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SVMC ORTHOPEDICS Don’t let joint pain or a lingering injury interfere with your daily life. SVMC Orthopedics can help get you back to the activities you love as quickly—and painlessly—as possible. Alan Schoenberger—mime, star of ski ballet, performer and inventor of the ski simulator—kicks up his heels at Sugarbush in the mid-1970s.
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A WINTER OF THRILLS AT THE BEAST Killington 2019-2020 Event Schedule
FEBRUARY
Vans HiStandard Series, February 1-2 MinShred Madness, February 8 Ski Vermont Specialty Food Day, February 8 Subaru Winterfest, February 21-23
MARCH
Slash and Berm Banked Slalom, March 6-8 Red Bull Slide in Tour, March 7 Hibernation Park Jam, March 15 Vermont Brewers Festival, March 21 Back Country Base Camp, March 28-29 K-1 Lodge Teardown Party, March 29
APRIL
Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge, April 4 Dazed & Defrosted Festival, April 11 Worm Bermer Slalom, April 27
MAY
May Day Slalom Race, May 1
Visit killington.com/events for more details
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Alan Schoenberger—mime, star of ski ballet, performer and inventor of the ski simulator—kicks up his heels at Sugarbush in the mid-1970s.
CONTENTS
FEATURES THE BACKCOUNTRY CABIN p. 36
In a remote mountain forest of central Vermont, a former New Yorker built the perfect ski-to cabin.
HIGH MOUNTAIN HAUTE CUISINE p. 40
At resorts across the state, new chefs are revolutionizing on-mountain dining.
SHATTERING THE GLASS CEILING? p. 48
Women are ruling in all aspects of snowsports—from competitions to corner offices. So what’s the problem?
FIRST TRACKS
COLUMNS
FIRST TRACKS | THE NEW BACKCOUNTRY,
p. 12
The best new sanctioned backcountry ski zones, your Southern Vermont spring bucket list, plus where to get avy-savvy in the Greens.
LOCAL HEROES | THE TELEMARK QUEEN,
p. 21
Meet the freeheeling superstar who races with the U.S. Telemark Team.
SKI LIFE | COOL SCHOOLS,
p. 25
At these Vermont colleges and universities, you can get the skills you need to make skiing and riding your career—without being a ski bum.
.
ON THE COVER: Kristi Brown Lovell charges off Mt. Mansfield. Photo by Nils Schlebusch.
THE START | WE’VE COME A LONG WAY, BABY, p. 9 COACH | LESSONS FROM AN OLYMPIAN, p. 63
Coach Barbara Ann Cochran on the secret to winning.
RETRO | HIGH TIMES AT SKI CLUB TEN,
p. 67
The story behind Sugarbush’s notorious private ski club.
THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR, p. 71 LIFT LINES | 5 WOMEN WHO CHANGED SKIING,
A tribute to these pioneering Vermonters.
p. 82
Above: Kricket McCusker gets waist-deep at Braintree Mountain Forest. Photo by Cyril Brunner
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 7
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KILLINGTON GRAND RESORT
WE’VE COME A LONG WAY A year ago, I watched Lindsay DesLauriers, then 39 and the new president of Bolton Valley Resort, pull up a chair at a late-night poker game during the Vermont Ski Area Association’s annual meeting. The table was all men, many of them managers at Vermont’s ski resorts. By the wee hours of the morning, DesLauriers was one of the last two winners in the game. When I started out in the ski industry as an editor at SKI Magazine, the only woman who might have been at that table would have been Betsy Pratt, the iconic, irascible owner of Mad River Glen at the time. She, like DesLauriers (pictured below), had come into the business through her family. And like DesLauriers, she needed to do things differently if she wanted her small ski area to survive. And she did. Now, more and more women are running ski areas–women like Lisa Howe, president of Smuggler’s Notch Resort and, until recently, Kelly Pawlak, who left her position as general manager of Mount Snow to run the National Ski Areas Association. “We have more than 50 women members who are leading ski areas around the country,” Pawlak said recently. Vermont is also home to some of the most influential women in snowsports. Stowe’s Donna Carpenter (with her late husband Jake) built Burton into one of the largest action sports brands in the world. And at Blizzard-Tecnica, Norwich’s Leslie Baker-Brown has been revolutionizing women’s ski gear. While the Mikaela Shiffrins, Kelly Clarks and Jessie Digginses are the most visible stars in the rising women’s supernova, there are plenty of others right behind them. To keep the momentum these and other women are building, for every ad in this issue that features a woman, we’re contributing 15 percent of the value to organizations that support girls in snowsports: the Chill Foundation, Little Bellas or SheJumps. It’s time to celebrate women in skiing and riding. We’ve come a long way. —Lisa Lynn & Abagael Giles, Editors
Waterbury Waterbury
@prohibitionpig @prohibitionpig
CONTRIBUTORS Candice White, who wrote about the high times at Ski Club Ten in our Retro column, served as Sugarbush’s vice president of communications for ten years and edited their magazine. A freelance public relations consultant and occasional writer, she lives in Waitsfield with her family.
A passionate skier and global traveler, photographer, Nils Schlebusch shoots for the likes of Travel & Leisure, Town & Country and Departures. Schlebusch traveled to Stowe last year and captured Vermonter Kristi Brown Lovell (brand ambassador for Völkl, Smith, Astis, Elevenate, Kari Traa and others) charging at Stowe for our cover.
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 9
EDITORIAL Publisher Angelo Lynn angelo@vtskiandride.com Editor/Co-Publisher Lisa Lynn editor@vtskiandride.com Creative Director David Pollard Assistant Editor Abagael Giles abagael@vtskiandride.com 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 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.
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vtskiandride.com September 2015 00
uFIRSTTRACKSu
THE NEW BACKCOUNTRY
Over the past four years locals have gladed and mapped new backcountry ski zones acrossVermont. From north to south, here are seven of our favorites. By Abagael Giles 12 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
New for this season, Bolton Valley Resort has added a backcountry warming hut at the heart of its network of more than 100 k ilometrers of backcountry ski and Nordic trails. It’s the perfect place to warm up between laps on the famously deep glades.
B
ackcountry skiing is having a renaissance, and Vermont is at its epicenter. Since 2016, five sanctioned glade-cutting projects have been established on federal and state lands around the state. At these zones, you’ll find a wide array of skiing, from open glades to narrow chutes to stunning lines through old-growth forest cleared of hobblebush—it’s all there for skiers to explore. Many of these glades are cut and maintained by dedicated volunteer chapters of the Catamount Trail Association. If you love these areas, consider volunteering for a workday next spring or fall. You can sign up at catamounttrail.org. Bring your work pants and a pair of gloves, and you’ll likely earn a cold local brew and some of the best beta a skier could ask for: the low-down on other hidden powder stashes. WILLOUGHBY STATE FOREST: The First Glades on Vermont State Land In 2016 Willoughby State Forest became home to the first sanctioned ski glades created on state-owned land. Here you’ll find lowangle beech and birch glades on east-facing Bartlett Mountain and serious steeps on Mt. Hor—the steepest in the Northeast Kingdom Backcountry Coalition’s managed zones. There, you can ski from the summit cone of through well-spaced fir and spruce. Both are accessed via the same skin track, which leaves from a parking lot off Route 5A at the south end of Lake Willoughby and joins a 12-kilometer network of groomed Nordic ski trails.
Photo by Shem Roose courtesy Bolton Valley
Closest Town: Westmore Managed by: Northeast Kingdom Backcountry Coalition (NEKBC). Vertical Drop: 640 feet on Bartlett Mountain; 820 feet on Mt. Hor. Difficulty: Beginner to expert; Après: Sugar Shack Poutine with handcut fries, cheddar cheese, gravy, chorizo, bacon and Vermont maple syrup at Burke Publick House in East Burke. Stay: For a drive-in backcountry cabin experience, book a night at the Green Mountain Club’s Wheeler Pond Camps ($75) in Barton and hunker down by the big woodstove.You’ll have the whole basin to yourself. For an affordable, heated room, book a bunk in the 16-person bunkroom at Northwoods Stewardship Center ($150 per night for groups of up to five, $25 per night per person thereafter). Maps and Intel: nekbc.org THE BOLTON BACKCOUNTRY: The Backcountry Ski Area Bolton’s backcountry offers everything from low-angle skiing through mellow stands of old-growth white and yellow birch to steep balsam fir glades and narrow chutes through cliff bands. Here, in addition to two backcountry cabins where you can book overnight stays and a new warming hut, you’ll find a 100-kilometer network of narrow, old-school, CCC-style backcountry trails and glades. You can even rent touring equipment at Bolton Valley Resort’s Nordic Center or take a touring lesson from expert guides such as Adam DesLauriers.
vtskiandride.com vtskiandride.comHolidays Winter 2020 2019 13 11
u At right, the Bell Gates Cabin (day use only) sits at the base of the ski lines that flow from the spine of the Braintree Range in Braintree Mountain Forest. Below, a skier skins up Mt. Hor.
Closest Town: Bolton. Opened: 1920s; Managed by: Bolton Valley Ski Area and Friends of Bolton Valley Nordic & Backcountry. Vertical Drop: 1,700 feet with 1,500 acres of ski touring. Difficulty: Novice to Expert. Après: Grab a local beer and a wood-fired pizza at the James Moore Tavern in Bolton Valley Resort’s lodge. Stay: The Inn at Bolton Valley or Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe. Maps and Intel: boltonvalley.com.
Closest Towns: Brandon and Rochester. Opened: 2016 Managed by: Rochester/Randolph Area Sports Trails Alliance (RASTA). Vertical Drop: 16,000 vertical feet of skiing (total). Difficulty: Intermediate to Expert. Après: Grab a beer at Red Clover Brewing Co. or French pastries at Café Provence in Brandon, or head to cozy Sandy’s Books and Bakery in Rochester. Stay: Chittenden Brook Hut at Chittenden Campground ($140 per night; vermonthuts.org).In the Works: RASTA has received preliminary approval from the U.S. Forest Service to establish gladed skiing on the two peaks (Corporation and Round Mountains) that form Chittenden Brook Bowl. “It’s likely that project will proceed next summer or the summer after,” says RASTA president Angus McCusker. Maps and Intel: rastavt.org. BRAINTREE MOUNTAIN FOREST: The Quiet Touring Destination If you want to find a long tour in the woods that culminates in untouched powder runs, Braintree Mountain may be for you. “It’s a stunning network of cross country and Nordic touring trails that lead to some great ski runs,” says RASTA volunteer and Braintree local Zac Freeman. Set on 1,547 acres of undeveloped land, it’s about an hour’s tour to get to the base of the steep stuff. Closest Town: Braintree. Opened: 2014; Managed by: RASTA. Vertical Drop: 1,500 feet with 1,547 acres of touring. Difficulty: Novice to Intermediate. Après: Grab a beer at Bent Hill Brewery in Braintree and catch live music from local bands on weekends in the Upstairs Gallery at Chandler Music Hall in Randolph. Stay: Make it a day trip. In the Works: This spring, look out for the new OutdoorHub, RASTA’s timberfame base in
14 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
downtown Randolph, with a gear shop, 3D maps of the mountain biking and backcountry ski trails in the area, a bar, coin-operated showers and garden with food trucks. Maps and Intel: rastavt.org. ASCUTNEY: The Sprawling Playground Since the 469-acre Mt. Ascutney ski area shuttered in 2010, a band of local volunteers called Ascutney Outdoors has revitalized the old trails—trimming back vegetation and re-establishing 50 acres of hardwood and red pine glades between the steep, winding former ski trails (think a smaller Mad River Glen) on the upper two thirds of the mountain. And starting this January, backcountry skiers can hitch a 1,800-foot ride to steeper terrain on the new Dopplemeyer T-Bar. Closest Town: Brownsville. Opened: 2015; Managed by: Ascutney Outdoors. Vertical Drop: 1,443 feet. Difficulty: Novice to expert. Après: Brownsville Butcher and Pantry. Stay: Free offseason camping in the lean-tos at Mount Ascutney State Park. In the Works: No new glades, but more work to restore the existing ski trails. Maps and Intel: For trail information, head to the Ascutney Outdoors Center and Main Trailhead at the base of the former ski area. ascutneyoutdoors.org DUTCH HILL: The Little Stowe For some old-fashioned tree skiing on mostly moderately pitched terrain, head to 83-acre Dutch Hill in Readsboro. Dutch Hill was operated as a ski area until 1985 and has since been resurrected as a touring destination by some dedicated local volunteers. Closest Town: Readsboro. Managed by: Dutch Hill Alliance of Skiers and Hikers (DHASH) since 2017. Vertical Drop: 570 feet; Difficulty: Novice to Intermediate; Après: Bright Ideas Brewing in North Adams, Mass.; Stay: The Readsboro Inn
Bottom Photo by Jake Lester; Top photo by Marius Becker/Leave Nice Tracks
BRANDON GAP: The Brainchild Brandon Gap is home to the first sanctioned backcountry ski glades cut on federal land. There are now about 22 lines which run through a mix of birch glades and snow-laden conifers.With multiple peaks to choose from, you’ll find every kind of skiing here. Down the road is the trailhead for Chittenden Brook Hut, a two-mile skin in from the road. From the hut, you can ski about two miles to reach the top of the glades.
skiing and five miles of winter-use trails in six zones across two properties.
