-pro rider. Alton then drops her butt, spreads her legs and bounces up and down swinging one arm above her in a yee-haw rodeo stance. “And I mean sluuuttttty cowgirl!” Alton calls out.

Alton constantly moves, gesticulates and wisecracks. All the time dishing out profound bits of bike wisdom that double as life lessons —“You need to just let your fear go,” “Don’t look at the obstacles, look where you want to go”—and she often finishes each piece of advice, (shouted breathlessly as her followers arc their bikes around a berm) with a deep breath and a “Namaste.”

Alton, who worked for the Department of Defense for many years

M A G E Courtesy Killington Resort/Chandler Burgess

T TO O L F N A U W OUR G O Y F I VE Y AIN O T R N P U IM , MO PRO, E M GA I KE A E F I S H L E K BI MOR ER H C CAT AY BET T L A OR P IS, TAKE TENN C THIS I SE C L I N E R. T H E T M A SUM , BASED ND U S PRO RTS ARO E RESO ONT, AR EST. B M VER OF THE E SOM

Am y Kill Alton ingt l on eads D ir and hos t Divas ts w ome rides e ve n’s c linic ry Frid ay a s, to t o.

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LOWER YOUR GOLF SCORE Roger King is not shy about admitting this: “I even take lessons when I feel a little bit off,” he says. “I find another pro and work with him until I’m like, ‘Ok, I got it now’.”

King is the head pro at Sugarbush Resort’s golf course. The 18-hole Robert Trent Jones Sr. course is not an easy one to play. Set just below the mountain and ski trails, it dips and dives and rolls over the hilly terrain with stunning views of the Greens from nearly every tee.

“My favorite hole? It’s No. 11, a par 3 down the hill, which is about 175 yards from the blue tees,” says King. “It’s beautiful.You start way up high and it drops down past a cool creek. After you tee off it feels as if your ball hangs in the air forever. And there’s a chance for a hole in one,”

Shay Berry coaches men’s basketball at the college level in the winter and is the Orvis-Endorsed lead guide at the Woodstock Inn & Resort all summer.

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he says. “I’m still holding out for that.”

King, 48, has competed in the National Club Pro Championships, putting him in the top 100 players in the country. And he’s scored a 66 on Sugarbush’s course, where par for men is 70 and 72 for women. “I’ve won a few of the major local events and I take pride in the fact that I can play pretty well for a guy who only plays once a week now,” he says. But he considers his best skill helping other people play better. ““Teaching has become my passion and I really love to see people get better,” he says. “Golf is the same game as it was 100 years ago but it’s how we work our way through it that has changed and that’s different for every person. Sometimes it is a lot of mental, for some people its physical, some folks have injuries they need to overcome.” Like any good instructor, King spends his time trying to understand how people like to learn.

“A lot of people don’t really understand what they are trying to do,” he says. King helps them with the physics of a drive. “The biggest mistake I see folks make is they pick up their head and chest when they swing and then the ball doesn’t go where they planned.”

The tip or exercise that he’s seen make the biggest difference is taking divots. “If you ask most people what the most important part of the game is they will say, ‘the swing’ or ‘the stance’ or something like that.” He pauses, “But you know what it is? It’s hitting the bottom of the ball so it rises in the air. That’s why I have people swing and swing and swing and we talk about how to get to the bottom of the ball.”

This summer, King is back to teaching group lessons and junior clinics, which he’s happy about. “Sometimes one on ones like we were forced to do last year during Covid-19 are intimidating for people. In a group, you can be more relaxed.”

Sugarbush offers a season-long lesson package of a lesson a week (30-minute lessons for 20 weeks) for $700, or you can sign up for a private with King for $100 an hour. Women can join in the Thursday night women’s clinics for $30 a session. And on Thursdays, anyone can play as a foursome for just $35 per person. Sugarbush.com CAST AWAY Shay Berry has been fishing for most of his life but it wasn’t until he joined Dartmouth College as the men’s assistant basketball coach and moved to Sharon that he realized what a gem of a river flowed through Vermont. “I started fishing the White River,” he says. “And it’s one of the longest free-flowing rivers in New England.”

The White River flows from its headwaters in Granville, just south of Warren on Route 100, all the way to the Connecticut River with no dams. And ‘no dams’ means good fishing. And that’s where Berry, an Orvis-Endorsed fly fishing guide likes to take his clients.

Berry now spends his winters as the assistant men’s basketball coach at St. Michael’s College and his summers as the lead guide and concierge at the Activity Center at the Woodstock Inn & Resort, where he oversees 12 part-time guides.

“We teach conservation as well as fishing,” says Berry. “That means that the fishing is catch-and-release and we don’t fish for trout if the water is above 70 degrees. “Trout have small gills and when the water is that warm, it’s hard for them to get enough oxygen so if they have to fight to exhaustion, they will often die,” Berry explains. On those days he takes students to fish for bass.

Lessons often start at the Activity Center at the Woodstock Inn & Resort. The Orvis-Endorsed Lodge stocks flies and waders and

Courtesy Shay Berry

and now is a corporate recruiter, is a force to contend with. She’s also a former pro who’s raced on the UCI World Cup. Most of all, she’s a good teacher and in one afternoon, you will be bombing the beginner trails and picking up speed on the tougher runs.

Alton will also be leading a women’s freeride clinic the first weekend in October. Killington’s other clinics are for everyone. Improve your skills over the summer at five weekends camps, progressing from the first, Find Your Flow, to Jump Start (how to get air) to Shred the Beast.

The two-day clinics start at $224 if you are passholder, with a two-day bike rental for $160. The last two clinics of the season have an option for three days. Killington.com

Courtesy Sugarbush Resort; Stratton Resort/Hubert Schriebl

Menzies, who is the head pro now at Stratton’s tennis club and the school there, has played with Drysdale. “He’d turn to me with his South African accent and say ‘Rob, toss the ball lower.Why are ya throwing the ball so high in the air? It just means you have to wait for it to come down.’” Menzies says with a chuckle.

“The number of times I’ve passed that one on is amazing. He pioneered the two-handed backhand and would always tell me, ‘Show me your’ back – meaning I wasn’t turning enough on my one-handed backhand.”

As for the best advice Menzies can give?

“I always tell people to relax their grip and What makes Sugarbush’s breathe as they hit the ball. What happens is Roger King a great golf pro that people are so eager to play well and get is he likes to take lessons more power out of the ball that they tense up. and pointers from others as Their first hit might be great but by the second well as give them. or third, things fall apart. If you loosen your grip and breathe you will not only play better, you will feel better. It’s simple and easily forgettable in the heat of the moment.”

Menzies, now 30, was one of the top 20 everything you need to fish. “We focus on casting there,” says Berry. A junior tennis players in New Zealand. He came to Stratton to coach in 20-minute mini-casting lesson is $20 for two, and an advanced casting 2012, fell in love with a ski instructor and decided to make his home here. class goes for $79. Shay helps people learn the feel of casting correctly. “Kristin is far faster and humors me by skiing with me on the hill,” he “Most folks are too wristy, meaning they are working the line from their admits of his now-wife. wrist instead of moving their whole arm,” Berry notes.

And though he’s taught at many of the other Drysdale schools he’s From there, guests have the options of a half-day Educational the first to say that they are not cookie cutter operations.

Excursion where, as you fish, Berry or his guides will teach you about “Here at Stratton, we cater to both regular tennis club members who flies, knots and how to set a hook. “You need to learn to mend the line want to improve their game over the whole summer and resort guests and get the flies to float downstream ahead of it. Pulling a fly across the who come in for the weekend,” he says. surface like its water skiing doesn’t often catch fish,” he says.

The Weekend Tennis Getaway includes a round robin and a mixer on One of Berry’s favorite excursions though is to take people on a seven- Friday evening, group Escape Clinics on Saturday and Sunday mornings hour float trip down the White River, provided the water is high enough. and an hour private lesson, for $250, lodging not included. Stratton.com n “You can fish the White all year and fall fishing is as good as the spring,” he says. Unlike the famous Battenkill in southern Vermont, the White is stocked with trout and features some of the biggest in the state.

“It’s a lot of sub-surface fishing so you want to use a weight or weighted flies,” Berry advises. His choice for flies? “You could fish this river with three flies but I’ll give you my five favorites,” he offers. They are: A black or olive woolly bugger, a bead-head hare’s ear nymph, an elk-hair tan caddis, Kaufman’s stone fly, and a Bean’s Orange Crush Chernobyl fly.” Find out more at Woodstockinn.com PLAY BETTER If you go to the Cliff Drysdale School of Tennis at Stratton you might spy the tennis legend himself walking around. Drysdale, a former topranked player and Grand Slam champion from South Africa is now 80 and lends his name to more than 40 tennis schools around the country as well as in the Bahamas, Bermuda and Costa Rica.

As pro Rob Menzies notes, “We used to see Cliff here quite a bit between Wimbledon and the U.S. Open. He’d work out at the facility and hit some balls with you sometimes and he could always pinpoint one thing that was wrong with your game.”

Stratton pro Rob Menzies shows off the one-handed backhand that legend Cliff Drysdale helped him perfect.

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The Overland Grand Prix brought some of the top racers in the U.S. to Vermont’s rural roads. It also helped kick off a surge in other gravel rides and races around the state.

REDISCOVER VERMONT’S ANCIENT ROADS,

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Photo by Ansel Dickey

ON TWO WHEELS OR ON FOUR.

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Rui Coelho has sets up his tent not far from the Ripton cabin where poet Robert Frost spent his summers.

Coelho’s campsite is just off a former stagecoach route that cuts a dirt strip through the Breadloaf Wilderness. A stream gurgles nearby and the smoke from a campfire rises in the cool evening air.

Coelho can’t tell you where he’s been the last few days, but more often than not, when two paths in the woods diverged, he steered his rented Yamaha XT 250 motorbike down the road less traveled.

The routes he’s been riding have been rough – some barely trails piled with baby-head stones and pocked with puddles. He’s criss-crossed the Green Mountains, puckerbrush thwacking at his legs.

He’s had lunches at general stores and now dinner is cooking in a cast iron skillet over an open fire. His fellow campers are sharing adventures of the day and discussing the pros and cons of different dual sport adventure bikes and the techniques for riding off-road.

“I came here because I wanted to improve my riding skills and explore a part of Vermont I didn’t know,” says Coelho, an avid mountain biker and backcountry skier who lives in Massachusetts and Stowe.

“It’s amazing what you can find on these old roads,” says Coelho, who is also a conservationist, an avid fly-fisherman and president of the Greater Boston chapter of Trout Unlimited. “You come across old cemeteries, abandoned homesteads and ancient orchards.You get to see parts of the state that many never see.”

FOUR WHEELING

Vermont has, at last count, 15,765 miles of roads. Only 7,172 of those are paved.The others are gravel or graded earth, roads whose hard winter surfaces relax into tire-sucking black fudge come the spring thaws—a time when any Vermonter worth his salt avoids them. There are some 284 miles of roads that are considered unimproved or primitive and 720 miles of road are untraveled. Class 4 roads refer to these last two.

These are the roads that once connected Vermont’s hill and valley villages. Some are bordered by moss-covered stone walls, vestiges from the era when much of Vermont was clear-cut and Merino sheep grazed the stony fields.

In the late 1830s, Vermont had more than a million sheep and by 1840, nearly 300,000 residents (close to half what it has now). But the price of wool dropped. The soil was richer to the west. Families decamped. Crumbling chimneys and ancient orchards bear witness to long-abandoned homesteads; fading pathways and overgrown graveyards to early settlements.