Closest Town: Dover. Opened: 2019 Managed by: Southern Vermont Trails Association; Vertical Drop: 1,400 feet at Dover and 300 feet at Horace Hill. Difficulty: Novice to expert. Après: DOVER TOWN FOREST: Dover TC’s Restaurant and Tavern, owned Starting this winter, skiers and riders have and operated by the family of five-time access to six new gently gladed backcountry Olympic snowboarder and gold medalist ski and snowboard zones between Mount Kelly Clark. Stay: The Grey Ghost Inn A blissful pocket of untouched powder in the high birch Snow and Haystack Mountain, thanks to a new (Rooms start at $104). In the Works: glades at Braintree Mountain Forest. Catamount Trail Association chapter, Southern The Ridge, a proposed 200-acre remote Vermont Trails Association. series of three backcountry ski zones near The goal, says president Steve Petrik, is Mount Snow’s Carinthia; a 200-acre zone to create 800 acres of backcountry skiing and in old-growth forest called Bulls Bowl and a 100 miles of mountain bike trails on a mix of Green Mountain National mellow touring zone with three tours in Dover called Copper Hill, Forest and town-owned land over the next eight to ten years. with the latter two projects slated to open in 2023-2024. Maps This year, skiers have access to about 100 acres of new backcountry and Intel: sovta.org
credit
Photo by Cyril Brunner
($50 per night). In the Works: DHASH has submitted a permit application to establish new, steeper glades with 750 feet of vertical drop in the vicinity of the old Christiana Trail. The National Forest Land was never part of the original ski area but can be accessed via Dutch Hill. Maps and Intel: dhash4vt.org
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 15
u AVY SAVVY?
Have you taken an avalanche safety course? If you’re a club racer or U.S. Ski Team athlete, you may have to.
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F
ive years ago, two U.S. Ski Team athletes—Bryce Astle, 19, and Burke Mountain School grad Ronnie Berlack, 20—died in an avalanche while skiing off piste on a training trip to Austria. Now, a new program, funded by the U.S. Ski Team and the Bryce and Ronnie Athlete Snow Safety Foundation (BRASS), will help athletes on the U.S Ski Team and ski club racers be more avy-savvy. The new online module from BRASS is a 90-minute program that integrates videos and presentations, and an online test about the basics of avalanche safety, snow science and the tenets of “Know Before You Go”—a one-hour program developed by the Utah Avalanche Center. The short course is mandatory for all U.S. Ski & Snowboard members. Though the online training is currently only available to members, BRASS also offers a free, open-to-the-public avalanche safety program. Avalanche terrain is less common in the Northeast than it is out West or in Europe, but it does exist. Just last April, an experienced skier was killed in a slide near Tuckerman Ravine. And in March 2018, Aaron Rice, who was featured in the film “2.5 Million” for skiing 2.5 million vertical feet in a year, had a close call with some friends in Smugglers’ Notch.They triggered a slide with a two-foot crown that ran for 1,300 vertical feet to cross Route 108. All involved were unscathed, but shaken. Whether you plan to ski the Greens, the Whites, the Rockies, or the Alps, taking an AIARE course is the best way to start your journey.
AIARE LEVEL 1 CLASSES IN VERMONT: Feb. 6-9 | Smugglers’ Notch, Vt.: Evening classes at Onion River Outdoors in Montpelier followed by two days of field time in Smugglers’ Notch. onionriver.com | Feb. 8-10, Smugglers’ Notch, Vt.: with class time at Petra Cliffs Climbing and Mountaineering School. avtraining.org. | Feb. 24-27, Feb 28-March 1 | Lyndon, Vt. Northern Vermont University hosts classes at their Lyndon campus and at Burke Mountain. avtraining.com—Abagael Giles
vtskiandride.com September 2015 00
u SPRING BREAK
When it comes to spring skiing, SouthernVermont is the place to be. Here are 10 parties you won’t want to miss. By Abagael Giles
S
ome people go way south for spring break; we just head to southern Vermont for soft bumps, live music, outdoor barbecues, tailgates and … well, you’ll see. With a half-dozen ski areas within an hour’s drive, there’s always a party somewhere and these ski areas ramp it up with some out-of-the ordinary events. For more around the state, see the Calendar, p. 71.
FREE YOUR HEEL (AND YOUR MIND) AT TELEFEST
BECOME THE MASTER OF THE MOUNTAIN
Each spring, Magic Mountain crowns the best overall skier and rider in the East. The competition? A single extreme biathlon run down Black Line, where skiers compete for points in an extreme skiing competition in the first half and a giant slalom in the second half. Tricks at this March 8 event earn you time deductions, and the fastest skier to finish upright wins.
On February 22 and 23, telemark skiers flock to Bromley Mountain for a weekend-long celebration of all things free-heel skiing: the 35th Annual Kåre Andersen Telemark Festival. Saturday features a full day of clinics—many of them taught by PSIA-certified telemark instructors—for everyone from complete newcomers to those looking to get off-piste or hone their racing skills. It’s a great place to try telemark for the first time or demo new gear for free. Head to the after-party in the lodge for beer and live music. On Sunday, test yourself on a USTSA-certified race course.
ENTER THE JACK JUMPING WORLD CHAMPS
On March 1, the Jack Jumping World Championships return to Mount Snow — perhaps the only mountain wild enough to host a race for people who build their own monoski sit-sleds and ride them down the slopes. The carnage is epic.
SEND IT WITH
DUCT TAPE
Build out your finest racing sled from just duct tape, zip ties, cardboard and paint and race it down a special course at Mount Snow on March 22. Awards go to best design and fastest time. ROCK OUT AT A REGGAE FESTIVAL
If you’re looking for a good party, head to Mount Snow’s annual Reggaefest March 20-22, with music from live bands all day on Saturday and Sunday on Cuzzins Deck outside the Main Base Lodge and ticketed headliners on the Snow Barn Stage. Look out for Roots of Creation and the Big Takeover at this year’s groovy spring party.
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GRAB A LOCAL BREW… OR 12
Savor local grub from food trucks and taste beer and cider from more than 25 New England breweries at this on-snow winter beer festival at Mount Snow’s Main Base Area on March 28. Come and go as you please between laps on spring corn. Then catch Led Zeppelin tribute band Four Sticks at the Snow Barn.
BUMP LIKE A GLADE-IATOR Pound those soft bumps as you compete in the Glade-iator Challenge, a mogul competition on Ripcord, one of Mount Snow’s most iconic trails on March 29. To win, wow the judges with a combination of fast time, form, line and aerial maneuvers off optional jumps in the course. The best part? Ski down to your cheering friends, and a barbecue and onsnow beer garden. GO WILD AT MARCH-DI GRAS
On March 28, Stratton hosts a wild party with live music, a performance by the Nimble Arts Circus and fireside après-ski yoga. For the less wholesome, there will be plenty of Mardi Gras beads, a raw oyster bar and, yes, an outdoor deck party with a hand-sculpted ice luge—for shots.
GET YOUR GROOVE ON AT WINTER WONDERGRASS
This outdoor bluegrass music festival returns to Stratton on April 10 and 11 with a new theme: Sugar & Strings. Catch more than ten bands and sample beer and cider from more than a dozen local breweries, with complimentary beer tastings on each day of the festival. This year’s headliners include The Infamous Stringdusters, Cabinet and Della Mae—a Grammy-nominated, badass all-women string band from Nashville.
MAKE A SPLASH
There’s nothing that says spring party like a pond skim. Grab your best costume and your fattest skis or board and get ready to send it across one of the manmade ponds to an on-snow party with beer and live music. This year, Stratton’s Pond Skim runs on March 28 and Mount Snow’s runs on March 22. On March 21, dress up in your best costume and take the plunge into Bromley’s icy pond-skimming pond to raise funds for Special Olympics Vermont.
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 19
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u
THE TELEMARK QUEEN
Local Heros
Ski instructor and U.S.Telemark Team racer Tabi Freedman is starting a high-speed, free heeling revolution. NAME: TABI FREEDMAN AGE: 59 OCCUPATION: PSIA Level II Certified Alpine and Telemark Instructor at Mount Snow; Zoning Administrator for the Town of Dover FROM: Longmeadow, Mass. LIVES IN: West Dover PRIMARY SPORT: Telemark Ski Racing FAMILY: Parents Ned and Debra Freedman, brother Eric and sister Marissa and three Weimaraners.
Photo courtesy U.S. Telemark Ski Association
W
hen Tabi Freedman started instructing at Mount Snow as a junior in high school in 1977 she’d already been competing at the national level in freestyle and ski ballet for 10 years. “My dad started skiing at Mount Snow in 1954, the first year it opened. When I was a kid he used to drop us off at ski school in the morning so he and my mom could ski hard for the day,” she recalls. But in 2011, at age 50, Freedman, who has been a PSIA Level II Alpine Instructor for many years, did something most people couldn’t fathom: she ditched her alpine setup and started racing as a telemark skier. And she beat out competitors half her age for a spot on the U.S. Telemark Ski Team. Telemark ski racing is not an Olympic sport, but it has international popularity and World Cup races draw serious crowds across Europe. Vermont last hosted the World Cup in 2018, when the competition came to Sugarbush and Suicide Six. Freedman was recruited to the sport by Keith Rodney, a coach for the U.S. Telemark Ski Team and a longtime fellow ski instructor at Mount Snow. “It was the turn that sparked my interest [in telemark],” she says. “I tell people, it’s just like dancing downhill.” But in the end it was racing that hooked her. “I was like ‘Oh. You can go really fast?’” In 2013, she competed in the National Championships in Steamboat Springs, Colo. “I was neck-and-neck with the number one racer at the time in a parallel classic race until I planted a pole in my binding and fell in front of hundreds of cheering
people. To say I went over the handlebars would be an understatement,” says Freedman. Nonetheless, when she crossed the finish line, laughing, she was hooked. The U.S. Telemark Ski Association, the sport’s governing body, recognizes two race formats: classic and sprint classic. In a classic race, skiers race through about 40 gates in a manner similar to alpine skiing, making each turn as a telemark turn. The course includes a 360-degree banked turn, a jump where skiers must cover 25 to 40 meters of distance and a section involving skating. Since she started racing seriously in 2012, Freedman has consistently placed in the top ten USTSA rankings among American women telemark skiers, regardless of age. She was the eighth-ranked female racer in the country for two years in a row in 2015 and 2016. Now a member of the U.S. Telemark Masters’ Team, she focuses her attention on building a telemark community at Mount Snow and usually can be found coaching at the annual telemark festival, held again this year at Bromley, Feb. 22-23. According to Freedman, even alpine skiers can benefit from a day or lesson in freeheel skiing. “Trying telemark will give you a true sense of where your
Within two years of winning her first citizen’s telemark ski race at the Kare Andersen Telemark Festival in 2011, Tabi Freedman was racing on the U.S. Telemark Team.
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 21
Tabi Freedman has been teaching skiing at Mount Snow on and off since 1977.
center is,” says Freedman, who has helped integrate telemark drills and skiing into Mount Snow’s junior alpine racing program. “With alpine skiing, the support of your boot and binding give you a lot of leeway to be out of center,” says Freedman, who teaches a lot of intermediate to advanced alpine skiers who struggle with sitting too far back or too far forward in their stance. “When your heel is free, if you’re not centered, you’re on your face. It teaches tremendous body awareness.” In Freedman’s 35 years of skiing at Mount Snow, she’s never known it to be a destination for telemark skiers until the last couple of years. It’s now one of four ski areas (the others are Mad River Glen, Bromley Mountain and the Middlebury Snow Bowl) in Vermont where you can take a lesson
from a PSIA-certified telemark instructor. “We’ve got our ski school instructors and some of our freestyle and alpine racing coaches telemarking and it’s become visible at Mount Snow,” she says. Freedman says it’s helped to spread a culture of camaraderie at the resort that has amplified as younger skiers take their telemark skis to Carinthia Parks. “It’s grown to where we’ve got these seriously athletic young big mountain skiers who are making the sport their own and that’s great to see.” But, she says, older skiers shouldn’t be discouraged. “People think it’s harder than it is, but if you can ride a bike, you can telemark,” says Freedman. “New equipment has made it so that it’s gentle on your knees. There is none of the twist I associate with alpine skiing that creates soreness. Try telemark, and your thighs will be tired at the end of a long day, but your knees will feel young again.” n You can take a clinic with Tabi Freedman and other instructors at the 35th Annual Kåre Andersen Telemark Festival at Bromley Mountain, Feb. 22-23. Register: bromley.com/ event/telefest
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Photo courtesy Tabi Freedman
u
O TEL N S ’ E R THE
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THE COOLEST SCHOOLS
Ski Life
Want to ride your way through college, or find a career where you can ski for free— and make a good living? Apply here. By Lisa Lynn and Abagael Giles
T
Photos courtesy Castleton University
hough it’s a small state,Vermont has more than two dozen colleges and institutions of higher learning. And with more than 20 ski areas, you’re never far from the slopes. But if you’re really serious about skiing or riding, consider what some of Vermont’s colleges and universities have to offer. With everything from undergraduate degrees in resort and hospitality management to guide training to classes that teach you to design and build skis, these colleges and universities can help turn a passion for skiing or riding into a promising career. And some even have their own ski areas.
CASTLETON UNIVERSITY “I really didn’t know what I wanted to do after I graduated from high school,” says Amy Laramie, now 33. “I knew exactly what I wanted to do,” says her colleague Jordan Spear, 31, who grew up helping his parents run Brantling, a small ski area in western New York state. Today, thanks to an innovative local college program, Laramie and Spear run the communications and marketing departments at Killington Resort—the largest ski area in the East and winner of the National Ski Areas Association’s 2019 award for best overall marketing campaign. Their pathways? Instead of attending a traditional liberal arts college, both Laramie and Ware enrolled in The Killington School of Resort Management, at the time a division of Green Mountain College. The three-year program, now run by Castleton University, culminates in a bachelor of science degree in Resort & Hospitality Management. “With a real need for employees at Killington and Vermont’s 20 or so other After completing Killington’s Resort Management program, Jordan Spear, top, landed a job at Killington. He’s now the marketing director. Right, Castleton students interview for their co-op placement.
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20 LANGDON ST, MONTPELIER, VT • ONIONRIVER.COM • 802-225-6736
u
Photo courtesy Middlebury College
Middlebury College (above) is one of the only colleges in the U.S. that owns both an alpine and a Nordic ski area— both a short drive from campus.
ski resorts, we have a 100-percent placement rate,” notes Rob Megnin, who retired as director of marketing, sales and reservations at Killington in 2019 and is currently an executive in residence at Castleton. Megnin, sitting in the program’s classrooms just off the slopes of Killington, explains how it works: “For the fall and spring trimesters, students take classes at the main Castleton campus.Then, during the winter trimester, they do “co-operative experiences”—paid, on-the-job training in various departments at Killington Mountain Resort— and live in a dorm just off the mountain’s access road. Laramie ended up spending her co-op trimesters working the front and then the back of the house at the Wobbly Barn, the Killington-owned bar, restaurant and night club. “I did everything from serving to managing payroll and inventory,” she recalls. Spear worked in guest services and ticketing. As a student, he developed an innovative digital system for the resort to log and track lost items. “Working in guest services I realized that if someone lost something, you’d have to call Lost & Found at each of our base lodges,” he remembers. Spear’s digital logging system solved that problem. Not long after graduating, Spear got a call offering him a newly-created position as manager of guest services. From there, he then moved into marketing. When Megnin retired
in spring of 2019, both Laramie and Spear were promoted and invited to join Killington’s executive leadership team. While the draw of being able to ski and ride for free all winter, get paid at the same salary levels as full-time employees, and earn a B.S. in three years was strong, what Laramie and Spear appreciate just as much are some of the traditional liberal-arts classes they also took. “I think other classes, such as the courses I took on the environment, were really valuable as they helped me think differently about what I do,” says Spear. “We had a great religion class taught by Doug Weber, a rabbi. That class really helped me understand the many different cultures we see here at Killington, from Muslim women who ski in full burqas to the groups of Hasidic Jews who often come here each fall,” says Laramie. “But perhaps the best part of that training is that I am a people person, and it was great to find a career that’s all about helping people have a good time,” she adds. Home Mountain: Killington. Drive Time from Castleton Campus: 35 minutes from main campus, 5 minutes from on-mountain dorm. Enrollment: 1,900. Cool Class: Winter “co-op” trimesters where students work and train on-the-job at Killington Resort and get paid while working toward a three-year B.S. degree.
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 27
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u MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE As one of just a handful of colleges in the U.S. that owns its own alpine and Nordic ski areas (Dartmouth is the only other in New England), Middlebury College in Middlebury is a true skier’s school. Its Division 1 alpine and Nordic teams have turned out many World Cup racers and it is also one of the top-ranked liberal arts schools in the country. Just 15 minutes from campus is the 120-acre Middlebury College Snow Bowl and Rikert Nordic Center, with more than 55 kilometers of trails, including one that leads to a cabin once inhabited by famed poet and former Middlebury professor Robert Frost. Rikert also boasts one of the largest snowmaking systems of any Nordic center. The Middlebury College Snow Bowl’s ski patrol is comprised entirely of student volunteers, and joining the ranks is no easy task. Student volunteers must earn their EMT certification before joining the ranks and take a 120hour semester-long training course, offered each Sunday afternoon during the fall semester by fellow patrollers. During J-term, (a January period of four weeks) students can take elective courses in entrepreneurship. And “Febs,” students (who enroll in Middlebury’s staggered semester program and graduate in February), ski down the Middlebury College Snow Bowl’s slopes in their caps and gowns for graduation ceremonies. middlebury.edu
Top photo by Thomas Puccio; Bottom Photo courtesy Middlebury College
Home Mountain: Middlebury College Snow Bowl; Drive Time from Campus: 15 mins. Enrollment: 2,500. Cool Class: Ski Patrol Training.
to groom snow after a massive storm in Lake Tahoe or shadowing a heli-ski guide at a remote outfit in Alaska. Among the certification programs offered are Outdoor Emergency Care—the industry standard for ski patrollers, and the state of Vermont Lift Apprentice Level I test, which prepares students for highly soughtafter jobs as lift mechanics—with an average starting salary of $50,000 per year. Students can also take a AIARE Avalanche Level I or American Mountain Guides Association Single
Left, a Northern Vermont University Mountain Resort Management student finds powder during a practicum at Jay Peak. Below, at their mid-winter graduation, Middlebury’s “Feb” students ski the Snow Bowl in caps and gowns.
NORTHERN VERMONT UNIVERSITY At the Lyndon campus of Northern Vermont University, you can get a B.S. in Outdoor Education, Leadership and Tourism with a concentration in Mountain Resort Management. The program has been around since 1973 and has a 90 percent-plus job placement rate for graduates. Students get hands-on training in lift operations, snowmaking and every aspect of resort management (from front-of-house food service to snowmaking to HR) at Burke Mountain Resort and other ski areas. And many students graduate with certifications that get them jobs in the ski industry straight out of school. Sophomores start the program with a two-semester practicum where they shadow managers and leaders at several resorts across Vermont and New Hampshire— Smugglers Notch, Stowe, Jay Peak, Burke and Cannon Mountain—in every aspect of resort management. The following year, they embark on an internship. Students are placed all over the country doing things such as learning
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 29
u presented and discussed by regional ski resort leaders. Notable graduates of this major include Steve Charest, a mountaineering guide and co-owner of Burlington’s climbing center, Petra Cliffs. And don’t miss the annual NVU Rail Jam at the Lyndon Outing Club—a chili cookoff fundraiser where students build the rails and features. northernvermont.edu
Go to Sterling College, and you’ll have Craftsbury Outdoor Center as your Nordic playground.
Pitch Instructor course and graduate with the skills to start a career as a mountain guide, or intern with Burke Mountain Resort’s ski patrol and take on a paid role there upon graduation. Each fall, students in the Mountain Resort Management track attend The New England Summit, an annual conference of Northeastern ski areas, where the latest gear and innovations in mountain operations are
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Home Mountain: Burke Mountain Resort and Lyndon Outing Club. Drive Time from Campus: 24 mins. (NVU’s Lyndon campus is also one hour from Jay Peak and just 8 minutes from the Lyndon Outing Club’s own ski hill); Enrollment: 1,759. Cool Class: Two-semester practicum, where you get to try work in every aspect of the ski industry and be mentored by some of the top movers and shakers. STERLING COLLEGE Sterling College is known for being a hotbed of ecological and hands-on learning. Since 2013, the school has fielded two collegiate sports teams: Nordic skiing and The Sterling Skyrunners, a trail, mountain
and ultrarunning team—the first collegiate team of its kind in the United States. Nordic racers here train on the more than 100 kilometers of ski trails at the Olympic training center at nearby Craftsbury Outdoor Center, and Craftsbury staff coach the team. You can even take Advanced Nordic Skiing, a course designed to introduce students to advanced techniques for racing, backcountry skiing and more as well as how to write about the sport. Plus, each year since the school’s founding, Sterling students have partaken in a four-day, three-night wilderness camping experience involving a 25-mile group trek through mountainous terrain at a different location in Vermont. sterlingcollege.edu Home Mountain: Craftsbury Outdoor Center. Drive Time from Campus: 6 mins. (the college is less than 45 minutes away from Jay Peak). Enrollment: 650. Cool Class: Advanced Nordic Skiing ST. MICHAEL’S COLLEGE At St. Michael’s College in Colchester, students can take a year-long Instructor Training Program and Mountain Leader Course that involves a mix of classroom time and work in the backcountry. Instructors-in-training then focus on one of five disciplines—on-land travel, climbing, paddlesports, mountain biking or skiing and riding. Ski and ride instructors complete a strenuous year-long certification process that includes backcountry skills like partner rescue, avalanche awareness and navigation to guide their peers. smcvt.edu
trends and more. This year, course alumn Molly Mahar, president of the Vermont Ski Areas Association, will give a guest lecture about business strategy for Vermont’s alpine ski areas. Kelly Pawlak, president of the National Ski Areas Association will also be a guest lecturer. Though students can’t major in this discipline they can graduate with either a major or a minor in Parks, Recreation and Tourism. Plus, UVM has an active Ski & Snowboard club, which hosts the annual Dawn of the Shred on-campus nighttime rail jam. Another club, the UVM Freeskiing Team, has earned a reputation for churning out shredders and industry folk as well. uvm.edu Home Mountains: Sugarbush, Stowe, Smugglers’ Notch, Mad River Glen or Bolton Valley. Drive Time from Campus: About an hour to each; 40 mins. to Bolton Valley. Enrollment: 11,328.Cool Class: Ski Resort Management VERMONT TECHNICAL COLLEGE When you study mechanical engineering at Vermont Technical College, you’ll have the opportunity to create a pair of skis or snowboards from design to fabrication and lamination as part of a campus club overseen by engineering professor John Kidder. Several years ago, the college, located in Randolph, purchased a pneumatic press from an engineering alumn who built it initially to create kiteboards. Now students from the school’s Ski and Ride Club can spend a semester building their own snowboards or skis.
The Ski Area Management class at University of Vermont explores the inner workings of everything from ski patrol to guest services, with guest lecturers such as Stowe’s Dave Merriam, below.
Home Mountain: Sugarbush. ($85 season pass). Driving Time from Campus: 1 hour. Enrollment: 1,900. Cool Class: Wilderness Program Instructor Training and Mountain Leader courses. UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT Burlington’s University of Vermont may be best known for its Division 1 ski teams, which have turned out Olympic-level alpine and Nordic ski racers as well as biathletes. What’s less known? One its most popular courses is the semester-long “Ski Area Management.” Part of the University of Vermont’s Rubenstein School of Environment and Natural Resources’ Parks, Recreation & Tourism major, the course has been taught by David Kauffman for more than 20 years. Five days of field trips offer students a behind-thescenes look at every aspect of resort operations at Stowe, from human resources to snowmaking leading up to the regular spring semester. The class also teaches students about ski area marketing, the history of the ski industry, the permitting process, terrain park design, industry
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 31
u At Vermont Technical College, engineering students can learn to design and build skis and press them onsite.
“Academically, we incorporate the press and materials testing into many of our materials science and engineering courses,” says Kidder. “We use it to teach reverse engineering and bring in guest speakers— people like Jason Levinthal of Line Skis and J Skis and Peter Bergendahl, longtime lead engineer for Burton Snowboards.” The finished skis or boards are donated to the student Ski and Ride Club for members to use. Between the student-run rope tow at the on-campus ski hill and nearby backcountry ski glades cut by the Rochester/Randolph Area Sports Trails Alliance at Braintree Mountain, it’s a great spot for skiers. This summer, the Randolph campus is getting some new mountain bike trails and RASTA will be opening The Hub—a trail center, gathering place, gear shop and hangout for mountain bikers and backcountry skiers in downtown Randolph. Even better news? Vermont Tech ranks first among Vermont colleges when it comes to starting salaries for graduates. vtc.edu.