These are the roads where if you get lost (which is easy to do in Vermont where cell phone signals fade fast) you might see a handpainted sign that reads “Turn Around, Don’t Believe your GPS.” Pay attention: In general, that’s a sign you should heed, as roads peter out. Unless, of course, you are in an overland vehicle or on a fat tire or gravel bike.

Peter Vollers has explored Vermont’s back roads on all three.Vollers, a lawyer, former pro cyclist and one-time coach at the Killington Mountain School, began discovering old routes near his home in central Vermont in a 1994 Land Rover he nicknamed Bumble. Vollers started to invite owners of other all-wheel-drive vehicles to come join him for private tours and overlanding events. In the spirit of European

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One of the allures of exploring Vermont’s old roads is coming across campsites in the middle of the woods. The Green Mountain National Forest allows dispersed camping.

Far left, top: A chicken dinner cooked on an open fire awaits Rui Coelho.

Bottom photo: Brittni Gorman packs up her gear during the 2020 Super8 ride she did, covering 645

Photo top left by Rui Coelho, bottom by Brittni Gorman; This page by Jake Hamm

miles.

“overlanding” Vollers’ events challenged both car and driver to traverse some of the most challenging old routes in central Vermont.

“At first, we called it the Vermont Overland Birdwatching Safari,” Vollers says of the multi-day excursions. “I found it created a lot more goodwill when we came across a landowner to simply say we were birdwatching.” At night, they camped on Vollers’ land. Soon, sponsors became involved and the VOBS grew. Food trucks arrived and craft beer flowed. More than 250 entrants came from around the country. A mustache contest became part of the competition.

When his wife, Kim, the former operations director at the Woodstock Inn, was offered a dream job in Santa Fe last year, the Vollers moved to New Mexico.They sold their house and 75 acres and what had become known as VOBS to Derek Chace, a Vermonter and former VOBS participant and staff member. Covid-19 caused last year’s event to be cancelled. It is back this Sept. 24-26, with a new name: The Pilgrimage.

“This event is really about highlighting Vermont and it helps people make a pilgrimage here each year,” says Chace. He’s looking forward to having folks camp on his land. He has called in Brownsville Butcher and Pantry to cater and neighbors to sell fresh eggs, maple syrup and local honey. Folks come from as far as California.

“The thing I like is it is as easy or hard as you make it. If you want to bring your VW bus and go explore dirt roads and visit breweries, you can. Or if you want to show up in a Unimog and do some crazy terrain, you can do that too.”

For Chase, overlanding is a way to explore a landscape many people

never get to see. “I’ve seen some of the most impressive views,” he says.

“For instance, in Randolph you come out on this easy Class 4 road and you are on top of a hill with 100 acres of open fields and an unobstructed view west of the Green Mountains.” He’s also come across the eclectic. “You’d never know it but there’s amazing artwork out in the woods in Vermont such as stacked fieldstone pillars and random folk art.”

And then there is the history.

“There is an entire ghost town in Plymouth Five Corners left over from when people thought they could find gold there,” he says with a chuckle. “And you would not believe how many old ski rope tows and bullwheels I find in the hills,” Chace says.

For Chace, part of the fun is finding the old roads, the “Route 7s of their day,” he calls them. “Part of the reason we can do this is that the state of Vermont puts out the GPS maps and a Class 4 road is a designated road that will always be there.You can pull up any map on the V-Trans website and find any road. Other states don’t do that.”

THE GRAVEL REVOLUTION

As his overlanding events took off, Vollers also turned to his first love, bicycle racing. In 2009, he launched the Vermont Overland Grand Prix, a bike race that followed some of the same Class 4 roads he liked to drive. More than just a gravel ride, it was a race across 50 or so miles of terrain so gnarly even pros had to hike their bikes over sections of the steep, wet, Vermont “pavé” as Vollers dubbed it— using the French cycling term for cobblestone streets to describe the old forest roads.

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Photographer Jake Hamm spends much of his professional life shooting for bike companies such as GT and Cannondale but on weekends, he and friends from the Northeast Flatlanders club explore Vermont’s C lass 4 roads in their 4x4 vehicles, often stopping to plunge into a pool like this one (top right) or to camp at designated legal spots.

As gravel riding exploded, events began springing up around the state with new routes being mapped on Vermont’s oldest roads. Pro riders Ted and Laura King moved to Richmond in 2018 and launched Rooted, a gravel race based out of Cochran’s Ski Area. It features what the Kings call a “mullet protocol” – all business in the front, party in the back. It, too, sells out.

Though they may attract some of the nation’s top pros, these gravel races don’t take themselves too seriously. Craft beer flows. Pods of food trucks gather. And bands play long after the last rider rolls in, exhausted and covered with the dust of the Green Mountain’s backroads.

And pro cyclists of all stripes came.

In 2015, the race drew mountain bike legend and former World Champion Ned Overend and six-time National Cyclocross Champion Tim Johnson and his wife, Lynn Bessette, a Canadian Olympic cyclist and pro. In 2018, former Tour de France pro Ted King won with Tinker Juarez, a former pro BMX racer and cross-country mountain biking finishing in eighth. Ansel Dickey, one of Vollers’ former protegés at Killington Mountain School, was third.

The race grew so popular that Vollers capped it at 500. It sold out instantly, securing Vermont’s reputation as a leader in the emerging gravel racing scene. When Vollers moved, Dickey took over the race which is now based at the Mt. Ascutney ski area. It is, again, sold out.

The Overland has inspired other gravel races around the state, such as Rasputitsa which launched in 2014. Though it was held in April on dirt roads in the Northeast Kingdom and took the Russian word for “mud season” as its title, the 40-mile Rasputitsa race drew to attract nearly 1,500 riders, the largest cycling event in Vermont.

Even when it snowed.

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A BIKEPACKERS’ PARADISE

With the growth of gravel riding and overlanding has come the thirst to discover more of Vermont’s old roads and the challenge to map them.

The Northeast Backcountry Discovery Route was pieced together by dual-sport motorcycle riders and runs 1,300 miles from Pennsylvania to Maine, traversing central Vermont.

Several variations of what is known as the XVT or the XVTr exist – a mountain bike route of largely single track and forest road trails that runs the spine of Vermont. In 2015, a former ski patroller from Killington named Calvin Decker mountain biked the 301-mile route in 38 hours.

And efforts are underway to create the Velomont, a mountain bike route that will link singletrack networks from Massachusetts to Canada.

Joe Cruz, a philosophy professor at Williams College and resident of Pownal, Vt. helped to map another route aimed at bikepackers, the VTXL, that crosses Vermont like a backslash, going from the northeast corner to the southwest corner of the state. In 2020, Ted King made headlines when he biked the 310-mile route in 23 hours.

Photos by Jake Hamm

From these routes and others, bikepackers have pieced together what is called the Super8, a figure eight of old roads and singletrack with the northern and southern loops cinched together in Montpelier.

A “Grand Depart” happens each September. Half race, half rally, it challenges riders to see how far and how fast they can ride the hilly 640mile route. “ Expect plenty of climbing, some overgrown roads, some washed out and loose terrain, and lots of cruising on classic Vermont dirt,” the website description states.

Much of the southern loop goes through the Green Mountain National Forest where dispersed camping is legal.

In 2020, Brittni Gorman, a film producer from New Hampshire, won the Super8 finishing the 645 mile ride in eight and a half days.

“There were several times when I thought about quitting,” she admits.

On Day 5 of her ride, she rolled into a clearing in the middle of the southern Vermont forest.There was a collection of small structures with an outdoor kitchen where the landowner has quietly and generously hosted traveling bikepackers over the years.

“The next morning I was brushing my teeth and I was exhausted and crying and wondering whether I should continue or not and the owner, this guy named Pete, shows up. We had this heart to heart and he just said ‘What can I do to help you keep going?’” It was the encouragement she needed. This year she plans to return, not to ride the Super8 but to make a full-length feature film about it.

A trail magician to the backroads community, Pete (he prefers not to have his last name used) has also participated in a toy drive and trash pickup hosted by the Northeast Flatlanders, an overlanding group from Connecticut. Last fall, the Northeast Flatlanders not only did their toy drive, stocking two local police cruisers full of toys to share with the Vermont community, but also sent 4X4s to pick up trash and debris that had been left in the woods. They filled a 30-foot dumpster.

While the old roads no longer link towns and villages, they are connecting outsiders with locals in the backwoods, uniting gravel riders with dual-sport adventure riders and 4x4 vehicle owners. They are

opening up parts of Vermont that, like a dusty history book, have been closed for years.

As Gorman puts it, “There can be a disconnect between cyclists and ATVers. Pete really wants to bring those people together who appreciate the landscape in different ways. He calls them all ‘guests of Vermont.’

And that’s a beautiful way to look at it. These places don’t belong to us.

We all are guests of the land here and we need to take care of it the same way we would our home.”

EXPLORE THE BACKROADS

There are a number of ways to explore the backroads and you don’t need a vehicle or a fancy bike to do so. If you go, please be respectful of all signs and private property, keep noise to a minimum, pack out what you bring in.

OVERLANDING The Land Rover Experience at Manchester’s Equinox Hotel offers one-hour off-road lessons in their vehicles and advanced full-day programs where you can learn about winching and recovery. Ridgeback Guide Service out of Pownal also provides training in overland driving, safety and ethics. It offers single and multi-day tours, including ones with a craft brewery itinerary, flyfishing stops and bird and wildlife watching. Northeast Adventure Company runs overland trips around New England and two-day drives through Vermont in the fall. The Pilgrimage Overland is Sept. 24-26.

BIKEPACKING & GRAVEL RIDING Kris Dennan, who has helped run Stratton Mountain Resort’s Nordic Center, spends summers guiding gravel tours and offers overnight camping trips through Graveltours.com. Bikepacking.com also posts several great multi-day routes around Vermont. But to find new routes, sign up for one of the many gravel rides listed in the Calendar or talk with your local bike shop.

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COACH

By Todd Smith

JESSIE DIGGINS’

SUMMER SESSIONS

What does it take to be an Olympic gold medalist and 2021 World Cup winner in cross-country skiing?

Well, this is how Jessie Diggins spends her summers here in Vermont.

Skiing doesn’t stop in the other serious cross-country athletes. Want to learn to roller ski? Take a $25 clinic on July 11 in Craftsbury, Vt. More info: craftsbury.com

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Photos courtesy USSA

summer for Diggins and

O

n a ripe June morning at the base of Stratton Mountain in Vermont, Jessie is squatting down in the dirt and lifting a volleyball-sized boulder to her chest. Then the power-packed 5-foot-4-inch Olympic gold medalist in cross country skiing suddenly springs up and heaves the rock high into the air like a shot put. No one marks the distance of her throw. No fans are there cheering her on. Jessie is simply grinding her way through a dryland training session.

When Jessie and teammate Kikkan Randall won their historic gold medal in the women’s team sprint freestyle race, their victory was the U.S.Women’s Cross Country Ski Team’s first Olympic medal ever. It was one of the greatest sprints to the finish line ever recorded.When Jessie bravely made her move in the final turn—surging from her third place position past the two best sprinters in the world to take the lead—hearts were gorged with adrenaline from the spectacle of it all. Here was a pint-sized underdog from tiny Afton, Minnesota, on the world’s biggest stage, roaring from behind and ruthlessly going for the win. For days afterward, I openly wondered how the hell she pulled it off.

My curiosity led me to meet her in Stratton, Vt .where I went to interview her for a book and, more importantly, visit the workshop that built Jessie into a world beater.