Home Mountain: Killington or Suicide Six. Driving Time from Campus: 30 min. to 1 hour. Enrollment: 1,621 Cool Major: Two-year degree in Mechanical Engineering; classes where you build your own skis. n
madriverglen.com 32 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
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Dream Home
THE BACKCOUNTRY CABIN BY LISA LYNN
High in the mountain forests of Lincoln, Vt., overlooking a stream, a former New Yorker built his dream backcountry cabin. You can't get there by car—only by skis, snowmobile or by foot. 36 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
Shutters close off the large windows and front door, buttoning up the cabin when it’s not in use. Inside, Photos left and bottom right by Susan Teare, top by Lisa Lynn
a wood stove warms the main room, where a kitchen is tucked in a corner.
E
ric Milano grew up in New York City and went to college in Florida. Not long after graduating, he found himself living in a tent by the New Haven River in central Vermont. “I’d been staying with a friend who was living in Burlington that summer and we decided to save money on rent for a month and camp out,” he explains. The remote spot in Lincoln, partway between the Middlebury College Snow Bowl and the flanks of Mount Abraham, was a magical bit of wild. It was an area Milano, who runs the motorcycle touring company MotoVermont, would return to over and over. One day, on the way there he saw a small, handwritten sign that read ‘Land for Sale.’ He called the number. “They were asking too much for me, but a month later the owner called me back and asked ‘what do you want to pay?’” Soon, Milano was the owner of 14 acres.
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 37
Enzo on the footbridge to the cabin, above. The metal washbasin and the clawfoot tub in the bathroom (right) were both found at salvage shops in Vermont.
38 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
Photos by Lisa Lynn
Eric Milano and his dog
For several years, Milano camped on the land in the summer and snowmobiled and skied on the property in the winter. Then he met Phiona—now his wife—and the couple decided it was time to build a cabin. Milano took a course in site planning at the Yestermorrow school in Warren and started sketching out his dream cabin. “There’s a big field near the road and then the river and I was pretty sure I wanted to build the house on the far side of the river,” he says.To add to the challenge, he didn’t want a road to the cabin or for it to be accessible by car. He approached several builders with his plans, which would call for carting all the materials about a quarter of a mile across the field, over the river and up a hillside. “Pretty much everyone told me I was crazy and that it would be $500,000 or more and not worth it,” Milano recalls. Then he met Sean Flynn, co-owner of Silver Maple Construction in Middlebury. “Sean immediately got what we wanted to do and he loved the challenge,” Milano says. Working with Bristol architect Joan Heaton, Milano redrew the plans. “My husband and I had built a little cabin in Maine where we had to bring in all the materials by boat, so I had an idea of what we were up against,” says Heaton. “For instance, I knew we had to anchor the house on wood piers, as you simply couldn’t get concrete to this location.” Silver Maple rented a tractor they used for so many hours that the company ended up buying it. A site was cleared on a flat knoll above the river. They drilled a well and ran the septic pipe under the river out to a leach field in the meadow. Trees from the property were incorporated as posts for the outdoor entry. Natural stones were used for steps up the hill from the river. “I wanted a footbridge—not a car bridge—and I really liked the footbridges used in Stowe’s rec path,” Milano says. After trying to get one built locally, he ended up buying the bridge from the same Minnesota company that had made Stowe’s and having it trucked to the site. Electricity was run on cables beneath it. Milano had a clear idea of what he wanted in the cabin: “We wanted it to be a simple place, nothing too fancy, that you could close up easily.” Wide shutters slide across the south-facing floor-to-ceiling windows. All of the internal plumbing, run through copper pipes, is exposed. The furnishings are, in Milano’s terms “either things we got at salvage shops or literally the furniture that Phiona had in her college dorm room.” The couple spent hours at Vermont Salvage in White River Junction and Mason Brothers Salvage in Essex Junction. Every door in the house was a salvage shop find, many carrying a patina of old paint, a theme the couple picked up by painting the new kitchen cabinets with a milkpaint wash in a hue of green that echos the bathroom washbasin and the outside shutters. The cabin opens into a good-sized mud room with a utility room at its back, then into the main living area.
A salvaged spiral staircase, painted and finished with new wood steps, leads to the loft bedroom. A second kids bedroom is below it off the main living area.
Here, the large windows and cathedral ceiling give the sense the cabin is much larger than its 600 square feet. Salvaged antique pine flooring casts a warm glow—a contrast to the whitewashed wood walls. A spiral staircase leads to a loft with a queen bed. Below, the couple’s young son sleeps in a small bedroom. Just off the bedroom and main room is a bathroom with a clawfoot tub, shower and salvaged washbasin. “We have a land line but no internet here or cell service and that’s one of the things I love about this place,” says Milano. “I come out here and spend time with my son or invite friends. We cook, play cards and talk in a way that you don’t when you have all the other distractions,” he says. In winter, Milano skis on the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers (VAST) snowmobile trails and the Catamount Trail, both of which cross his property. “We’ll also take my snowmobile up to Lincoln Gap road which is closed in the winter and do laps skiing or sledding down its steeps,” he adds. Come summer, Milano often brings his motorcycle tours to the property for skill sessions, bonfires and barbecues. And when he’s not leading tours, he’s been mapping the Vermont section of a new Northeast Backcountry Discovery Route—a 1,400-mile route from Pennsylvania
to Maine largely made up of dirt roads and trails. For a kid who grew up in the shadows of NewYork City skyscrapers, he’s living the Vermont life with gusto. n For more on Eric Milano’s motorcycle tours, visit MotoVermont.com
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HIGH MOUNTAIN
HAUTE CUISINE BY ABAGAEL GILES
00 Holiday 2019 vtskiandride.com
Photo by Barrie Fisher
At ski resorts across the state, chefs are bringing exciting new cuisine to themed slopeside restaurants. Here’s how they do it.
Skin to mountaintop Allyn’s Lodge at
Après
Sugarbush for a dinner and you’ll find an intimate meal served fireside by chef Jim Dinan, right. What guests never see is that Allyn’s Lodge has no running water. And yet, here, as at similar venues across the state, ski areas are making culinary magic happen.
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 41
TAKING THE MENU UP A NOTCH At ski areas around the state, executive chefs are bringing a fresh perspective to traditional on-mountain dining.These resorts and others are revamping the experience to be much bigger than burgers, chicken tenders and fries. In the Mad River Valley, Sugarbush brought on a new executive chef this year, Vanessa Davis, and a new vice president of food and beverage, Steve Ohayon—an alumn of Keystone, Colo. and of Alyeska Resort in Alaska’s Chugach range. Head to breakfast at the newly revamped Rumble’s Bistro & Bar
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Photo bottom courtesy Okemo Mountain Resort; Top by Abagael Giles
I
n the dark of a midwinter morning, chef Rebecca Clay jumps onto the back of a snowmobile at Okemo Mountain Resort. As the engine revs into gear, the last remnants of a full moon peek out from behind the clouds. Just hours ago, a snowcat packed with produce, kegs of beer, fresh linens and more departed with a week’s worth of supplies for the 30-seat restaurant and cafeteria Clay runs with a staff of four on top of this 3,344foot high mountain. After a final chairlift ride to the top, the crew unlocks the Summit Lodge, grabbing one last peek at the pink sky before they head in. It’s Saturday morning and they have many meals to prep before last chair at 3 p.m. In other words, they have work to do—making dishes with Southern flair like the Barbecue Jackfruit Sandwich, a vegan dish that features braised green jackfruit, apple slaw and a barbecue sauce made with 14th Star Maple Breakfast Stout, served on a just-baked biscuit. Then there are the mouthwateringly tasty Crispy Shrimp ‘N Grits, which feature fried shrimp over hominy grits cooked with crispy chunks of pork belly, topped with a chili-infused maple drizzle. This year will be the first year the Summit Lodge hosts a full-service, 30seat restaurant, part of Okemo Food and Beverage director Jason Palmer’s plan to overhaul the resort’s dining facilities over the next three years. Last season, Okemo added the Okemo Taphouse in the cozy upstairs of the Roundhouse.The tavern offers a rotating cast of local beers on draft and gourmet flatbread pizzas like the Notorious F.I.G., which features Bayley Hazen Blue cheese from Jasper Hill Creamery in Greensboro, mozzarella and asiago cheeses, prosciutto, dried figs and radish sprouts, all topped wih a decadent concoction of truffle oil and honey. That’s a far cry from the basic pepperoni pizza of yore. This year, the new 43° North, a casual French Alpine dining spot opened in the former location of Epic, at the Solitude base area.The Summit Lodge saw a complete renovation and the addition of a gas fireplace downstairs as part of the new Robin’s Roost space—a casual, open layout restaurant with a weathered full-service bar on one end and big windows overlooking the slopes at the other. At mid-mountain, the Sugar House Lodge has a new kids’ menu and playfully updated interior. Guests should also look out for themed pop-up restaurants at hidden spots across the mountain, like a new gourmet s’mores bar or a station offering maple cream puffs out of the back of a snowcat. And that’s not all. As soon as lift service ends for the season in the spring, the ski area is embarking on a 4,000-square-foot addition to its existing Jackson Gore base lodge, adding big windows, a slopeside patio with firepits, an outdoor umbrella bar and a new slope-level cafeteria. The space will feature a Hibachi-style grill, a sushi bar and a 50-seat bar at the center of the room. As Okemo’s executive chef Mark Weigand says, “Our goal is to create dining experiences that are so unique people will ski to different parts of the mountain to find them.”
Clockwise from top left: the new menu at Okemo’s 43° North features French
in Sugarbush’s slopeside Lincoln Peak Village and you’ll find creative international fare with a uniquely Vermont twist alongside classic staples. Try the shakshuka—a Lebanese dish that features farm-fresh eggs baked over a bed of locally-sourced vegetables from Mad River Valley farms with a distinctive tomato-based sauce. For dinner, try the Prime Rib Sliders—little sandwiches stacked with roasted ribeye, caramelized onion fromWaitsfield’s Gaylord Farm, blistered sweet and spicy shishito peppers and a fondue made from melted Cabot cheddar. Not only are the menus at ski areas getting more and more complex, the resorts are getting more and more creative about where they serve food. Take Killington’s Motor Room Bar, located in the renovated motor room of the now defunct Devil’s Fiddle chair. A reservation at this hip bar includes front-row seats to the sunset followed by stunning views through the expansive glass of the crisp, starry winter sky. There, on select evenings, small parties can enjoy cocktails like the Hot Apple Cider Mulled Wine, served in a glass with a maple sugar rim. Try the uniquely-Vermont truffle-infused fondue made with clothbound cheddar from Grafton, with Vermont bacon, and rack of lamb rolled and roasted in oregano, maple-y pork belly, skewered king trumpet mushrooms, winter squash and white asparagus for dipping. Add to that an increasing number of unique mid-mountain or mountaintop dinner places like Sugarbush’s Allyn’s Lodge, Stowe’s Cliff House, Killington’s Ledgewood Yurt or Mount Snow’s mountaintop Bullwheel, and you might argue that there’s a revolution happening here with ski area food.
Alpine cuisine. Jason Palmer, Okemo’s director of food and beverage, holds homemade donuts destined for the summit lodge. Killington offers remote dining at Ledgewood Yurt and Mark
Photo bottom by Chandler Burgess; top courtesy Okemo Mountain Resort
Weigand, Okemo’s executive chef.
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 43
Lodge, they don’t mess around with the Bloody Marys. The Motor Room Bar is in the old motor room of the now-defunct Devil’s Fiddle lift. Ski to the Ledgewood Yurt and you’ll find fine dining. At the Jerk Jamaican Mountain Grill, the chef recommends goat.
44 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
Photos by Chandler Burgess
Clockwise from left: At Killington’s Peak
HIGH MOUNTAIN HAUTE CUISINE GOES LOCAL “Some people just want to grab a burger and get back out onto the slopes,” says Eric Rusch, the food and beverage manager at Killington who opened Peak Lodge as the executive chef there in 2013.The key, he says, is in making sure that burger isn’t just any old defrosted patty. At Killington, the meat comes from cattle raised on nearby farms, the cheese comes from a Vermont producer and that burger is topped with caramelized onion, applewood-smoked bacon, banana peppers and a house secret: Peak Sauce. Today, Rusch oversees the day-to-day operations of the nine dining facilities that are located on the slopes at Killington. “Building a menu, I want it to be absolutely unique—not just at our resort, but anywhere,” Rusch says. “We also want to showcase what we have in Vermont. We use local produce wherever possible, and all of our burger meat is sourced through Robie Farm, a company that raises beef and buys directly from local farms in Vermont and New Hampshire.”
You won’t find Kraft American cheese at Killington’s Peak Lodge (meals are served with Cabot cheddar) and each burger, salad and dish at the cafeteria is made fresh to order—no small feat for a facility that serves 12,000 burgers in a season. With a seating capacity of 300 and a staff of 25, Peak Lodge has a massive food court. The lodge serves an additional 600 pounds of handground turkey each season in turkey burgers. “We go through 20 kegs in a week easily, at the bar up there. And that’s before all the bottled beer and cocktails we serve,” says Rusch. On a busy Saturday, they can serve as many as 1,500 beers at the bar, many of them from Vermont breweries like Lawson’s Finest Liquids in Waitsfield and Fiddlehead in Shelburne. At Okemo, Palmer shares that local food ethos and knows the challenges that come with it: Okemo serves over 60 pounds of chicken, much of it slow cooked and hand-pulled, on a busy day at its Summit Lodge. “We are lucky to live in a place where there is amazing agriculture in our ski communities. And as a big buyer we know we can make a big difference by choosing to buy local,” says Palmer. The challenge is in finding a local producer who can keep up with the volume. “For us, daily specials are a great place to introduce local producers,” says Palmer. And as skiers’ expectations around food climb, Okemo has looked to the local food community for leaders. This season, Jason Corrigan, the chef that launched Mama’s Hand Made Italian restaurant in downtown Ludlow, was brought on board to revamp the Solitude Lodge’s restaurant, formerly known as Epic, into 43° North, a café featuring the cuisine of France with a Vermont flair. For lunch, pair the trout almandine, which features rainbow trout from a hatchery in Perkinsville, Vt., filleted and coated in a fine layer of almond meal, then pan-seared in butter with capers and lemon, with a cold glass of Chardonnay. Or sip a craft cocktail like the Ludlow Lemon Drop Martini, a tart concoction made with Absolut Citron and fresh lemon, served in a martini glass with a sugar rim. THE VAIL ADVANTAGE At Vail-owned resorts such as Okemo and Stowe, another factor plays into the way menus are designed: a special food and beverage analytics software called Avero. According to Palmer, Avero tracks where and when passholders spend their money on the mountain using the purchasing credits stored on season pass accounts.That information can then be aggregated to analyze customer behavior—along with Epic Pass information about the demographics of spenders such as their age, where they are from, how much and how often they ski and how many runs they take in a given day. Palmer is using Avero now to inform the complete overhaul he is working on with Okemo’s on-mountain dining facilities. “We’re working on a 100 percent turnover with regard to branding and menus in the next three years,” he says. For skiers, that means more boutique dining experiences across the mountain—with each restaurant offering something completely new and different. As executive chef Mark Wiegand notes, Vail Resorts has dramatic purchasing power. “Normally, a chef or restaurant will go to a purveyor, such as Sysco and negotiate individually for the ingredients they want. Being under the Vail Resorts umbrella, we are so big that those companies will
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Photo by Chandler Burgess
Ingredients for the meals must be carefully packaged in insulated carts and carried up to the lodge by employees— one server and one ski patroller—on the Super Bravo express quad. The lodge—which serves basic sandwiches and soups during the day—also has no running water, but it manages to transform itself into a magical dinner spot, where parties of up to 24 are served fireside on a long table covered in a white tablecloth and lit by candles. During the day ski patrol helps fill and haul water for the dish bins, but most of the dishes get carted down at the night’s end to be washed by dishwashers in the kitchen at Rumble’s. Chefs at Killington get creative when At the end of the night, Dinan guides skiers back down it comes to serving meals from their the mountain—a nice reward after a long day’s work multiple mountainside kitchens. crafting decadent meals for hungry skiers and riders. At Killington, about 4,000 pounds of fresh produce are carried up to the Peak Lodge each day by a customdesigned snowcat (new for this season), including about prioritize supply for us,” says Wiegand. six bouquets of fresh flowers. An insulated crate keeps precious vegetables Last summer, Vail Resorts invited the executive chefs from each of its and fruits from freezing during the 20-minute journey to the summit—a 37 resorts to a summit in Denver, where they met to sample prospective trip that happens each night between midnight and 1 a.m. products from the leading food companies. “For example, we sampled 40 “My title is executive chef, but about 90 percent of my job is Mountain different kinds of French fries,” said Wiegand. “Each of us was then told to Ops,” says Killington’s Eric Rusch, whose job is to make sure that everything select the best product for our resort. The same went for sandwich meats from flowers to kegs stays fresh and un-frozen on its journey to the summit. and other ingredients.” Because of its central location and state-of-the-art equipment, Peak Vail is also, apparently, supportive of innovation at its resorts. “I think it Lodge is also the central prep kitchen for all of Killington’s on-mountain speaks to the level of creative license and financial backing we have that we dining facilities. are able to recruit a chef from a beloved local establishment like Mama’sVT,” On a busy Saturday, Killington’s Peak Lodge will serve 1,500 handsays Weigand, who, as an avid fly-fisherman, is also passionate about Vail’s formed hamburgers, made fresh with each order. “We also hand-cut and commitment to producing net zero waste by 2030. prep 600 pounds of raw chicken each week for the Jamaican Mountain Grill “Part of our challenge is: how do you deliver a food product in an alone, then package it and send it there by sled,” says Rusch. extremely high-volume environment that is attractive and uses little or no Head there and you’ll find dishes like the Jerk Brisket, a sandwich that landfill waste?” said Palmer. features dry-rubbed beef brisket, jerk barbecue sauce, chipotle gouda and For Rebecca Clay and her team, that means, among other things, harissa cabbage slaw on a toasted brioche bun. And it’s authentic—crafted bringing down about 1,200 pounds of compost each week from the Summit with the guidance of some of Killington’s longtime Jamaican seasonal Lodge. It means washing china and glass dishes instead of throwing away employees.You can even order your meal with goat or pork. disposable ones. It means eliminating bottled water. And it also means being At Killington, all of this has to happen during the hours lifts operate. as lean and efficient as possible. “We have amazing employees at Peak Lodge, and sometimes, if you get “As a company of our scale, we have real power to bring change to the slammed all day, you want to stay late and prep or clean, as would happen at way the food industry does things that supports a greener future. And at our a restaurant in the valley. We have to tell people, drop everything and take restaurants, skiers can be part of that,” said Palmer. the gondola down.We’ll figure it out in the morning,” says Rusch. And every day, by 11 a.m., they do. MAKING THE MAGIC HAPPEN “This work takes resilience and it’s not for everybody,” says Rebecca There’s something magical about eating a meal on top of the mountain Clay. “But when you’re serving comfort food like the Mason Dixon Line—a —whether it’s coming in for a sit-down lunch at a place like Stowe’s Cliff Southern-style sandwich with smoked, pulled chicken, North Country House or taking a cat ride under the stars to a five-course meal in a cozy smokehouse bacon—to hungry skiers, and you look out and see them at the ski lodge (as you can do at Killington, Stratton, Okemo, Sugarbush and bar on a snowy day, it feels good.” Stowe). But the biggest challenge in serving food at the top of a mountain is Plus, she says, she wouldn’t trade anything for the sunrises. Just ask her supplying ingredients to the summit. about them sometime Take Allyn’s Lodge at Sugarbush, where skiers may skin up for a meal For Wiegand, it helps that he gets to snowboard between the restaurants and then ski down by headlamp after (snowcat rides are also an option). For he oversees. “In what other job do you get this incredible freedom and the special monthly dinners there, chef Jim Dinan sears his locally-sourced, support to invent rich, diverse dishes and create these magical dining hand-picked steaks on a two burner stove before finishing them in a small destinations and make turns while you do it? It’s an exciting time to be in oven. Staff preps much of the food—even the crème brulée—ahead of time. food in the ski industry.” n
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T A E T SH RING
IN 2020, WOMEN ARE RULING IN ALL ASPECTS OF SNOWSPORTS — FROM COMPETITIONS TO CORNER OFFICES. SO WHAT’S THE PROBLEM?
I
BY LISA LYNN
n March 2019, at the end of last year’s World Cup race season, Mikaela Shiffrin made history…again. This time, it wasn’t for winning 14 straight World Cup slalom podiums or for beating Ingemar Stenmark’s record for slalom victories (which she did in 2019). No, the 24-year-old graduate of Burke Mountain Academy became the first ski racer in history to earn over 1 million Swiss francs ($1,033,714) in prize money in a season. Not just the first female ski racer, the first ski racer in history to reach that threshold. With Shiffrin—and her former teammate Lindsey Vonn—
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dominating the sport globally, women like Pat Campbell heading up Vail Resorts and Donna Carpenter leading the snowboard giant Burton, have skiing and riding finally accomplished what women’s soccer and so many other sports have set out to achieve: gender equality? At a press conference during the 2019 Killington World Cup, I asked that question of Paula Moltzan, the University ofVermont junior who was, at the time, the second-ranked U.S. tech skier on the World Cup after Shiffrin. Moltzan rolled her eyes, sighed, and asked wearily, “How long do you have?”
the Glass Ceiling?
Caroline Claire (main photo and above), was one of nine
Photos courtesy Faction Skis
all-star female freeskiers that Faction Skis flew to Switzerland for a segment in their 2019 film “The Collective”—one of the first films that showcases women’s freeskiing talent. In 2018 Claire, a former Manchester Center, Vt. resident, made the Olympic team as a senior at Stratton Mountain School.
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THE TRAILBLAZERS
In the past decade, most of the breakout stars of American snowsports have been women. And beyond the household names (Lindsey Vonn, Mikaela Shiffrin, and Jessie Diggins) are a host of superstars with Vermont roots. There are trailblazers such as Kelly Clark, the Mount Snow snowboarder who went on to become the winningest snowboarder of all time —male or female. In 2015, her Mount Snow skiing counterpart, Devin Logan, competing in both slopestyle and half-pipe, became the first freeskier —male or female from any nation—to win the overall FIS World Cup Freestyle crystal globe. Stratton resident Jessie Diggins, with Alaskan Kikkan Randall, took home America’s first Olympic gold medal in cross-country skiing in PyeongChang in 2018. But the U.S. women’s cross-country team, packed with Vermonters such as Sophie Caldwell, Liz Stephens and Ida Sargent, played a strong role in getting her there. West Fairlee, Vt. ski jumper Tara Geraghty-Moats was the breakaway winner of the first international Nordic combined event for women, the 2019 Continental Cup. Within the snowsports industry, Donna Carpenter worked alongside her husband, the late Jake Burton Carpenter, for nearly 40 years to help make Burton the leading snowboarding/board sports lifestyle company on the globe. Elsewhere in the outdoor industry, women are now leading companies such as Patagonia, Outdoor Research, Oboz, Vasque and Vermont’s own Skida. In 2015, Pat Campbell was named president of Vail Resorts’ Mountain Division. Today, she oversees all of Vail Resorts’ 37 resorts, including Stowe, Okemo and Mount Snow. And for the first time, the top editors of nearly every major ski publication—Backcountry, Powder, Ski and (until January 2020), Ski Racing—are all women. (Full disclosure, both of VT Ski + Ride’s editors are women). In 2017, Kelly Pawlak, the former general manager of Mount Snow, became the first woman to lead the National Ski Areas Association and Molly Mahar became the first to lead Ski Vermont, Vermont’s industry association. That same year, Meegan Moszynksi, a Middlebury College graduate (see sidebar) became the first female to lead the National Ski Patrol. Women may have shattered the glass ceiling in many areas of snowsports but even in 2020—as many will tell you—shards of sexism still remain. With participation across all disciplines still 60 percent male, snowsports still have a way to go to reach gender equality.
WOMEN PEAK EARLIER?
“We still have a long way to go toward equality in ski racing,” said Moltzan when we caught up a few weeks after the Killington World Cup, and before she left to compete in Europe. “Just look at the criteria to make the U.S. Ski Team: Women have to perform better two years
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earlier than men do—which means there’s not a lot of room for women like me who want to ski race at the World Cup level and attend college to do so.” To make the B team, for instance, a woman born between 1991 and 1996 (Moltzan was born in 1994) has to achieve a top-25 World Cup start list rank (based on World Cup points). For younger athletes, the criteria are a top 30 or top 45 rank, depending on year of birth. Men have two more years to reach that same criteria. A man who was born in 1996, for instance, would only have to post one top-45 WCSL ranking, whereas a woman the same age would be required to have a top-25 WCSL to make the B team (though in both cases, there is an allowance for “coach’s discretion”). For Moltzan, the path on and off the U.S. Ski Team has been a bumpy one. In 2015, she scored her first World Cup points and was the first American to win the World Junior Championships in slalom. Two years later, based on the criteria, she missed qualifying for the U.S. Team. So she enrolled at UVM. “I basically found out in May I wasn’t on the team anymore and wouldn’t be racing World Cup, so I scrambled to apply to colleges.” UVM took her. In 2018, on a lark, she tried out for a spot at the Killington World Cup. Despite only a few days of training on snow, she got it and at Killington secured a 17th place, which qualified her to compete in other World Cups. “I wasn’t on the U.S. Team or anything, but my boyfriend and I just took off to Europe over our Christmas break. He served as my ski tech and I raced as many World Cups as I could.” And she had one of her best seasons ever. Tiger Shaw, head of the U.S. Ski and Snowboard Association (USSA) defends the criteria. “If you look at the data objectively, women develop and peak at an earlier age than men do,” he said. Mikaela Shiffrin celebrates at Killington in November 2019 after her 62nd World Cup victory.