There was just one catch to my spending a week with Jessie: she insisted that I train with her. It was a very sincere gesture, albeit a ridiculous one (I was 45 years old with a body built like a keg on legs). I naturally had reservations about working out with an Olympian. But Jessie is contagiously positive and I couldn’t pass up the chance to experience firsthand the forces that shape her. So it was that I found myself, a runty middle-aged hobbit, on the side of Stratton Mountain, a ski hill with an elevation close to 4,000 feet and the highest peak in the southern Green Mountains, about to be destroyed by a smiling Energizer Bunny.

Our morning hike would be the first of three workout sessions I was to endure, and it barely scratched the surface

of the absurd amount of training Jessie would put in that week. Despite reaching the pinnacle of her sport, the bedrock of Jessie’ athletic ethos—humility and trusting in her training process—has remained unchanged since winning gold. This past season, she became the first American to win the grueling, multi-day race series, the Tour de Ski and won the overall World Cup. Jessie continues to work out twice a day, six days a week as part of her regimented training program. In a sports culture that aggressively focuses strictly on results, Jessie refreshingly views her career as one that is not to be solely judged by medals and race results.

“For me, only being results-orientated is not the way to go. Because there are so many things you can’t control that could affect whether you win or lose,” Jessie says. “The one thing I can control is showing up to the start line knowing I’ve done everything in my power to be ready to go. For the last 10 years, I’ve put skiing first. I’ve kept it balanced, kept it fun. But every training session I’ve gone out there and not slacked off. Success for me is looking back and not having to say, ‘I should’ve trained harder.’”

Any doubts about her effort level were erased in the first few minutes on Stratton Mountain, hiking on a steep gravel service road.

She climbed up for seven minutes, then retreated back down the mountain for three minutes, and repeated that process—seven up, three down—until she reached the top. In doing so, she climbed the mountain not once, but twice. Harder still, instead of simply climbing, Jessie was mimicking a cross country ski stride the entire time, bounding up the mountain with ski poles in a process called “moose hoofing.”

While I dissolved into a sweaty schmutz, Jessie quickly reached a level three pace—meaning her body was hovering around the point where she can feel her muscles burn. At this pace and beyond, Jessie sets up residence in an aerobic torture chamber she’s nicknamed “the pain cave,” which is located at the convergence of her body and mind.

For years, Jessie has trained both her physical body and her mental state to straddle this threshold between dealing with the pain and quitting. “Suffering is what I know how to do best,” Jessie says.

Jessie may be an Olympic gold medalist and World Cup champion, but she’s admittedly not the most technical skier or elite strategist in her sport. She also doesn’t possess raw speed.What she does have is a single intangible that defines her: “I know how to push my body to its outer limits, hold it there, and then push just a little bit more.”

During her Olympic gold medal race, Jessie made a mid-race decision to push the pace of the lead pack in her second lap in an attempt to drain her opponents’ tanks so they’d be empty for the final third lap and eventual sprint.

Up on Stratton Mountain, a world away from the Winter

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One of the secret strengths of the women’s U.S. Cross Country Team has been their summer training together on the hills and roads around Stratton Mountain. Resort.

Olympics, I saw the same stern race face she wore in South Korea. She was feeling the pain of the incline, and her face contorted into pure focus. She held her pace and kept pushing up the mountain at a punishing speed. Her breath grew ragged but she remained steadfast, not giving a single inch to the pain that was now rising in her like a flood.

After a mere four-hour break to shower, eat lunch, and watch “Grey’s Anatomy” on Netflix, Jessie was back at it, at a strength training session at the Stratton Mountain School. Our second workout of the day was a mix of more cardio, weights, and CrossFit. With Kendrick Lamar’s “Loyalty” blasting through the gym, Jessie was effervescent and decked out in various shades of neon, including bright pink socks. She was also a complete badass. Here in the gym is where Jessie fine-tunes the engine that allows her to epically surge down the homestretch during races, and she didn’t waste a second in gaining all she could from every rep of every exercise.

First, we rode spin bikes to warm up. Within 10 minutes, I felt psychotic from the heat. Next to me, Jessie pedaled at an insane pace, completely upright and on her phone, preparing an offer for a house. “It’s got a garage and one-and-a-half bathrooms!” she exclaimed excitedly as she scrolled through her email, never once breaking her intense stride.

Next, she did 10 sets of eight pull-ups in between weight training stations. I crawled into the fetal position as she walked across a tightrope, balancing while simultaneously heaving a medicine ball onto the rubber floor and catching it on its bounce back. (Yeah, that happened.) After two hours, I left the gym so tired I promptly collapsed into my hotel bed with the weight of a corpse.

The next day at 9 a.m., sharp was our third training session, the one in which I became roadkill. To build her endurance, Jessie was out on an hour-and-a-half long roller ski on the deserted roads that climb through the rolling Green Mountains. She was skiing with members of the U.S. women’s cross country ski team. They skied in rhythmic unison, a locomotive of ponytails and sinewy muscle. I, on the other hand, rode Jessie’s bike as the caboose. I tapped out after just 20 minutes, during which, under an oven broiler of a sun, I rode up a steep mountain road for nine straight minutes (!) and my body melted like the freak at the end of “The Raiders of the Lost Ark.” Our three workouts were only a fraction of her weekly regimen, too. Over the course of the week, Jessie would amazingly endure seven more hours of intense roller skiing (sprints and long distance runs), five more hours of strength training, and a three hour run on the Appalachian Trail. And that was considered her easy week.

Jessie knows winter skiers are made in the summer. It is

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a truth that fills her bones like marrow. That’s why she was out there grinding in the wilderness. Climbing mountains, hurling boulders, and on-road roller skiing for hours.

There was a moment on Stratton Mountain during that first workout that solidified Jessie’s badassery. Near the top we came upon a crew of construction workers doing maintenance on the service road. The men were grizzled and snorting and intimidatingly blocking the road with their dump trucks. I loitered thinking that it would be a good time to stop and turn around. We were almost to the top anyway, and Jessie had already done more than enough.

But she unrelentingly charged straight ahead at the construction zone. Focused in her mind was her upcoming four-month winter season in Europe. It may have only been June, but the hike up Stratton Mountain was another necessary, utilitarian chore Jessie knew she had to complete.

As she approached the horde of working men and their heavy machinery, her stern race face was back and it was clear that nothing was going to stand in her way.

To Jessie, no obstacle is insurmountable. Not the fourdecade American medal drought in cross country skiing at the Olympics. Not her legendary opponents from Norway and Sweden. Not the unfathomable volume of her training hours. Not the suffocating confines of her pain cave. And certainly not this industrial roadblock.

She did not back down a single inch, and the men paused their labor to let her pass. Jessie was an athlete at work and she had a job to do. Seven up, three down. She was determined to finish climbing this mountain.

Twice. n

RETRO VT THE 1969 LONG TRAIL HIKE In 1969, coach John Caldwell chose an unconventional approach to summer training. He challenged the U.S. Cross Country Team to hike the 260 miles of the Long Trail in 10 days.

I

Robert George photo

n 1969 John Caldwell of Putney,Vt. was the coach of the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team. Caldwell, a former Nordic Combined Olympian, has formed some of the most successful crosscountry teams in U.S. history. He would go on to coach World Champion Bill Koch, as well as his own sons, Tim –also an Olympian—and Sverre. Sverre Caldwell, in turn would go on to coach his daughter Sophie and nephew Patrick, and the Stratton Mountain School T2 Team.

In 1969, John Caldwell already had an all-star team of skiers.

He was working with Olympic veterans Bob Gray (also of Putney), Mike Elliott and Mike Gallagher –a former alpine racer from Killington who would go on to become head coach of the team.

And Caldwell had racers who would later make names for themselves. Everett Dunklee made the 1972 Olympics (his niece, Susan, is aWorld Champion biathlete). Ned Gillette, a Barre native, would go on to become one of the best-known adventurers of the 1980s and 1990s, rowing to Antarctica, riding camels 6,000 miles along the Silk Road and circumnavigating Mount Everest. Gillette was shot to death while camping in Kashmir with his wife Suzy Patterson in 1998. He was 53.

On August 9, 1969, Caldwell, then 40, rallied his team near the Canadian border for a 10-day hike of the Long Trail south to Massachusetts. They planned for support teams to meet them with food and to stop for overnights, banquets at ski areas and barbecues put on by ski clubs and supporters. Along the way, they passed 11 of the major ski areas in the state, met with the Governor Deane Davis, Fred Pabst who had founded Bromley and received support from Mad River Glen founder Roland Palmedo.

Here’s Caldwell’s own account, written on August 25, 1969.

A

nyone with a competitive instinct who hikes and climbs mountain thinks in terms of times up, down and times from here to there.

It should not have been surprising to this fraternity that the Long Trail in Vermont was chosen as the target for a

training camp for the U.S. Cross Country Ski Team in 1969.

The primary purpose of the hike was to attract attention to the Cross Country Team, sometimes called the orphans of organized skiing because of the small budget allotment.

Five of the nine regulars were native Vermonters and thus there was another reason for choosing the 260-mile trail. The team also hoped to focus attention on Vermont’s natural beauty and the Green Mountain Club and its Long Trail, truly a footpath in the wilderness.

The regular hikers included myself, Everett Dunklee, Brattleboro, Vt.; Mike Gallagher, Killington, Vt.; Ned Gillette, Barre, Vt.; Bob Gray, Putney, Vt; Tom Corbin, Gunnison, Colo.; Peter Davis, Jackson, N.H.; Mike Elliot, Durango; and Jack Lufkin, Rumford, Me. We were joined for sections along the way by others.

At this writing, it is too early to determine the value of the conditioning. All of us suffered foot, ankle or knee problems but we averaged 27 miles a day over mountainous terrain, and probably had a minimum number of injuries.

There is no question that each hiker’s strength, stamina and endurance was increased by this hike.

Perhaps one of the most valuable conditioners will prove to be that thing called mental attitude, or mental toughness.

It is hard to describe the feeling of hiking day after day for ten days, setting a pace of three miles an hour including all stops for food, changes of socks, etc. At times we covered 17 miles without a formal food stop or road crossing.

We all carried plastic sandwich bags with salt pills and dextrose pills to supplement our food supply between stops

Robert George, an accomplished photographer and athlete from Brattleboro, met the team for photo shoots along the way.

Here, he captured the team crossing Clarendon Gorge.

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The Green Mountain Club manages the Long Trail, which today has more than 70 overnight sites, including some iconic huts like Taft Lodge and Bolton Camp, along the way. To find out more, join the GMC. greenmountainclub.org

and water was plentiful along the way.

It’s not even like being in a ski race where if you feel bad you can drop out. At times we were 15 to 17 miles from our next destination or hope of being met. Several times each day some members were left behind. To give you an idea of the pace, one day Bob Gray stopped after lunch to change his socks.When he started again, we were just crossing into the woods, 300 yards away. He hiked and ran for 6 miles before he caught us.

When you hike alone several things go through your mind. You can worry about catching the group, you can feel lonely or sorry for yourself if you are hurting, you can

50 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

CANADA TO JAY PEAK TO MIDDLEBURY SNOW BOWL Previous to the hike, I had written about 250 letters of an organizational nature and on Saturday, Aug. 9, we were met in North Troy, near the Canadian border, by Mr. Titus, one of the town officials. Mr. Titus had arranged for a letter of greeting from the Selectman of Troy to the mayor of North Adams. We were to carry the letter.