University of Vermont junior Paula Moltzan, 26, on her way to silver at the 2019 Nationals at Waterville Valley, N.H. “We still have a long way
Photo lef by Steven Earle/USSA; Top right by Chris Cohen/USSA; Right by Oliver Parini
to go toward equality in ski racing,” she says.
The data, gleaned from a study that helped establish Project 26, the U.S. Ski Team’s development program, certainly establishes an historic pattern. Whether or not it should be used to determine future team selection is another question. “Look at me,” says Moltzan. “I’m a better ski racer now because I’m older and I’ve had to juggle college and competing at the World Cup level. Not everyone is the same and I’m not sure you can say that all women peak early.” And there’s another factor: “Having to post those top results at a younger age means if you get injured—and many young women who are pushing themselves super hard do—you don’t have much chance of taking a year off and then coming back,” notes Marina Knight, the head of the T2 Foundation, which supports promising skiers, and the former editor of Ski Racing. “If Steve Nyman or Ted Ligety had to meet the criteria that young women have to meet, I’m not sure they would be where they are now.” Nyman, who was injured at 27 and took a year off, came back and had his best season ever at 33, placing 4th in the overall World Cup downhill rankings. He was injured again in 2018, took another year off and now, at 37, is still competing.
only open to men—would ever have a women’s Olympic event. Growing up in the tiny town ofWest Fairlee, near the New Hampshire border, Geraghty-Moats started launching off the local ski jump at the Storrs Recreation Area when she was 9. Also an avid cross-country skier, by age 15 she was a multi-time medalist in the junior Nordic nationals and was jumping well enough to be named to the USSA Visa Vermont’s Tara Geraghty-Moats, 2019 champion of Nordic combined’s first-ever women’s Contintental Cup.
THE LAST OLYMPIC SPORT CLOSED TO WOMEN
For Vermont’s Tara Geraghty-Moats, 26, the challenge hasn’t been whether or not she can make the U.S. Team (she’s been representing the U.S. on the World Cup as a ski jumper since 2014), but whether Nordic combined—the last Olympic sport (summer or winter) that is
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BY SIERRA SHAFER Even average skiers can have fun on almost any ski, but helping your boyfriend or husband find the right pair for his ability will make skiing together (at least for the morning before you ditch him to meet up with your friends) more enjoyable for both of you. Since it’s safe to assume your guy is a beginner skier, he’s going to need your help making what is a very personal decision. While it might save you time and headache to make the decision for him, it’s a nice gesture to include him in the process and make him feel supported in his purchase. Whether you help him use the internet to make the buy, or you drive him to the shop to browse for new skis, here are three tips to keep in mind. 1. Looks are important. While you likely purchased your latest sticks based on sidecut, rocker, flex and the terrain and snow conditions you typically encounter, these technical terms might overwhelm him. Instead, encourage your beau to stick with something like an easy-to-turn all-mountain ski in a color he likes, such as death metal gray; first kill red; or baby boy blue. If you can find something he likes that also matches his jacket, even better. 2. Keep it gender-specific. Skis should always be purchased based on gender, never terrain or ability. Women-specific skis are typically softer flexing than comparable men’s skis, because after cleaning the house, doing laundry, smashing the patriarchy, and making all those sandwiches, women are fatigued and need something easy to maneuver. Men, however, are stronger and more capable skiers by birthright. Getting them on skis that reflect this is key. 3. Size matters. All women always weigh less than and are shorter than men—and so are the skis designed for women. Keep this in mind when picking out a ski for your boyfriend. Make sure to direct him to the stiffest ski available that doesn’t come in anything shorter than 195. His height, weight, and skier type do not matter one iota as much as his anatomy does. Keep these tips in mind and you’re on your way to making the right choice for your guy, who is sure to appreciate not having to make the decision for himself. Plus, when he freaks out because you ski too fast or take him down something steeper than he should be on, point to the skis you picked out and remind him you’re not a dick. Sierra Shafer is the editor of Powder, where this humor piece originally appeared. Blizzard’s Black Pearl skis, designed for women, have been the overall best-selling skis for the past three years.
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Development Team. At 16, after an injury took her out of ski jumping, she began competing as a biathlete. But she was soon drawn back to the sport she loved the most: ski jumping. “My coaches kept telling me I had to focus on one sport,” Geraghty-Moats said. That one sport, if she had been a man, would have been Nordic combined, which combines ski jumping and cross-country skiing, with points earned from ski jumps translating to a better starting position for the ski races. Nordic combined competitions have been held since the 1900s and have been part of the winter Olympics since the games started in Chamonix, France in 1924. Until last year, there was no international Nordic combined circuit for women. Instead, Geraghty-Moats concentrated on ski jumping, barely missing a spot on the 2018 Olympic Team. Following that Olympics, a vote came up on whether to include a women’s Nordic combined event in 2022, as had been put forward in the Federation International du Ski (skiing’s governing body) 2016 strategy document. Citing a small field of competitors, the committee opted not to. Instead, they announced there would be a Continental Cup in the 2019 and 2020 seasons with a World Cup slated for 2021. In the inaugural Continental Cup in 2019, Geraghty-Moats won 10 of 11 events. When asked if she was “bored,” of winning she said. “I’ve worked for 13 years to compete in Nordic combined so 10 wins after 13 years isn’t boring.” Geraghty-Moats has been a vocal campaigner for inclusion of a women’s Olympic event and in early January 2020, she was selected to be an ambassador at the IOC Youth Olympics in Switzerland, where, for the first time, there was a Nordic combined event for girls. “Five years ago, I never would have thought that we would ever come as far as we have today in terms of opportunities for girls and women in this sport. On days where I feel like we have so far to go for women to be equal, I have to remind myself of that,” she said in an interview posted recently on Madshus.com.
RIDING AHEAD OF THE CURVE
“Thirty-eight years ago, when the Burton U.S. Open debuted there was equal prize money for women and men,” Donna Carpenter, co-CEO of Burton, has noted many times of the premiere event for snowboarding. That’s been true ever since. It was events like the U.S. Open which helped inspire Kelly Clark, The winningest snowboarder ever, Kelly Clark (left), has helped mentor and support new stars such as Chloe Kim (right).
Photo by Sarah Brunson/USSA
HELP YOUR GUY BUY SKIS What if the stereotypes were reversed? Here’s what that might look like.
THE NEW ‘POWDER’ ROOM
In 2019 Vail Resorts was named by Forbes magazine as one of the top places in the U.S. for women to work. Here’s why. By Abagael Giles
Photo courtesy Vail Resorts
When Pat Campbell was running Breckinridge in Colorado, she sometimes had trouble convincing guests that a woman could do her job, even though she had been in the ski industry for almost 30 years, working her way up from a ski instructor to general manager. “I remember this one time, I was riding the chairlift at Breckenridge with these guys and chatting with them and they were like, ‘Well what do you do?’ I said, ‘Oh, I run the ski resort.’ They said, ‘Well what does that mean?’ I said, “Well, you know, I oversee the resort.’ They said, ‘So you do H.R.?’ Finally, I said, ‘No, I am the chief operating officer. I am the head boss at the ski resort.’” In 2015, Campbell was named President of Vail Resort’s Mountain Division. Since then, Vail Resorts has promoted women to be chief operating officers of eight of its 37 ski areas, including Vail, Beaver Creek and Keystone in Colorado, Hotham Alpine in Australia, Northstar in California and Mount Sunapee, N.H. In March of 2019, Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz announced a new company-wide initiative called POWDER: Providing
Opportunity for Women through Diversity, Equality and Respect. As Katz said at the time, “Within the mountain resort industry, there is a real push to honor and protect the past. Unfortunately, and sometimes unconsciously, that can spill over into people.” The inspiration for the POWDER initiative came from the Women of Whistler Blackcomb program, a grassroots program started at the British Columbia resort by women leaders in 2015. It resulted in leadership trainings, conversations about implicit bias in Whistler’s workplace, changes to hiring patterns and more flexible schedules for young parents. Within Vail Resorts. POWDER formed in 2019 with a steering committee of 11 executives and managers from across 37 resorts. Karen Wagner, Stowe Mountain Resort’s first woman ski patrol director, was selected as the lead representative for the Northeast region, which includes Okemo, Mount Snow, Attitash, Stowe, Mt. Sunapee and Wildcat. Wagner has assembled a local
a Mount Snow Academy rider, to dream big. At 19, she won gold at the 2002 Winter Olympics in halfpipe. From there, she went on to become the winningest snowboarder (male or female) in history with 137 podiums and 78 wins before retiring in 2019 at the age of 35. Burton, based in Burlington, Vt., has played a leadership role in helping Clark and other women grow in the sport. In addition to sponsoring and providing equal opportunities (and pay) to superstars like Clark, Kimmy Fasani and other women, Burton has helped cover the cost of a childcare helper for female employees who have to travel for work in the first 12 months after they give birth. In 2004, the Carpenters launched the Burton Women’s Leadership Initiative and helped establish a mentorship program to help women
POWDER team to bring the programming to Vail’s Northeast resorts. “This year, we are focusing on awareness and on fostering a culture of inclusion. I think for us, the place where progress can be made is in the little stuff,” says Wagner. “How do we make these traditionally male-dominated sectors of our industry more appealing to women?” she asks. “Then how do we recruit and retain them and move them up the leadership rungs?” This winter, Vail is hosting monthly events, open to all employees, each with a theme. The first, hosted at Mount Sunapee in November was about being brave, with guest speaker Olympian Donna Weinbrecht, who won the first gold medal awarded in the Olympics for freestyle skiing in 1992. The second event, hosted by Okemo, featured an open conversation among employees about unconscious bias in the ski industry, and taught employees the Harvard Implicit Bias Test as a tool for evaluating whether they were complicit. Wagner and her team plan to host another event, featuring women pioneers in
Pat Cambell, president of Vail Resorts’ Mountain Division.
Vermont’s ski industry at Stowe this season. In 2019 Forbes Magazine named Vail Resorts one of the top places to work as a woman. “I think the current climate has been really eye-opening for a lot of men,” said Vail Resorts CEO Rob Katz last spring. “It is not just a women’s issue. Men really need to be the champions of that change… we need to create forums where men and women can come together to talk about diversity.”
grow their roles in the company. In January, 2017, Donna told Burton employees she would cover their costs to attend the Women’s March on Washington, D.C. Burton’s “Stand Up, Stand Out” campaign features its pro women riders, Burton Girls, laughing, riding and having fun. Hard goods for women are given the same attention and development work that men’s models are. As Sarah Crockett, the chief marketing officer at Burton, notes, “The main difference in our boards and hard goods is that we make them for certain sizes and weights, not genders.” I first met Crockett, who previously led marketing teams at Lucky, Vans and REI, at Outdoor Gear Exchange’s annual staff meeting in the fall of 2019. She was one of a panel invited to speak on the topic of
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EQUAL RISK, EQUAL PAY In January, the World Freeride Tour—the largest international extreme skiing/riding tour—announced it would start offering equal prize money for women and for men in 2020. “This is huge,” said Darian Boyle, the 2000 Women’s Extreme World Champion who now coaches the Sugarbush Bush Pilots program. “Back when I was competing, the prize money for women was maybe $2000 while guys would be getting something like $10,000. I competed because I loved it but women were taking all the same risks, doing the same travel and pushing themselves as hard as men and not getting nearly the same support. It’s great to see this change. Women have worked hard and we’ve earned it. Today, you’ll see someone charging these huge Alaskan lines and you don’t know if it’s a woman or a man, the level is that high.” Here, Boyle cuts loose on her home turf off Sugarbush’s Lincoln Peak.
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Photo by John Atkinson/Subarbush Resort
“Donna’s not going to be happy until 50.1 percent of snowboarders are women,” says Burton’ marketing director Sarah Crockett (third from left), shown here with CEO Donna Carpenter (fourth from left) and several members of Burton’s 50-percent female leadership team.
WOMEN TO WOMEN
Leslie Baker-Brown has been working at the Tecnica Group, owner of brands such as Blizzard and Tecnica, for more than 30 years.“When I started there were practically no women in the ski industry,” said BakerBrown, a Middlebury College grad and former World Pro Tour ski racer who lives in Norwich, Vt. “I often faced a scenario that women in every industry still face: I’d bring up an idea at a meeting and no one would say anything. A guy says the same thing a few minutes later and everyone agrees,” she said.
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REACHING 50-50
Getting more women on snow has been a goal of the ski industry for years, the subject of countless talks and the impetus behind women’s ski and snowboard weeks, camps and instructional sessions at all levels.Yet,
Tecnica Group marketing director Leslie BakerBrown of Norwich, Vt. has been leading the uphill battle to improve women’s ski gear.
Photo top by Jesse Dawson/Burton; bottom, courtesy Blizzard.
“leadership” to the Burlington outdoor retail giant’s 100-plus employees. The other panelists included the presidents of apparel brand Outdoor Research and footwear makers Oboz and Vasque. All four are women. “It’s great that we have women like them here,” said Melissa McNell, a senior buyer at Outdoor Gear Exchange, “but the industry isn’t going to change until the customers do, too.” She went on to cite an instance when Allison Gettings, the president of Vasque was on a shop floor helping customers, incognito. “Some guys just didn’t want to be helped by her, they wanted to wait for a guy to help them.” When I met Burton’s Crockett again, it was in her office at the Burlington headquarters. Posted on the wall behind her was a graphic showing Burton’s brand map, designed like a trail map and depicting four peaks. Under “Peak 1” was the title “Inclusive Community” and under the subhead “Priorities,” the first one was this: “Grow the women’s market.” Has it worked? According to the most recent survey by Ski Industries of America, women make up 36 percent of the country’s snowboard population, compared to 38.4 percent of all skiers (and 40.0 percent of cross-country skiers). Yet, according to a February 2019 release by the NPD Group: “Women’s snowboard equipment sales were the fastestgrowing segment of the market—outpacing men’s and juniors—with sales up 18 percent so far this season.” Are we getting closer to the tipping point, I asked Crockett? “Yes, but we still have a long way to go. Donna’s not going to be happy until 50.1 percent of riders are women,” she said.
As director of marketing for the Tecnica USA group, Baker-Brown has made it her mission to grow the women’s market. In 2016, she launched the Women to Women program, what Sporting Goods Business has called “arguably the most progressive women’s program in outdoor sports.” She began by hosting focus groups and getting input from top skiers, bootfitters and retailers. “Many ski companies still just change out the graphics on a ski and call it a ‘women’s ski’” Baker-Brown noted. Not Blizzard. The result was a shift in flex patterns, a wider range of lengths, rocker and widths and variations in construction designed to address women’s sizes and weights. For Tecnica boots, it led to wider cuffs and thermomoldable shells. Baker-Brown also launched W2W on-snow events, and when proskier Jackie Paaso admitted she was intimidated walking into a ski shop, Baker-Brown stepped up the retailer and educational programs. At wine-and-cheese “Powder to Prosecco” shop nights, women can learn about choosing skis and boots and hear from guest speakers. The W2W program is now worldwide. Baker-Brown oversees it and has seen good results. “Blizzard’s Black Pearl 88 women’s skis have been the best-selling skis on the market for the past three years and one of only three or four skis to sell over 10,000 units,” Baker-Brown noted. Now when Baker-Brown brings up an idea, “the guys listen.”
WOMEN ON PATROL Ski patrols, still 80 percent male, have long had a reputation for being boys’ clubs. These women are starting to change that. By Abagael Giles Peg Doheney served as Jay Peak’s ski patrol director for over 30 years, until she retired in May 2018. She still patrols part time and sits on the Governor’s Council for Search and Rescue. Kaitlyn Fowle has been patrolling for 13 years, the last three as head of Bolton Valley Resort’s ski patrol. Stowe Mountain Resort, home to the oldest ski patrol in North America, hired its first female patrol director, Karen Wagner, in 2019. And in 2017, National Ski Patrol, the industry’s professional organization, hired Meegan Moszynski, a Middlebury College grad, to serve as its first female executive director. How are they seeing ski patrolling change?
Why are patrols still only 20 percent women?
PEG: I think it’s still a male dominated industry, but each patrol unit can have a very different culture. For us at Jay Peak, it helped having a woman as a director early on. I started in the 1980s during a period when we were expanding, and we’ve had a lot of women on patrol since that time. Once you get that culture going, people are really supportive. We’ve had sisters, daughters and mothers on patrol together. We’ve had our share of patrol marriages too. KAREN: I think we’ve had a different experience here at Stowe, Peg. Women have been members of our patrol unit since the 1940s, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that a woman passed a toboggan test here. That baffles me. I think it speaks to the machismo that prevailed back then. When I started here in 1993, I was one of two women on patrol. Now, there are 8 or 9 of us—and those women are amazing patrollers. I look at the national numbers and hope we will surpass that 25 percent mark at Stowe soon. MEEGAN: National leadership and division leadership in ski patrol is definitely still male dominated. We have had women on the national board before, but when I started in this role two years ago, there were no women. This year, there are three. That said, I’ve never encountered a biased attitude against women. The low numbers are something we’d like to figure out. KAITLYN: I’ve not really encountered any bias from fellow patrollers, either here at Bolton or when I patrolled at Smuggs. But I do still get that from skiers. I had one injured guy who refused to get in my sled when I arrived on the scene. He kept asking, ‘But who’s going to help me get down?’ and wanting to wait for a man. I finally told him if he didn’t go down with me, he was going to have to walk down.
Photo by Christine Koh
What does it take to be a ski patroller?
PEG: At Jay, we like to joke that patrol is like a big dysfunctional family. People come from all walks of life and the relationships you form as a unit are really important. I like to think my best quality as a leader was letting people do what they do best—recognizing diverse skill sets and not forcing them into roles they didn’t want or excel at. Bottom line: Patrolling is a hard job. You’re on a mountain in all kinds of weather, and it’s a lot of work and training for not a lot of money. You’ve got to be able to help people laugh sometimes. KAITLYN: I think people are starting to recognize that women can bring valuable leadership skills to a team, and in patrols that’s critical.
Bolton Valley president Linsday DesLauriers, left, patrol director Kaitlyn Fowle, skier Christine Koh.
Is there a “glass ceiling” in the ski patrol world or at ski areas?
KAREN: I don’t believe there is. Women have gone all the way in our industry. At Vail Resorts, the head of our Mountain Division is a woman, Pat Campbell. PEG: I agree. At so many of our mountains in Vermont, there isn’t a lot of upward mobility regardless of gender. At Jay Peak—our heads of grooming, mountain operations and lift operations have been there almost as long as I have. I think young women certainly feel they can do anything they want to do. I want to believe that. MEEGAN: There isn’t a lot of turnover in this industry, and if you look at the statistics, it has historically been male dominated. Despite that, this is an industry that is welcoming toward women and relishes more women in leadership. I want the message to be to women: come join us.
What’s changing at your ski areas?
KAREN: I am actually the regional rep for Vail Resorts’ POWDER Initiative (see sidebar). As a staff, we just participated in a company-wide seminar on unconscious bias at Okemo this fall, and I’d like to host one here at Stowe. We used the Harvard Implicit Bias Test. The hope is that down the road, when there is some critical choice to be made or words to be said, that somebody will recognize their bias and not allow it to cloud their judgement. But the endgame is recruiting and promoting women through the leadership journey. We are having conversations we’ve never had at Stowe— I hear coworkers and leadership talking about flexibility in the workplace, helping people of all genders with childcare needs. The train has left the station. KAITLYN: I really don’t see any bias now at Bolton Valley and it’s great to have a leader like Lindsay DesLauriers at the top.
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58 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
I asked DesLauriers if the childcare program was what she was most proud of. She looked at me and in the pause before she answered I realized my question was loaded with bias. “I worked in childcare advocacy, not childcare,” she said. “As a lobbyist, I learned how to get things done.” She then patiently ticked off the other things she has accomplished: acquiring the Bolton Valley Community Water and Sewer and reducing the resort’s dependence on trucked water from 2 million gallons to zero this year, raising half of the $6 million capital campaign and improving revenues by 20 percent. Set high in the mountains, with both year-round homeowners and guests reliant on the resort for everything from the health club to their water system, Bolton Valley Resort, like Smuggler’s Notch, is a village unto itself. “Running this ski resort is really like running any community—you just need good leadership,” she said.
THE 11TH SPOT
We are all, in some ways, guilty of gender bias and media plays as large a role as any in how women are perceived in sports. In one of the best of this year’s ski films, “The Collective,” Faction Skis flew an international roster of nine A-list women freeskiers (with 58 pro-level medals among them) to Switzerland to film. The segment featured Faction skiers Olympian Caroline Claire (a recent grad of Stratton Mountain School), Olympic gold medalist Sarah Hoefflin, X Games gold medalist Mathilde Gremaud, Kelly Sildaru and a few others. They appear alongside 2019 World Cup slopestyle champion Mac Forehand (a current Stratton Mountain School student), Will Berman and other top male skiers. (To see the film, visit vtskiandride.com.) “The Collective” is in sharp contrast to Matchstick Productions’ 2019 release. Matchstick, one of the best-known producers of ski films, earned resounding cheers on Lisa Howe, president of Smugglers’ Notch Resort, wants to keep the whole family happy.
Jessie Diggins after winning the first U.S. gold in cross-country in the 2018 Olympics.
Photo bottom by Sarah Brunson/USSA ; courtesy Smuggler’s Notch
as National Ski Areas Association President Kelly Pawlak will tell you, “For the past 10 years, the numbers have stayed about the same.” According to NSAA data, nationally 41 percent skier/riders visits are from women—though the Northeast has the highest female representation, with 44 percent being women. During more than three decades at Mount Snow, Pawlak, who started there at age 21, rose to the position of general manager. She did so in her own words, “by volunteering for every position that I thought would help give me the experience I needed.” Under her watch, the resort began a $52 million expansion, which included a $30 million upgrade to its snowmaking and the new Carinthia base lodge, which opened last year. “It’s great that we now have more than 50 women among our membership who are running mountains across the country,’” noted Pawlak. “But the thing we are looking for at NSAA is growing and diversifying skiing as a whole,” she said.“I see one opportunity in lapsed skiers. So many women cut back on skiing when they have kids. Women are the ones who make so many of the travel decisions. We need to find a way to keep them skiing.” Keeping it fun for the kids (because if the kids have fun, moms have fun and everyone has fun) has been a large part of Smugglers’ Notch Resort’s brand for many years. The resort is privately owned by Bill Stritzler and his daughter, Lisa Howe—a management consultant who had worked with Price Waterhouse in both Japan and England—has served as the resort’s president since 2017. In the past two years, Smuggs has doubled down on what it does for kids with a new Fun Zone 2.0, complete with laser tag, a game arcade and more. The resort also offers “Kids Night Out” at the Fun Zone and can arrange for babysitters. “We have daycare here for our employees, for our guests and something for every member of the family to enjoy,” says Howe. “My dad always believed a vacation should be for everyone—kids, moms and dads.” In August 2019, Bolton Valley Resort’s president Lindsay DesLauriers also opened a year-round full-time child care program at the resort. “It’s something that’s helped us with both guests and employees,” DesLauriers said. “I’ve had women who could only work part time and now that we have childcare, they can be there full-time.” Add to that a new indoor skate and BMX park and Bolton Valley became a far more kid-friendly ski resort. Ralph DesLauriers founded Bolton Valley in 1966 and in 2017, he bought it back with the idea his kids would take it over. Unlike her brothers, extreme skiers Eric and Rob DesLauriers (both live out West), and Adam who traveled the world filming them, Lindsay came in as president in July, 2019 with little experience in the ski world. “I didn’t know anything about operations, but I wasn’t afraid to ask questions,” she said. DesLauriers, now 40, had worked in early childhood advocacy and was the founding director of the Main Street Alliance, which works with Vermont’s small businesses on public policy issues.
social media for featuring extreme skiers Angel Collinson,Tatum Monod and Elyse Saugstad alongside its male stars in “All In,” its 2018 film. But in 2019, many of those cheers turned to boos when it released its 26th feature film “Return to Send’E r,” featuring 11 male athletes and not one woman. Level 1, the film company which lists Stowe native Freedle Coty on its masthead released “Romance” with a roster of athletes that included Chris Logan, brother of Olympic medalist freeskier Devin Logan, but again, not one woman. Level 1’s roster of “current athletes” features 34 men and not one woman. On April 6, Level 1’s popular “Super UnKnown” talent-search contest returns to Mount Snow’s Carinthia Parks and addresses that. Sort of. As the Level 1 website states: “Level 1 will be awarding 11 spots to the Finals this year, hand selecting 9 of our top picks and filling the 10th spot with the winner of the Wild Card Poll as we have in the past. The 11th spot will be awarded to the winner of the Women’s category, to the most talented and deserving female in the qualifying field.” The 11th spot?
GREEN CIRCLE GIRL
While it may be easy to look to media, governing bodies, manufacturers, ski areas and others to help bring gender equality to snow sports, until skiers and riders themselves address what is often unwitting bias, the 60/40 ratio of men to women on the slopes is unlikely to change.