We were right on schedule and Mr. Titus, along with some friends and relatives, including a Mrs. Rogers who had hiked Mansfield over 40 times. I told her I had never climbed it except on a chairlift—that changed on Day 2.

We hit Jay Peak in about 3 hours and were warmly received there by Al Cahill, the marketing director of the ski resort, and Walter Kole. The chef had prepared a banquet for us.

We made a few more stops and then spent the night at Camp Norris, a Boy Scout camp in Eden Mills.

The next day we pushed on over Whiteface Mountain, negotiated our way around beaver ponds in Beaver Meadows and spent the night at Johnson College. We climbed Madonna Mountain (of Smuggler’s Notch Ski Area) where Al Greenberg of Skiing Magazine planned to meet us to do a story. We then went on to the summit of Mt. Mansfield.

We made good time through the Notches and most of us decided to push on to Route 2. This indeed made a long day of it and some of us did not finish until 7 pm. We dined at the Bolton Valley Ski Lodge and had a fine time with Governor Deane Davis who joined us there. One of the significant features of the trip was my good behavior —all Democratic manners—sitting at the head table next to the number one Republican in Vermont, Deane Davis.

Day Four was the low point of the hike. I dropped behind the group with a sore ankle going up Camel’s Hump. The view on the top was outstanding and it revived our spirits so we plugged along. At the Appalachian Gap, we were met by Bob Stone and Bob Gray’s wife Susan who drove us back to the National Life guest home in Montpelier. [Ned Gillette’s father Bob was chairman of National Life, the insurance giant, at the time].

The following day we almost immediately passed over Mad River Glen Ski Area.Through a fault of my own, we did

Courtesy Green Mountain Club

worry about twisting an ankle and being stranded; you can get concerned about holding up the group. In most cases, the rear man just put his head down and pushed a little harder to rejoin.

When we were hiking together, which was the case most of the time, we told stories, simulated the radio and TV broadcasts of the moonshot and the spirit was very high.

We had destinations every day and we knew that the sooner we arrived, without killing ourselves, the more rest we would get for the next day.

not have time to make arrangements to be met. However, Roland Palmedo picked up our story in The Rutland Herald and offered his most generous hospitality but it was too late to change plans.

At Glen Ellen, further down the ridge, we were met by the Glen Ellen Junior Racing Team and their parents. They fed us and several of the juniors made the hike with us over to Sugarbush. Here, Phil Camp had more refreshments for us and we were the focus of attention for many spectators who took advantage of Sugarbush’s free lift rides for the day.

We had a very pleasant stay at Sugarbush but had to leave by 11:00 to make Lincoln Gap and Middlebury Gap. The views along this section were considered the best of the trip and we were glad when we arrived at the Middlebury Snow Bowl. Here, Howie Kelton, Ralph Myrhe, Gordon Bridges and company had a steak cookout ready for us. We ate like kings, spent the night at the Bowl and then had a wonderful early breakfast. When we heard the whole stay was courtesy of Middlebury College (and John Bower’s athletic budget), we just couldn’t help being grateful and eating as much as we could!

THE PUSH SOUTH: KILLINGTON TO NORTH ADAMS, MA. For our sixth day we had a simple assignment: get to Sherburne Pass and that’s all about any of us could do.

The distance from the Appalachian Gap to Sherburne Pass is 58 miles and this was quite a two-day haul and without our support troops, we probably could not have made it.

We lunched at Brandon Gap and then Al Merrill, Nordic Program Director, hiked to a point about seven miles south of there and fed us again.

You may wonder why so much food. All I can say is that I liken my own body to a small wood stove. If you want to keep it going, you have to feed it continually. I don’t think anyone ever ran into a food debt, as we call it. But if you have experienced this you would understand why we tried to keep fed. Your reactions slow up, you are apt to get dizzy, sometimes you shake all over. The only real cure is rest, and food.

Fortunately, we had planned to stay in Rutland for two nights and Mike Gallagher’s family had everything arranged.

Larry Plumer of the Killington Ski Club hosted a banquet for us that evening at the Snow Shed. We all sat at the head table, slightly dazed from the trip and the attention and tried to look alert. It was a wonderful evening for us.

Friday, Day 7 was the easiest day of the hike. It was planned that way. At the top of Killington, we had an early morning feed then we hiked on to Clarendon Gorge and were met by a battery of photographers. Dave Morse of The Rutland Herald, our friend Bob George who had hiked with us for parts of the way from Sugarbush on, and Hans Carrol

of Vermont Life. Some of the most colorful pictures of the trip were taken here. After lunch we breezed through another six miles and returned to Rutland for a steak barbecue hosted by the Pico Ski Club.We were beginning to feel what it is like to be on the banquet circuit.

On Saturday, Day 8, we picked up where we had left off on Route 140 and hiked to USFS 10, where we were met with lunch.We headed on to hike Bromley Mountain rather quickly and we were met there by Fred Pabst and others.

Then we tripped down to Tom Rodgers’ Kandahar Lodge where we were put up free of charge for the evening and a chicken barbecue from the Bromley Ski Club Officials and Gus Black and his wife.

The following day was one of our toughest days. We hiked over 33 miles.We all knew it was going to be a grueller.

During the morning we bypassed Stratton Mountain. I think it was a wise decision although we could have used a view that day. We hit the Daniel Webster Monument for lunch and met my editor there (who fed us soup to nuts) and Ty Resch of The Bennington Banner. We returned to Putney that night, had a sauna and ate at Bob Gray’s house.

The last day was very slow.We drove over to Bennington and got started around 9:30 am.The hike really dragged.We knew we had only 17 miles to go and hat a hard time getting started. The first bright spot was meeting Bob George who had hiked in 3 miles to photograph us crossing the border.

Shortly after that, Ed Gray and Nancy Davis (Peter’s wife) met us with refreshments and we were back in our routine.

In North Adams, the mayor had arranged for a police escort to City Hall and we all began to feel important. At

Bob Gray, one of the stars of Caldwell’s team, competed in the 1968 and 1972 Olympics.

Gray, who grew up in Putney, raced well into his late 70s, winning the Master Nationals for his age group. His daughter Molly is now Vermont’s Lieutenant Governor.

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City Hall, I handed over the letter to Mayor Cleary, we talked a great deal and then returned to Putney for a sauna, swim and dinner at the Caldwells that night.

Our time for the trip will stand at 9 days, four hours.

Actually, it was just three hours 52 minutes but we won’t quibble over 8 minutes.

I would say that hiking over 270 miles in 10 days has to do something for you but the final value of the hike will be hard to measure. There are many intangibles.

I’m sure the boys felt even closer than before, now that the hike is over. We’ve always had a good core and it is strengthened now.

With the likes of cross-country skiers, it’s hard to go wrong.

John Caldwell still lives in Putney, Vt, near where his nephew Zach Caldwell and his wife Amy run the bike and ski outfitters, the West Hill Shop and Caldwell Sport. n

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52 Summer 2021 vtskiandride.com

Photo by Robert George

The team atop Camel’s Hump, left to right: Ned Gillette, Mike Gallagher, Tom Corbin, Everett Dunklee, John Caldwell (the author), Peter Davis, Jack Luskin, Bob Gray and Mike Elliott.

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR JUNE 21-30 | 9th Annual West River Trail (Virtual) Run, South Londonderry Run 11 miles on exciting terrain on a one-way trail from South Londonderry to Jamaica State Park along the West River. thecollaborative.us/westrivertrailrun 21-24 | AJGA Killington Junior Golf Championship Come watch the game’s future stars as they tee it up at Green Mountain National Golf Club. killington.com 26 | Tour de Grace, Townsend

This is a family ride, over trails, through pastures, on country roads and covered bridges. It is ideal for all ages. Total distance is approximately 15 miles, with no long climbs. Start and finish at Grace Cottage Hospital. gracecottage.org/get-involved/ tour-de-grace-bicycle-rally/ 26 | The 200-on-100 Double Century, North Troy This is a single-day double-century that travels the length of Vermont, from the Canada to the Massachusetts state line, primarily following VT-100. 100-200.org 26 | Lake Dunmore Triathlon and Vermont Sun Triathlon, Salisbury Swim .9 miles, bike 28 miles and run 6.2 miles in the Vermont Sun Triathlon, or try the Lake Dunmore Triathlon, with a 0.9-mile swim, a 28-mile bike leg and a 6.2-mile run. Vermontsuntriathlonseries.com 26-27 | Catamount Ultra, Trail Run, Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe Run a 25K or 50K trail race on wide, hard-packed dirt trails that at Trapp Family Lodge Outdoor Center. The 50K course is two laps on the 25K course which passes rolling highland pastures and hardwood forest, complete with maple sugar tap lines in place and ready for the spring “run.” catamountultra.com 26-27 | 5th Annual Vermont Renaissance Faire, Stowe Dress in Renaissance garb and sample Medieval-inspired artisans and craft vendors, beer, wine and cider makers. vtgatherings.com

27 | Central Vermont Cycling Tour, Montpelier An original gravel grinder, this ride takes you either 15, 30 or 60 miles of country roads. Look forward to great food, convenient rest stops, well-marked courses, maple creemees, and hula hoops. All to raise funds to build the Cross Vermont Trail.

Crossvermont.org.

27 | Brattle Paddle Canoe, Kayak & SUP Race, Brattleboro Enjoy a nine or 3.5-mile flatwater race on the Connecticut and West Rivers to benefit the West River Trail. neckra.org

JULY 3 | The Great Race Triathlon/Duathlon, St. Albans The Great Race is a canoe triathlon/duathlon which is a tradition 41 years in the making. This family-friendly sporting event was recently taken over by the Town of St. Albans. Run 3 miles, bike 12 miles and paddle 3 miles on beautiful Lake Champlain.

Stalbanstown.com 4 | Clarence Del Mar 5K, South Hero This is the 39th running of this July 4 tradition. Don’t miss it! Gmaa.run

4 | Fourth of July Parade, Warren With floats, music and many more surprises this classic Vermont affair is a must on your bucket list of things to do. Get there early! Warrenpajuly4th.com

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8-11 | The Prouty, Hanover, N.H. Ride 20, 35, 50, 77 or 100 miles on roads in the Upper Valley, or wherever home may be. Tackle a 70K or 100K gravel ride. Golf 18 holes, run, walk 3k to 10k, or even row 5-15 miles. The Prouty is in person or virtual this year, but there are still many ways to participate. Limited in-person option. getinvolved.dartmouth-hitchcock.org 10 | Trout Day at Sugarbush, Warren Sponsored by the Mad-Dog Chapter of Trout Unlimited and The Silver Trout Fly Shop in Waitsfield. Single hand and Spey casting instruction, fly-tying demonstrations. Learn the basics of fly fishing, talk with a local guide for tips on fly selection and presentation. sugarbush.com 16 | Branbury Classic & Lake Dunmore Triathlons, Salisbury Paddle 1.5 miles, bike 14 miles, and run 3.1 miles or do the Lake Dunmore Triathlon (600 yard swim, 14-mile bike, 3.1 mile run). A classic, pristine course starts and finishes at Branbury State Park. Participants paddle, bike and run around beautiful Lake Dunmore. vermontsuntriathlonseries.com 16-18 | Killington Wine Festival, Killington Though the regular outdoor festival is put on hold still there are wine tasting options for participating restaurants and a fully comprehensive Wine Trail coordinated with distribution partners, Farrell and Baker Distributors and a Wine & Nine golf tournament hosted by Killington Golf Course on Sunday. Killington.com 16-18 | Vermont 100 Endurance Running Race, West Windsor Featuring unrelenting rollers that add up to 17,000 feet of climbing, the VT100 trail race winds its way over country roads, through forested trails, and alongside breathtaking views of the southern Green Mountains. Vermont100.com 17 | Red Bull Dual Slalom, Killlington Compete head to head on a wild course designed for the Red Bull Raw event by pro MTBer Aaron Chase. Killington.com 17 | Women’s MTB Clinic, Montpelier Join Onion River Outdoors and Christsonthy Drellos of Blue Sky MTB for a series of fun, supportive clinics for women and non-binary riders to hone your skills, learn to corner and get your wheels off the ground on the Montpelier trails. onionriver.com 17 | 43rd Annual Goshen Gallop, Goshen This exceptional backcountry course on the trails of the Moosalamoo National Recreation Area starts and finishes at the Blueberry Hill Outdoor Center and benefits the center. From a natural obstacle course to a stunning surprise view from the south end of Hogback Mountain, the Gallop’s elevation profile and rugged terrain have earned the race the nickname “the toughest 10k in New England.” goshengallop.com 17 | Raid Lamoille, Craftsbury A challenging 25 or 55 mile route that includes a significant amount of packed-gravel riding and some major climbing segments. This is not a race. grvl.net/raid-lamoille 18 | Farm to Fork Fondo, South Hero Ride 25, 40 or 60 milespast stunning views of Lake Champlain, the Adirondack Mountains, and Green Mountains, in one the most beautiful archipelagos in the country. This group ride ends with a fantastic lunch. Limit 250. farmtoforkfitness.com

24-August 7 | The Point to Point, powered by VSECU, Mt. Ascutney, Brownsville This is the 20th year of the Point to Point, a cycling and running event that raises funds and awareness for the Vermont Foodbank. The rides and runs will be virtual, but the goal remains the same: get outside, have fun, and ride or run to help fight hunger. thepointtopoint.org 25 | 41st Annual Guilford Gravel Grinder (G3), Guilford 545 Velo hosts the fourth iteration of this 40-mile course featuring 4,800 feet of elevation gain, with 93 percent of the riding falling on dirt roads. Bring a bike with tires that are 28-35mm or wider in width. bikereg.com/guilford-gravel-grinder-the-g3

25 | Mozo Double Up, Stowe Gain 5,000 feet over 11 miles on Vermont’s most technical terrain as you race across the state’s highest peak (rain date 8/1). Nativeendurance.com 30 | Moosalamoo Ultra, Goshen Run 14 miles or tackle the ultra, 36 miles of mostly singletrack in the Moosalamoo National Recreation Area. The race is based out of the Blueberry Hill Outdoor Center and will have free camping onsight on Friday and Saturday night (or stay at the Blueberry Hill Inn). Moosamalooultra.com 31-1| Disc Golf Professional Tournament, Magic Mountain, Londonderry The course will be closed to those not in the tournament but spectators are welcome.

The Tavern will be open and concessions will be offered on the course. magicmtn.com

AUGUST July 30-1 | FLOW STATE Mountain Bike Festival, Mt. Ascutney, Brownsville The trails at Ascutney Outdoors play host to Flow State, the Vermont Mountain Bike Festival, a three-day celebration of all things mountain biking put on by Mountain Flyer. Flowstatemtbfestival.com.

1 | Eastern States Maxxis Cup, Bolton Valley Resort Join in or watch the top riders in the East compete in downhill and enduro on the raw and rowdy trails at Bolton Valley Resort, the only Vermont stop on this summer’s tour. Boltonvalley.com 1 | Rooted Vermont, Richmond Join Ted and Laura King for a weekend long celebration of gravel roads, community and all things VT, with necessary Covid precautions in place. Race the long course (82 miles) and 8,000 feet of climbing or go your own pace and do the 48-mile short course. And an epic afterparty featuring local foods and brews follows. rootedvermont.com 2 | White Claw Open Northeast Regional Golf Tournament, Jay Peak Spend the day competing for great prizes, a chance to move on to the championship round and play your way to the grand prize of a trip to play at Pebble Beach with your team. Jaypeakresort.com 1 | New England Championships, Canoe, Kayak, SUP Races, Brattleboro Enjoy a 12 mile flatwater race on the Connecticut River or a 5 mile recreational race. neckra.org 7 | Tour de Slate, Middletown Springs Ride a regular or metric century, 36 or 25 miles — or ride the D&H Rail Trail. This is a great way to explore the emerging trails and quiet roads of Slate Valley. There is also a virtual option for this event. tourdeslate.org 7 | Vermont Gran Fondo, Bristol Ride Vermont’s infamous four gaps in the Gran Fondo with 130 miles and 11,000 feet of climbing or opt for an 85 or 40-miler. All will take you over heart-stopping hill climbs with breathtaking views. vermontgranfondo.com 7 | Missisquoi Paddle-Pedal, Richford This family-friendly event combines 6.5 miles of paddling down a designated Wild & Scenic section of the Missisquoi River and 5 miles of cycling on the adjacent Missisquoi Valley Rail Trail. Northernforestcanoetrail.org

8-15 | 7th Annual Vermont Open Farm Week Visit a few of the more than 44 farms across the state that open their doors and offer meals, tastings, crafts and tours of their operations, plus live music. digInvt.org

13-15 | Total Archery Challenge, Pico, Mendon Yeti Total Archery Challenge fueled by MTN OPS is coming to Killington/Pico, Vermont for 3 days and is bringing you the one of the greatest outdoor 3D archery competition, show and experiences in the country. killington.com 13-15 | Vermont Antique & Classic Car Meet, Stowe The Vermont Auto Enthusiasts signature annual event is the Vermont Antique and Classic Car Meet. gostowe.com 14 | The Bitter Pill, Craftsbury A summer adventure race for teams of two or three with hiking, biking, and time on the water – as well as requiring you to continually navigate. If you have never done an adventure race before, this is a great way to get started. gmara.or 14 | Vermont Roots Road Show, Jay Peak, Jay Head up to the Stateside Amphitheater on Saturday, August 14th for an afternoon and evening of music featuring performances by Vermont acts Ida Mae Specker and Terrible Mountain Stringband, Maple Run Band, Saints & Liars, Sarah King, and Western Terrestrials. jaypeakresort.com 14 | The 100 on 100 Running Relay, Lebanon New Hampshire.

The event starts early in the morning on August 14th and ends with most participants finishing between 5:30 PM and 11:00 PM. The 100 on 100 Relay historically takes place along Vermont’s historic Route 100. Due to Covid protocols, the 2021 event will take place along an all new New Hampshire course starting on the Northern Rail Trail near Lebannon. 100on100relay.com

15-19 | Vermont Bicycle Tours: Bike and Brew, Charlotte Love cycling for hours through the beautiful rolling countryside? Often found sharing a favorite beer at the end of rides? If so, the Vermont Bike & Brew tour is sure to rank as one of your most memorable experiences! gosojourn.com/bicycle-tours/ vermont-bike-brew-tours/

17 | Women’s MTB Clinic, Montpelier Join Onion River Outdoors and Christsonthy Drellos of Blue Sky MTB for a series of fun, supportive clinics for women and non-binary riders to hone your skills, learn to corner and get your wheels off the ground on the Montpelier trails. This second session is on pumps and jumps. 9 am-1pm. onionriver.com

21 | 48th Annual Mt. Washington Auto Road Bicycle Hillclimb, Albany, NH This 7.6 mile race to the summit of the highest peak in the northeast is a fundraiser for the Tin Mountain Conservation Center. The race is known as the toughest hill climb in the world with an average grade of 12%. mwarbh.org

22| Smuggs Summer Disc Golf Classic, Jeffersonville This disc golf tournament is a single day event: one round in the morning, one round in the afternoon. A barbecue lunch and prizes will be provided. Proceeds to benefit the Smugglers’ Notch Ski and Snowboard Club. smuggs.com 27-Sep. 5 | The Champlain Valley Fair The Champlain Valley Fair caps the summer season in Vermont! Vendors, midway rides, games, entertainment, food, agricultural exhibits, nationally recognized performers, and more. champlainvalleyfair.org

29 | Race To The Top Of Vermont, Stowe A 4.3- mile, 2564 vertical ft hill climb up the tallest mountain in Vermont - Mt. Mansfield.The course climbs up the historic Toll Road, is 4.3 miles in length, and climbs 2564 ft. rttovt.com

29 | Vermont Overland Grand Prix, Ascutney A 50-mile dirt road bicycle race featuring 6,000 feet of climbing, seven sectors of “Vermont pavé” (unmaintained ancient public roads), two well-fortified sag stops, a magnificently scenic route and an awesome party afterwards. vermontoverland.com

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THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR 29 | Cycle 4 CMT, Shelburne Cyclists enjoy a light breakfast followed by cycling either a 15, 25 or 40 mile route through beautiful/challenging areas of Shelburne, Charlotte and Hinesburg VT. After party - catered lunch, live music, free beer and opportunities to bid on silent auction items provided by local sponsors. CMT (Charcot Marie Tooth) is a progressive neurological disorder affecting over 300 Vermonters and 3.0 million people worldwide. cycleforcmt.com

31 | Slate Valley Epic, Poultney A 40+ mile, 5,000+ vertical mountain bike race on Vermont’s newest and best single-track trails in the Slate Valley of southwestern Vermont. slatevalleytrails.org

SEPTEMBER 3-6 | Green Mountain Stage Race, Burlington For its 20th anniversary the GMSR comes back with 4 days of racing with stages similar to what was raced on in 2019, including the Burlington Crit. There are 10 fields including for women a P/1/2/3 and a 3/4/5. For men: a P/1, Cat 2, Cat 3, Cat 4/5 (open and masters), 40+, 50+ and Junior fields. Gmsr.info 3-5 | Quechee Hot Air Balloon Festival, Queechee Don’t miss this exciting festival featuring up to 20 hot air balloons with five flights scheduled throughout the festival and additional tethered rides during the day. Enjoy continuous music and entertainment for all ages, and over 60 craft artisans and commercial vendors. quecheeballoonfestival.com 3 | Stratton Foundation Annual Charity Golf Outing, Stratton Come out for a golf tournament where the goal is to score high for the local community. The Stratton Foundation’s annual charity golf outing is an event to inspire fun among the participants and inspire hope among children in southern Vermont. stratton.com 3-6 | A Taste of New England, Stowe Bookending the summer season is the triumphant return of A Taste of New England - Spruce Peak’s premier culinary weekend. stowe.com 4 | 26th Annual Mount Snow Brewers Festival, Mount Snow While this year’s version will be scaled back to maintain safety protocols, the festival will still promise a great time and fantastic beers. Enjoy 20 breweries pouring a variety of beers and ciders, delicious food options, and quality live music throughout the event. mountsnow.com 4 | Blues, Brews and BBQs, Stratton Head to the main base area to enjoy live Blues music while sampling local Vermont beers, ales, lagers and ciders. Stratton’s team of talented chefs will be firing up the grills and preparing the best offerings in BBQ recipes for all to enjoy throughout the day. stratton.com 11-12 | Spartan Ultra 50K, Beast 21K Race, Killington Spartan Ultra is a 50 km, 60 obstacle race built to break your limits over the world’s most difficult terrain , Also, a Beast 21K, a sprint and a kid’s race..” killington.com 10-12 | British Invasion, Stowe This three-day event will feature “all things British”, with a primary focus on classic British motorcars. This event is the largest all British motorcar show in the United States, attracting more than 600 British motorcars from the U.S. and Canada each year. gostowe.com 11 | Groton Forest Trail Run, Groton Offering three technical, beautiful race distances on the trails of the Groton State Forest. The 26.5 mile run starts at 7AM, the 15 mile run starts at 9AM and the 6.2 mile run starts at 10AM. ultrasignup.com

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11 | Kelly Brush Ride, Middlebury

The 15th annual edition of this fundraising ride takes riders through various courses from 25 miles to 100 miles in scenic Addison County. Can’t make it to Vermont for the Kelly Brush Ride? Join from anywhere. kellybrushfoundation.org 11 | Siptemberfest, Mad River Glen, Waitsfield Vermont’s “Best Little Beer Fest” offers an intimate craft beer tasting experience with short lines, lots of great local beer, good people and plenty of opportunity to chat with local brewers. siptemberfest.com 12 | Mad Marathon, Mad Half and Relays, Waitsfield The Mad River Valley is the site of a weekend of races on dirt roads with tough climbs, and great views of the Green Mountains. madmarathon.com 18 | Tour de Farms, Vergennes This year’s biking farm tour will feature two distances—a 30-mile route and a more relaxed, family-friendly 10-mile distance. You’ll pass through the beautiful pastoral landscape of the Champlain Valley and visit three to seven farms depending on your distance. Each farm stop will host additional food and beverage producers. Riders sample everything from maple iced coffee and farm-fresh salads to maple-glazed ham and Vermont’s famous cheeses! acornvt.org/tourdefarms 18-19| Vista Beast Challenge – 5TH Annual Disc Golf Tournament, Bolton Valley Compete on a challenging par 60 18-hole course that tests players’ ability to throw a variety of shots. Stay tuned for more details, but practice up. boltonvalley.com 19 | Trapp Cabin Trail Races, Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe The 5K follows Lodge Spur to Luce Hill Loop, following the single track trail back to the finish. Walkers welcome! The 10K continues on to Tap Line, follows Chris’s Run to the cabin and returns on Growler and Tap Line to the finish. The half-marathon is by far Stowe’s most popular race and attracts over 60+ racers from all over New England. The course does a double-loop of the 10.5K. greenmtnadaptive.org 19 | TAM Trek, Middlebury The 19-mile Trail Around Middlebury attracts serious trail runners from, around the state, and outside of Vermont. Also offered is a challenging 10K course for runners looking for a shorter and equally scenic race. The 2-mile family fun run attracts families and run/walkers from around Addison County. maltvt.org/tam-trek 19 | Josh Billings Trianthlon, Great Barrington, MA 27 Mile Bike / 5 Mile Canoe/Kayak/SUP / 6 Mile Run in the beautiful Berkshires of western Ma. 44 Categories for Teams & Ironpersons-separate divisions for canoes, kayaks & SUPs. Bikers race 27 miles on backcountry rolling hills thru 5 towns in the Berkshires, paddle 5 miles around Stockbridge Bowl, finish with a 6 mile run around the lake to Tanglewood then celebrate at the Josh ‘Bash’ with awards, food, live band, vendors and a free Kid’s Fun Run. Josh ‘matchmaker’ will help find teammates.

23-26 | Obstacle Course Racing World Championships, Stratton Drawing more than 5,000 athletes from 70 nations, the OCR World Championships features both professional and amateur age-group competitions. The three-day event offers five different races to accommodate all types of athletes. The flagship 3K and 15K distance races are only open to qualified age-group and professional athletes. stratton.com 26 | 28th Vermont 50 Ultra Run & MTB, West Windsor This 50-mile trail race lets mountain bikers and ultra runners enjoy a challenging and scenic course that is like no other. Net proceeds go to Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports. vermont50.com 26 | Annual Vermont Wildlife Festival, Mount Snow, Wilmington Learn about Vermont’s wildlife from conservation organizations, sportsmen and women and r the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum. visitvermont.com

OCTOBER 9| 2nd Indigenous Peoples’ Day Rocks, Stowe This concert will be a day-long event of culture, education, and music, including blessings by the Chief of the Abenaki Nation, Abenaki drummers, Native American singers, authors and storytellers, vendors and many musical performances. Stowe.com 9 | 23rd Annual Mount Snow Oktoberfest, Mount Snow, Wilmington This year’s version will be scaled back, but will still offer the beer, schnitzel and Oom-pah music that you love. Enjoy a selection of beers from German and domestic breweries as well as authentic German fare. mtsnow.com 9-11 | Harvest Fest Weekend, Stratton Stratton’s Harvest Fest brings flannels and Fall cheer to the Village with endless family fun. Enjoy live music, scenic lift rides, peak fall foliage, and delicious food options along with the season finale of mountain biking, scenic lift rides and golf. stratton.com

16 | Trapp Mountain Marathon, Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe This half or full marathon features steep climbs and descents and a newly updated climb to the highest point on the Trapp Lodge Property; Round Top Mountain. The 13.1 mile loop course is approximately 2/3 double track wide trails and dirt roads, and 1/3 serpentine, rugged single track. trappmountainmarathon.com 16-17 | Vermont State Disc Golf Championships, Smuggler’s Notch, Jeffersonville Catch the top players in the state at this PDGA C-Tier event in northern Vermont, hosted by Disc Golf Vermont. Discgolfvermont.com 17 | Heady Trotter 4-Miler, Stowe The Alchemist hosts this road race, which starts and ends at the brewery and is followed by live music, lawn games, food and beer. headytrotter.com 24 | Vermont City Marathon & Relay, Burlington Marathoners and relay runners can safely conquer 26.2 miles in a new, two-looped course that includes many of the highlights runners have loved about the course for over 30 years. runvermont.org

CONCERTS & MUSIC FESTIVALS

10 | Fresh Hops Festival, Sugarbush Vermont’s first Fresh Hops Festival challenges to create different brews using the same hops. Sugarbush.com Vermont Symphony Orchestra Summer Tour, Statewide

Vermont’s Jukebox String Quartet travels the state for concerts. Shelburne Museum 11 | North Face Race to the Summit, Stratton on 7/1, Greensboro: Highland Center for the Arts 7/2, Grafton: Windham FoundaRun a 2.18 mile race climbing 2,003 vertical feet up southern Vermont’s highest tion 7/3, North Bennington: Park-McCullough Historic Governor’s Mansion 7/4, peak for pride, prize money, awards and great views. stratton.com von Trapp Brewery 7/6; Dorset: Barrows House 7/8, Pittsford Village Farm on 7/9, St. Johnsbury: Dog Mountain on 7/10, South Hero: Snow Farm Vineyard on 7/11.

14-17 | 29029, Stratton Lawson’s Finest Taproom, Waitsfield, 7/13; Middlebury Town Gazebo, 7/16 and more Run, walk or crawl up Stratton Mountain. Take the gondola down. Repeat 17 times See website for full schedulevso.org until you climb 29,029 feet, the height of Everest. 29029everesting.com Spruce Peak Summer Concert Series, Stowe Join Spruce Peak on the Village Green all summer long for evenings of amazing music, great food and outdoor fun. The series kicks off with the return of KT Tunstall on July 2, followed by Marc Roberge of O.A.R. and Adam Gardner of Guster on July 15. gostowe.com ] Stratton Music Series:,Stratton Pick yourself up a “Pocket Full of Kryptonite” at Stratton this summer as The Spin Doctors play in the return to live music and the first show of the 2021 Stratton Mountain Music series on July 4 with Blues Traveler on Oct. 10 and plenty of great live music in beween . stratton.com Cooler in the Mountains Concert Series, Killington A family-friendly music series held weekly on Saturdays, July 17-August 24 from 3:30-6 p.m. featuring top national and regional acts. killington.com Vermont Roots Roadshow: Magic Mountain, Jay Peak, Higher Ground Live performances by Ida Mae Spector and the Terrible Mountain String Band, Maple Run Band, Saints & Liars, Sarah King, and Western Terrestrials. A celebration of Green Mountain State’s legacy of traditional and original music, this concert offers everyone an opportunity to gather, celebrate, sing and dance together again. Magic Mountain, Londonderry, Aug. 7 ; Jay Peak, Aug. 14 , Higher Ground, Burlington, Sept. 24, vermontrootsroadshow.com

“Celebrating Vermontʼs rich skiing and snowboarding history”

FREE Admission - Films Shown Daily - GIFT SHOP Open Friday & Saturday 12 PM - 5 PM 1 South Main St. Stowe, VT www.vtssm.org

Alpine Brewgrass Fallfest, Magic Mountain Londonderry Take a Green Chair lift ride ($20) to the festival on Oct. 2 featuring Saints & Liars and other bluegrass bands. There will be brews, views and music from 2-4 at Sunshine Corner followed by Saints and Liars at the Tavern in the evening. A lift ticket up the Green Chair will be your ticket to the Sunshine Corner and Tavern concert available online and at the ticket window. magicmtn.com Stowe Tango Music Festival, Stowe A limited in-person concert on Saturday August 21 and virtual events including the premieres of tango documentaries produced by The Argentine Tango Society. gostowe.com

vtskiandride.com Summer 2021 57

BIKE BIKE SHOPS SHOPS Advertising Advertising Section Section

REGION'S THE THE REGION'S BESTBEST 1

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Manchester's bicycle Manchester's bicycle premier bike shop in Southern Vermont, The premier bikeThe shop in Southern Vermont, shop since 1972,shop since 1972, located in Manchester located in Manchester Center.

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571,Pond St. STE 57 Pond St. STE Ludlow, VT 1, Ludlow, VT (802) 228-5440 (802) 228-5440 Info@tygartmountainsports.com, Info@tygartmountainsports.com, Tygartmountainsports.com Tygartmountainsports.com

North Central Vermont's North Central Vermont's Trek and Giant Trek and Giant We are a full service We are a full service Vermont’s Hitchhiker Vermont’s best selection ofbest selection of Dealer nestled in the heart of bike country.

Hitchhiker Bike Shop is Bike Shop is Dealer nestled in the heart of bike country. bicycle sales and bicycle sales and professionally refurbished Stowe's newest shop. professionally refurbished new and used bikes for every Stowe's newest shop.

Selling new andSelling used bikes for every service center. We service center. We usedbikes bikesfor and new bikes bike and every We carry bikes from Rocky Mountain, used bikes and new touring, bike for touring, budget and every type of rider from We carry bikes from Rocky Mountain, budget type of rider from carry a wide selection carry a wide selection packing, commuting, fat biking, andbeginner simply to expert.

Cervelo, Otso Cycles, packing, commuting, fat biking, and simply beginner to expert.

We service all manner Cervelo, Otso Cycles, Chromag, OpenChromag, Open We service all manner of Scott and Kona of Scott and Kona getting around town.

Named one of Cycle, and Gazelle E-bikes. If yougetting are around town.

Named one of the bike sell tonsand of accessories and Cycle, and Gazelle E-bikes.

If you are ofthe bike and sell of tons of and accessories bikes bikes and a variety of and a variety of country’s best bike shops for it’s “plain-talk looking for a tuneup we offer service for country’s best bike shops for it’s “plain-talk apparel.

BikeLamoille rentals for the Lamoille Valley looking for a tuneup we offer service for apparel. Bike rentals for the Valley from Scott, accessories fromaccessories Scott, advice and no-nonsense service.”

A nonevery of bike andadvice budget. and no-nonsense service.” A nonTraildown just 200 just about everyjust typeabout of bike andtype budget.

Rail Trail just 200Rail yards the yards road. down the road.

Giro, Louis Garneau, Giro, Louis Garneau, profit as of January 2015, Old Spokes Home Serviceare appointments profit as of January 2015, Old Spokes Home Service appointments encouraged,are encouraged, Park Tools and others. We offer Blackburn, Park Blackburn, Tools and others.

We offer 100% revenue to run programs butYou'll not necessary.

You'll also finduses great 100% of its uses revenue to of runitsprograms but not necessary. also find great service and repairs service and repairs on all makes andon all makes and creating access to bikes in the community. clothing, parts, and accessories in our creating access to bikes in the community. clothing, parts, and accessories in our RANCH CAMP models including models including in-house suspension RANCH CAMP in-house suspension Andfamous don’t miss their bicycle famous antique bicycle shop that is pedaling distance from Andthe don’t miss their antique shop that is pedaling distance from the service, wheel building, service, wheel building, and full bike and full bike Hours: – Sat. 10 - 6, Sun. Cady Hillwebsite trails. See our website for more Hours:museum! museum!

Mon. – Sat. 10 -Mon. 6, Sun. Cady Hill trails. See our for more 311 Mountain311 Mountain build-outs. build-outs. up to date information up to date information on the shop, on the shop, Road, Stowe, VT Road, Stowe, VT services, and pricing or stop by and check VILLAGE SPORT OMER & BOB’S 802-253-2753802-253-2753 services, and pricing or stop by and check VILLAGE SPORT OMER & BOB’S | | out next time you're in Stowe! us out next timeus you're in Stowe!

SHOP SHOP

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20 Hanover St.20 Hanover St. Lebanon, NH Lebanon, NH HIGH PEAKS CYCLERY HIGH PEAKS CYCLERY | 603-448-3522603-448-3522 | omerandbobs.com omerandbobs.com

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ranchcampvt.com ranchcampvt.com

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Ranch Camp is Ranch Camp is 511 Broad St. 511 Broad St. Stowe’s mountain Stowe’s mountain Lyndonville, VTLyndonville, VT your hub for bikes, bike base lodgebike andbase your lodge hub forand bikes, 802-626-8448|802-626-8448| gear, andCamp culture!

Ranch Camp offers gear, and culture!

Ranch offers villagesport villagesport a full-service mountain bike shop, tap a full-service mountain bike shop, tap The Upper Valley's The Upper Valley's 2733 Main St.,2733 Main St., shop.com shop.com room, and fresh-casual room, and fresh-casual eatery, featuringeatery, featuring shop since 1964. bike shop since bike 1964.

Lake Placid, NY Lake Placid, NY Family owned and Family owned and sales and demo bike from Specialized, sales and demo bike from Specialized, Offering mountain Offering mountain | 518-523-3764518-523-3764 | passion driven since we are a 4 season passion driven since 1978 we are a 4 1978 season Ibis, Yeti, Evil, Revel, and Fatback.

Looking Ibis, Yeti, Evil, Revel, and Fatback.

Looking bikes, gravel and road bikes, gravel and road shop with 2 convenient locations. Focused highpeaks highpeaks shop with 2 convenient locations.

Focused for top of the line mountain bikes and bikes, hybridand bikes, bikes, hybrid bikes, e-bikes, kidse-bikes, and kidsfor top of the line mountain bikes and on making everyday your on making your best day with fullbest day with full cyclery.com cyclery.com components?

Got ‘em. local everyday components? Got ‘em. How about localHow about bikes from Specialized, Trek, and Electra. bikes from Specialized, Trek, and Electra. service bike shops, rentals from Specialized, bike shops, rentals from Specialized, fromfinest new England’s purveyors England’s purveyorsfinestservice Featuring a full service department,brews bike from newbrews Adirondacks' source and a full service Featuring department, bike The Adirondacks'The source for bicycling andfor bicycling Pivot, LIV, Salsa Pivot,Transition, LIV, Salsa and Giant, and and Giant, and ofYou craftbet. libations?

You bet. And ifTransition, you craft libations?

And if you mountain andand e-bike demos,ofand outdoor since 1983! Sales, service, fitting, mountainfitting, and e-bike demos, outdoor gear since 1983!gear Sales, service, bikesoffor every type offor rider,. bikes for every type rider,.

Looking a Looking for a need a thoughtfully crafted grab-and-go need a thoughtfully crafted grab-and-go a kids trade-in, trade-up andSalsa, tours.Giant Bikesand

by Salsa, Giant a kidsand trade-in, trade-up program.

Hours:program. Hours: rentals and tours.rentals Bikes by newreplacement ride, new gear, replacement parts or a ride, new gear, parts or a meal your to ride, a place tonew sit down meal for your ride, or for a place sit or down Mon.-Friday,Sat., 9am-5:30pm, Yeti.center Your advenutre center for mountain Mon.-Friday, 9am-5:30pm, 9am-5pm Sat., 9am-5pm Yeti. Your advenutre for mountain quick snack gotRide youinthere quickhas snack we got you therewe too. and too. Ride in and and refuel afterwards, and refuel afterwards, Ranch Camp hasRanch Camp biking, and road riding adventures. biking, gravel and road gravel riding adventures. outshop of our(2099 Trailside shopHill (2099 Darling Hill out of our Darling youofcovered.

Best of all, is Trailside you covered. Best all, Ranch Camp is Ranch Camp Dirt, gravel, roadDirt, andgravel, e-bike road tours,and e-bike tours, Rd) or stopstore in to(511 our town store (511 Broad ONION RIVER Rd) or stop in to our town Broad ONION RIVER situation trailside with its very own public situation trailside with its very own public Lodge and dirt camps.. Hours: Basecamp LodgeBasecamp and dirt camps..

Hours: Street) on your Street) on your way through weway lookthrough forwardwe look forward OUTDOORS entrance intoCady Stowe’s iconic Cady OUTDOORS access entranceaccess into Stowe’s iconic Mon Fri 9 – 6, Sun 9 – 5.

Mon – Fri 9 – 6, Sun 9 –– 5. to seeing you! We are #CovidConscious to seeing you! We are #CovidConscious Hill trail network.Hill trail network.

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20 Langdon St. 20 Langdon St. Montpelier, VT Montpelier, VT BAY MALLETTSMALLETTS BAY | 802-225-6736802-225-6736 | & SKI onionriver.comonionriver.com BICYCLE &BICYCLE SKI 794 W. VT 794 W. Lakeshore Dr. Lakeshore Colchester,Dr. VT Colchester, ORO is Central ORO is Central 802-863-2453 | 802-863-2453 | Vermont's premier Vermont's premier mbbicyle.commbbicyle.com bike, car rack, bike, car rack,

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SKIRACK SKIRACK

85 Main St. Burlington 802-6583313 and outdoor and outdoor gearand shop.

Friendly and knowledgeable skirack.com gear shop. Friendly knowledgeable

85 Main St. Burlington 802-6583313 skirack.com

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WATERBURY WATERBURY SPORTS SPORTS

46 South Main46 South Main Street, Street, Waterbury, VTWaterbury, VT

| waterburysportsvt.com 802-882-8595802-882-8595 | waterburysportsvt.com

Service, rentals and Service, rentals and full service A full service bikeAshop sellingbike Trekshop and selling Trek and sales. sales. Located on the Located on the sales We carry Specialized, Weand carryservice.

Specialized, Giant bikes in one of Vermont's most Giant bikes in one of Vermont's most shores of beautiful shopand service.

Locally owned Locally owned shores of beautiful Malletts Bay, ourMalletts shop Bay, oursales Niner, Rocky and Niner,aRocky Salsa,Mountain, Surly, andSalsa, Surly, convenient locations.

Nestled in downtown since 1969, Skirack Nestled in downtown offerstop expert repairs, topaquality fine Mountain, since 1969, Skirack provides gear, provides gear,convenient locations. offers expert repairs, quality rentals, fine rentals, Yuba, andofa clothing large variety of clothing and Yuba, and a large variety and Waterbury a short expert fitting and accessories Waterbury a short distance from thedistance Perry from the Perry complement of accessories and new bicycles clothing, expertclothing, fitting and accessories complement of accessories and new bicycles accessories, including Giro, Smith, Club accessories, including Giro, Smith, Club Hill services MTB trails, all bikes and for full all cyclists, fulland service tuning and trails, WBS Hill MTB all WBS bikesservices and SWIX, Agent and Manhattan. for all cyclists, with service with tuning from KHS, SWIX,from FreeKHS, Agent and Free Manhattan.

Patagonia, and more.

Patagonia,Ride, and more. can handle any repair repairs...plus complete bike suspension can handle any repair you might have. you We might have. We a bikethe and ridevia from via the repairs...plus complete bike suspension Rent a bike and Rent ride from shop thethe shopRide, havebikes a fleetand of demo on rear mostshocks. forks and rear shocks. also have a fleet also of demo and anbikes and and an rec path to the famed Colchester service on mostservice forks and town rec path totown the famed Colchester excellent of parts and accessories. ofBike America’s Bestexcellent Bike OUTDOOR GEAR selection of partsselection and accessories.

Causeway, "Jewel ofTrail". the Island Line Trail". OUTDOOR Designated oneDesignated of America’sone Best GEAR Causeway, the "Jewel of thethe Island Line Open 7 days a week! is blocks from LakeOpen 7 days a week! blocksSkirack from Lake EXCHANGE Shops, Skirack isShops, EXCHANGE Champlain.

Open Champlain. Open 10-6, Mon.Sat. 10-6, and Mon.- Sat. and 10-5 on Sun., service, racks and rentals.

10-5 on Sun., for service, racksfor and rentals.

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Church St., 37 Church St.,37 Burlington, VTBurlington, VT MOUNTAINOPS MOUNTAINOPS

802-860-0190802-860-0190 | gearx.com | gearx.com 4081 Mountain Road, Stowe,Voted VT this year'sVoted this year's 4081 Mountain Road, Stowe, VT com Best MTBVT Best MTBVT 802-253-4531802-253-4531 mountainopsvt.mountainopsvt. com

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WEST HILLWEST SHOPHILL SHOP

STARK MOUNTAIN STARK MOUNTAIN 49 Brickyard

49 Brickyard Lane, Putney, Lane, Putney, 802-387-5718802-387-5718

9 RTE 17, unit9bRTE 17, unit b Wealong offer bike along with fast,Bike friendly Shop, OGEBike Shop, OGE We offer bike sales withsales fast, friendly Waitsfield, VT Waitsfield, VT is a premier of Niner, Scott, Devinci is a premier service. Dealers service. of Niner,Dealers Scott, Devinci westhillshop com westhillshop com Find bike shop with knowledgeable, friendly and Jamis, we carry 802-496-4800802-496-4800 Find bike shop with knowledgeable, friendly and Jamis, we carry West50 Hill Shop turnsand 50 this season, and West Hill Shop turns this season, staff. We have affordable a large us on Facebook and honest staff.and Wehonest have affordable a large assortment of assortment of us on Facebook welcomes Amy and welcomes Amy and Zach Caldwell asZach the Caldwell as the from gravel Batch Bicycles, gravel mountain and gravel Located at the lowest commuters fromcommuters Batch Bicycles, mountain and gravel Located at the lowest third round of owners since the shop was third round of owners since the shop was grinders from grinders from Marin, BMC andMarin, Niner,BMC and Niner, bikes including abikes 60 including a 60 spot in the Madspot in the Mad in 1971. things are changing. founded in 1971.founded Some things areSome changing. bikes from Marin, Niner,River Pivot,Valley so you Our techs years of bikes mountain River Valley so you from Marin, Niner, Pivot, bike Demo Fleet.bike OurDemo techs Fleet. have years of have mountain Most things are staying Most things are staying the same.

And the same. And Rocky Mountain, Transition and our local trail is can coast in when Rocky Mountain, Transition and Yeti.

We and Yeti. experience and experience our local trail knowledge is knowledge canWe coast in when makes theCovid rules for this the year,rules like for lastthis year, like last offer a wide consignment selection to none.1893 Our converted 1893 you break your21 bike on aofride! 21 Covid years makes of also barnoffer a widealso consignment selection second to none.second Our converted barnyou break your bike on a ride! years year.

Visit happening us to see what's year.that Visit us to see what's and happening and as fleet well as demo try it turned-bike-shop houses a huge as selection advise,directions and that fixing anything well as a demo so ayou canfleet try it so you canadvise,directions turned-bike-shop houses a huge selection and fixing anything check out our lines of all types of bikes from check out our lines of all types of bikes from you buydepartment it. Our service department of bike and lifestyle clothing along with you buy before about a Yeti? Come ride before it. Our service of bike and lifestyle clothing along with pedals. Thinkingpedals. about aThinking Yeti? Come ride Cannondale, Mondraker and more.

MondrakerGiant, and more. is capable of everything parts and accessories.

Looking forisacapable more of everything one of ours,we have Yeti since Giant, from tuning yourfrom tuning parts and accessories.

Looking for a more oneyour of ours,we have been selling Yetibeen sinceselling Cannondale, have e-bikes in stock.

We have e-bikesWe in stock. vintage road bike servicing your new Hours: Tues-Fri mellow onefor of our cruisers for road bike 2006! 9-6*, Hours: 9-6*, Sat 9-4, and vintage to servicing yourtonew mellow ride? Rent one ofride? our Rent cruisers 2006!

SatTues-Fri 9-4, and mountain and offers full Fox Sunday shock 10-2. *Close a trip downStowe the legendary Rec Path bike, and Sunday *Close at for 5 on Thursdays for offers bike, full Fox shock a trip down the legendary Rec Path Stowemountain at 510-2. on Thursdays service. see on Church St! right from service. Come see us onCome Church St!usHours: right from our parking lot! our parking lot! theHours: Shop Ride. the Shop Ride.

10-8, Mon-Thurs 10-8,Mon-Thurs Fri-Sat 10-9, SunFri-Sat 10-6 10-9, Sun 10-6

DRINK VT

The Green Mountain State is home to some of the best breweries, wineries, cideries and distilleries in the world. Call ahead for a reservation or to order take-out brews and drinks. For more information, links and maps to each location check out www. vtskiandride.com.

VERMONT BEER, WINE, CIDER + SPIRITS

133 North Main St, St. Albans, VT 802-528-5988 | 14thstarbrewing.com 14th Star Brewing Co. is veteran-owned Vermont craft brewery on a mission to brew world-class beer while enriching the communities we serve. Using the freshest local ingredients, we impart military precision and creativity into every batch of 14th Star beer.

Reserve ahead and find your favorite 14th Star brews in our Brewery Taproom. Our beer is also available on tap and in cans statewide and Brewed With A Mission™ to give back to various charitable and veteran organizations.

316 Pine Street, Burlington, VT 802-497-1987 | citizencider.com Come visit our Cider Pub, where we bring together locally crafted cider and food and drinks to go. We work with local growers and makers to bring good food and cider to the people. A community of folks who believe that cider loves food. Try some cider or try a bite and celebrate local community at it’s best.

Cider for the people, made by the people.

116 Gin Lane, Montpelier, VT 802-472-8000 | www.barrhill.com Open daily, 2-8 p.m;

We’re now offering cocktails to go and a free bar snack with every order at our distillery overlooking the Winooski River in downtown Montpelier. We use raw northern honey to capture the countless botanicals foraged by honeybees in our award-winning Barr Hill Gin, barrel-aged Tom Cat Gin, and Barr Hill Vodka.

3597 VT-74, Shoreham, VT 802-897-2777 | champlainorchards.com Visit us at our Shoreham Farm Market or find us at your favorite craft retailer to try our award winning, orchard-made ciders. All our ciders are made onsite with our ecologically grown apples and our orchard is solar powered.

FIND MAPS AND MORE AT

vtskiandride.com/drink-vermont

Rt 100 Waterbury Center, VT 802-244-8771 | coldhollow.com Open seven days a week.

Taste real, modern day hard ciders…made from our own real sweet cider made in a real Vermont barn. Taste the difference. We’re Vermont to the core.

610 Route 7, Middlebury, VT 802-989-7414 | dropinbrewing.com Drop-In Brewing is Middlebury’s small, independent, locally-owned brewery, and is home to The American Brewers Guild Brewing School. Our tap room is open Tues.

- Sat. noon to 5 p.m. serving beer to go.

You can find our beer on draft in restaurants and bars across Vermont, and our cans in retailers that carry craft beers. For more information, check out www.dropinbrewing. com, or call us at (802) 989-7414.

1859 Mountain Rd, Stowe, VT 802-253-4765 | idletymebrewing.com

155 Carroll Rd, Waitsfield, VT 802-496-HOPS | lawsonsfinest.com

Our beer line-up represents a traditional take on classic European brewing with a healthy dose of the Vermont hop culture. Whether your preference is a brown or pale ale, Helles Lager or our famous Idletyme Double IPA, we have a beer you’ll love! And it’s brewed right here at our pub and restaurant.

Visit our family-owned award-winning brewery, timber frame taproom, and retail store located in the picturesque Mad River Valley. We produce an array of hop forward ales, specialty maple beers, and unique brews of the highest quality and freshness, and offer light fare. Open daily.

Did you miss the

LAST CALL? 8814 Route 30, Rawsonville, VT Junction VT Rt 30N and VT Rt 100N 802-297-9333 | craftdraughts.com An intimate shop with over 300 craft beers plus ciders, meads and two rotating Vermont taps for growler fills. A muststop for craft beer lovers traveling through southern Vermont.

Don’t miss the

Next issue ads@vtskiandride.com

6308 Shelburne Rd, (Rte. 7)Shelburne, VT 802-985-8222 | shelburnevineyard.com Open Thurs.-Mon. 12-7, by reservation.

Taste and enjoy our award-winning wines as we welcome you and share our adventure growing grapes and making wine in VT’s northern climate. Located in charming Shelburne, just south of Burlington.

1333 Luce Hill Rd., Stowe, VT 802-253-0900 | vontrappbrewing.com Von Trapp Brewing is dedicated to brewing the highest quality Austrianinspired lagers with a Vermont twist.

Experience “a little of Austria, a lot of Vermont,” in every glass.

Come visit our bierhall and restaurant at the brewery!

17 Town Farm Lane, Stowe 802-253-2065 | stowecider.com Fresh-pressed hard cider crafted in Vermont.

Ciders range from super dry and preservativefree to others containing local fruits, hops, and unique barrel-aged offerings. Visit our tasting room at 17 Town Farm Lane across from the Rusty Nail, in Stowe.

1321 Exchange St, Middlebury, VT 802385-3656 | woodchuck.com As America’s original hard cider, we have always done things our own way, forging a tradition of quality and craftsmanship with every cider batch we craft. At Woodchuck, our cider makers meticulously oversee the details of every cider before any bottle or keg leaves our cidery. It’s this attention and passion for cider that ensures we always deliver a premium hard cider that is true to our roots. Enjoy the brand that started the American cider revolution.

VERMONT BEER, WINE, CIDER + SPIRITS

Find out more: 802-760-8550.

The Chairlift Q+A

THE SECRET TO SUPERHUMAN STRENGTH David Goodman talks with Alison Bechdel about her newest graphic memoir.

A line you have early on in the book is, “I’m not just writing about fitness. It’s been a vehicle for me to something else.”

Tell us a little bit about what that “something else” is?

I learned pretty young when I was beginning to exercise that I could get a really nice feeling from working out in a sustained way. Like my busy everyday mind would quiet down, I would feel calm in a way that I don’t typically feel. And there’s something for me about getting outside of myself, outside of my own ego, that happens often when I exercise and I wanted to explore.

I mean, I would tell people I was writing a book about fitness and they would look at me funny. Like, that seems like an odd topic for you. But yeah, it’s more about where fitness takes me and why I think that’s important.

You quote Zen Master Shunryu Suzuki ‘In the beginner’s mind, there are many possibilities. In the expert’s mind there are few.’ What does Zen mean to you in the context of all your outdoor pursuits?

I feel like all my life, I’ve been trying to get back to the state I was in as a child, when my own relationship to my creativity was

62 Summer2021 vtskiandride.com

so much easier. It was just pleasure, I would just get lost, drawing for hours on end, with no self criticism, no fear of judgment, no ideas about what I was going to do with this, what my goals were. I was just doing it because I liked it. I feel very lucky to get to do for my adult job the thing I did as a small child. I always have felt that if I were really wise enough, if I really could, like, work at this enough, I could get back to that childhood state. So in a way the book is my record of my attempt to do that. I have not achieved it yet.

Skiing seems to me to be the activity where this Zen state really bears out.The harder you try, the harder it is, and the more you let go, the easier and more flowing it becomes.

I learned to downhill ski as a small kid with my family in Central Pennsylvania where I grew up. I loved being outside, I loved all the equipment, I loved the adventure of it. And I loved learning a physical skill. As a teenager, I became a little disenchanted with downhill skiing, it just seems so noisy. And, you know, it relies on making snow and using all this energy. And that’s when I discovered cross country skiing. But it really wasn’t until I got to Vermont 16 years later, in my early 30s that I was able to really learn to cross country ski. I feel like all my life until I turned 30, I had kind of wanted to go north. I wanted to live in New England specifically and when I got a chance to come to Vermont, I started really skiing a lot.

Where do you ski now?

Bolton. You know, David, I feel sort of like a piker talking to you about skiing because I’m not really a hardcore skier.

Only once have I skied Bolton to Trapps.

And once I had a great ski from Bolton on the Woodward trail down to Little River State Park. But both of those times I was doing it on like my flimsy little track skis.

What opened the doorway from the fringe to the mainstream for you?

When I was young, my goal with my cartoon was to just show the world that lesbians were regular everyday people, It’s just a very different world now than it was when I came out in 1989. n

Courtesy Alison Bechdel; Excrept repinted with permission from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

A

lison Bechdel is obsessed. Her passion is exercise, karate, cycling, running, skiing in all its forms— to name a few of her pursuits. This obsession is the focus of Bechdel’s new graphic memoir, The Secret to Superhuman Strength (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2021), excerpted with permission, at right. It’s a book a reviewer for The New York Times called “ A true delight of graphic literature ...a nearly perfect book.” Bechdel is a former cartoonist laureate of Vermont and a recipient of the MacArthur Genius Award. She garnered a cult following with her early comic strip, Dykes to Watch Out For. Her best selling graphic memoir, Fun Home, was adapted into a Tony Award-winning musical.

Bechdel, 60, runs, skis and bikes from her home in West Bolton, Vermont, which she shares with her partner, Holly Ray Taylor, the colorist for her new book. Contributing editor David Goodman, author of Best Backcountry Skiing in the Northeast interviewed Bechdel for The Vermont Conversation podcast, excerpted here.

Your next move can be next level.

NOTHING COMPARES.

580 Mountain Road | Stowe, VT | 802.253.7267 | FourSeasonsSIR.com Each Office is Independently Owned and Operated.

sugarbush.com

discover summer at Sugarbush.

Overlooking Vermont’s scenic Mad River Valley is a place where bikers, hikers, golfers and families have come to experience the best of Vermont.

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