The Facebook group Ski The East (related to, but not moderated by, the film and apparel company of the same name), has close to 20,000 members—people who weigh in on anything and everything related to skiing and riding from West Virginia to Canada. Stuart Winchester of The Storm Skiing Journal podcast recently wrote about the group in a tongue-in-cheek post titled, “The 10 People You Meet on The Ski the East Facebook Page.” Winchester’s caricatures included the “Everybody’s-a-Jerry-Guy,” the “Vail Sucks Guy” and the “Looking-for-Advice-But-Not-Really Guy.” There was only one female on the list: “Green Circle Girl.” “Solid Green Circle Girl just skied for the first time at Mohawk Mountain, and she’s found her new obsession. Unlike the other archetypes here, everyone loves Solid Green Circle Girl. She is obsessed with what we are all obsessed with and wants to get better at it, but literally knows nothing, so she makes everyone feel useful. What do I wear?Where do I ski? How do I improve? Solid Green Circle Girl is everything that the Ski The East Facebook group is not: sweet, sincere, earnest, kind. Even the most cynical Everybody’s-A-Jerry Guy likes Solid Green Circle Girl, because even he knows that our sport needs new people loving it to survive.” “What would you say to the author of that post?” I asked Kaitlyn Fowle, the head of ski patrol at Bolton Valley Resort and a 13-year ski patrol veteran. Her reaction was midstation between a smirk and a smile. She thought for a second and then said, “I’d ask the guy who wrote that to come ski with me.” n
Voted “Best Cross-Country Ski Area in Vermont” 2019 Seven Daysies Awards
60 Miles of Scenic Mountain Trails Cross-Country Skiing & Snowshoeing Rentals Home to von Trapp Brewing & Bierhall Austrian-Inspired Rooms & Restaurants 700 Trapp Hill Road, Stowe, VT • www.TrappFamily.com • 1.800.826.7000
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 59
Cross CouNtry centers of vermont spoNsored CoNteNt
Rikert Nordic Center, Ripton
NortherN Ski Area
Total Terrain
Machine Tracked
Skating Terrain
Blueberry Lake
31 km
31 km
Bolton Valley XC
100 km
Burke (Dashney) Nordic Center
Fat Biking
Town
Phone
Website
31 km
Warren
802-496-6687
blueberrylakeskivt.com
15 km
15 km
Bolton Valley
802-434-3444
boltonvalley.com
14 km
14Km
14 km
East Burke
802-626-1466
skiburke.com
Catamount Outdoor Family Center
35 km
35 km
35 km
Williston
802-879-6001
catamountoutdoor.com
Craftsbury Outdoor Center
105 km
105 km
105 km
Craftsbury Common
802-586-7767
craftsbury.com
Edson Hill
10 km
10 km
10 km
Stowe
802-253-7371
edsonhill.com
Hazen’s Notch
65 km
60 km
60 km
Montgomery Center
802-326-4799
hazensnotch.org
Highland Lodge & XC Center
40 km
40 km
40 km
Greensboro
802-533-2647
highlandlodge.com
Jay Peak Nordic & Snowshoe Center
20 km
--
--
Jay
802-988-2611
jaypeakresort.com
Kingdom Trails
45 km
20 km
20 km
East Burke
802-626-0737
kingdomtrails.org
Memphremagog Ski Touring Foundation
35 km
35 km
35 km
Derby
802-334-1357
mstf.net
Ole’s Cross Country Center
48 km
50 km
45 km
Warren
802-496-3430
olesxc.com
Sleepy Hollow Inn & Bike Center
35 km
30 km
25 km
Huntington
802-434-2283
skisleepyhollow.com
Stowe XC Ski Center
75 km
35 km
35 km
Stowe
802-253-3688
stowe.com
Smugglers’Notch Nordic Center
30 km
--
--
Smugglers Notch
800-457-8752
smuggs.com
Strafford Nordic Center
30 km
20 km
30 km
Strafford
802-765-0016
straffordnordicskiing.com
Trapp Family Lodge XC Center
70 km
70 km
70 km
Stowe
802-253-8511
trappfamily.com
The Nordic Center is the gateway to Bolton Valley’s legendary backcountry terrain. It offers guided tours, lessons and rental equipment to get you out to enjoy some of the best Nordic skiing and snowshoeing in New England. Bolton has a 100 km Nordic trail system with 15 kilometers of groomed trails.
Trapp’s XC Center is celebrating 51 years! Come experience one of the premier Nordic centers in the East, featuring 160 km, with 55 km of tracked and skating terrain. Plus a full retail shop and rentals, and professional instruction. Don't miss Slayton Pasture Cabin for a warm lunch and a roaring fire in the hearth.
boltonvalley.com • 802-434-3444
trappfamily.com • 802-253-8511
rikertnordic.com • 802-443-2744
4302 Bolton Valley Access Rd • Bolton, VT
700 Trapp Hill Rd • Stowe, VT 05672
106 College Cross Road • Ripton VT
Rikert's 55 km of trails wind through old forests, farm fields and past Robert Frost's summer cabin. The Center offers a full service rental shop and ski school, plus fat biking! Jump on early season skiing with 5 km of snowmaking. Open 7 days a week and home to the Middlebury College Panthers.
GG
Grafton GraftonTrails, Trails,Grafton Grafton
Bolton Valley, Bolton
Blueberry Hill, Goshen
Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe
Edson Hill, Stowe
Southern
Snowmaking
Ski Area
Total Terrain
Machine Tracked
Skating Terrain
Blueberry Hill Outdoor Center
50 km
--
Brattleboro Outing Club
33 km
Grafton Trails & Outdoor Center
Fat Biking
Town
Phone
Website
--
Goshen
802-247-6735
blueberrytrails.com
25 km
20 km
Brattleboro
802-254-8906
brattleborooutingclub.org
30 km
30 km
30 km
Grafton
802-843-2400
graftontrails.com
Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home
20 km
14 km
--
Manchester
802-362-1788
hildene.org
Landgrove Inn
15 km
15 km
15 km
Landgrove
802-824-6673
landgroveinn.com
Mountain Meadows XC Center
30 km
30 km
30 km
Killington
802-775-0166
xcskiing.net
Mountain Top Inn & Resort
60 km
40 km
40 km
Chittenden
802-483-2311
mountaintopinn.com
Okemo Valley Nordic Center
22 km
22 km
8 km
Ludlow
802-228-1396
okemo.com
Prospect Mountain XC
30 km
30 km
30 km
Woodford
802-442-2575
prospectmountain.com
Quechee Club
25 km
25 km
12 km
Quechee
802-295-9356
quecheeclub.com
Rikert Nordic Center
55 km
50 km
40 km
Ripton
802-443-2744
rikertnordic.com
Stratton Mountain Nordic Center
12 km
12 km
12 km
Stratton Mountain
802-297-4567
stratton.com
Timber Creek XC
14 km
14 km
14 km
West Dover
802-464-0999
timbercreekxc.com
Viking Nordic Center
39 km
35 km
35 km
Londonderry
802-824-3933
vikingnordic.com
Wild Wing’s Ski Touring Center
25 km
25 km
3.3 km
Peru
802-824-6793
wildwingsski.com
Woodstock Inn Nordic Center
50 km
50 km
50 km
Woodstock
802-457-6674
woodstockinn.com
Grafton Trails & Outdoor Center has 30 km of multi-use trails, available for recreation, fresh air, and outdoor adventure in every season. The rental shop has everything you need from skis and snowshoes to fat bikes and tubes. Get on the trails for a day or make it a getaway and stay at The Grafton Inn.
The spirit of adventure is alive and well at the Woodstock Inn & Resort, and guests will find new things to do at every turn. With an extensive network of winter trails throughout Mount Peg and Mount Tom, the Tubbs Snowshoes & Nordic Adventure Center offers groomed trails for skate and classic cross-country skiing.
Our Nordic Center has been enriched with professional grooming equipment, great additions to our rental fleet, private instruction and a retail offering with some essential gear and Edson Hill logo-wear available. After a day on the hill, relax in elegant comfort in one of our rooms, and enjoy a meal by Chef Jason Bissell.
graftontrails.com • 802-843-2400
woodstockinn.com • 802-332-6853
edsonhill.com • 802-253-7371
783 Townshend Road • Grafton, VT
14 The Green • Woodstock, VT
1500 Edson Hill Rd • Stowe, VT
SPONSORED CONTENT
Painful ski boots be gone ENVY SKI BOOT FRAME ELIMINATES THE NEED FOR UNCOMFORTABLE, HARD-SHELL SKI BOOTS BY
LAUREN GLENDENNING | BROUGHT TO YOU BY ENVY SNOW SPORTS
IN THE DUEL BETWEEN skiers and snowboarders over which sport is superior, there’s one advantage snowboarders have that leaves little room for debate: the boot. There’s no question that a snowboarding boot is more comfortable than a hard-shell ski boot, says Chris Schroeder, the founder of Envy Snow Sports. Schroeder, originally from Chicago, remembers childhood ski trips to Colorado and Utah with his family. A theme emerged each and every ski trip: the skiers in the group would have to stop at the lodge or quit the day early because their feet hurt so badly. “Why can’t ski boots be comfortable?” Schroeder remembers thinking. The Envy Ski Boot Frame was born, but it took a lot of patience and hard work to develop. Now, as Envy Snow Sports launches into its second winter of retail sales, we caught up with Schroeder to hear how his dream turned into a reality.
EXPLORE SUMMIT: Tell us about the inspiration for the Envy Ski Boot Frame? CHRIS SCHROEDER: Our family, like most families, has been putting up with cold, uncomfortable ski boots our entire lives. My mom, sisters and uncles suffered from poor blood circulation in their hard, plastic ski boots. When my Dad and I switched to snowboarding about 10 years ago, they were all jealous of our soft, warm boots and feet. We could stay out on the mountain for hours. ES: When you looked for a product that could solve these woes, what did you find in the marketplace? CS: We tried boot gloves, boot warmers, padding and other products to help, but none of them brought the warmth and comfort that snowboard boots offer. They helped a little but not a true solution. We thought that there had to be a better way to use current soft, comfortable snowboard boots to go skiing in. If we could create a frame that could accommodate most snowboard boots and clip into your current alpine ski binding, it might work. We knew this ski boot frame concept had to deliver the stiffness, support, flexibility and ski tip control necessary for skiing.
ES: How did you develop the design and how long did it take? CS: We bought some old ski boots and snowboard bindings at Goodwill and started cutting them up in the garage a few years ago. We created about five different prototypes and took them onto the mountain to test. We called them our “Frankenboots.” The first few were terrible and we almost gave up, but the last few worked pretty well. We then hired a few engineers to help us create the drawings, 3D models and more prototypes. It was hard to get the right balance between design and materials to create a product that provides the comfort and performance we wanted. We knew we were close when I put on my snowboard boots, stepped into the ski boot frame prototype type and enjoyed a full day of skiing at Vail one day. ES: Tell us about the finished product – what is the Envy Ski Boot Frame, what’s it made out of and how does it work? CS: The Envy Ski Boot Frame is made out of aircraft grade aluminum in the base and select types of plastic. This unique combination provides the stiffness, support, flexibility, durability and feel skiers need. The adjustable straps accommodate a full range of snowboard boot types and sizes. ES: Who’s doing the manufacturing? What’s the retail price? CS: Our company, Envy Snow Sports based in Golden, Colorado, does all of our engineering and manufacturing. Currently we source our parts from overseas and complete our assembly and quality inspections here in the U.S. The full retail price is $279 per pair. A full refund is available if you do not love them.
ES: What has the reception been like from others within the skiing and snowboarding industry? CS: Nearly everyone we talk with agrees that ski boots are cold, uncomfortable and hard to walk in. Industry analysts tell us many first-time skiers do not return to the sport because their feet hurt. Shop owners are excited to see a breakthrough product now on the market. About 20 ski shops across the United States are now carrying the Envy Ski Boot Frame. ES: What would you say to traditionalists out there who might be skeptical of the product? CS: Today, with wider skis and better-quality snowboard boots we can step away from traditional products and try new ones. The Ski Boot Frame’s unique construction provides the hard-plastic type support while the snowboard boot brings the warmth and comfort to your feet. The stiffness of the aluminum base in combination with the plastic calf support mimics that of plastic boots. This also provides more advanced skiers the ski tip control and edge feel they are accustomed to. ES: Who would benefit most from using your product/who’s your target market? Skiers from beginners to experts who have cold, uncomfortable feet should try the Ski Boot Frame. If you have poor circulation, bunions, or prior foot injuries, the Ski Boot Frame might help you get back into skiing again. It can help you enjoy the sport for many more years. ES: Of the couple hundred units you sold last year, what kind of feedback have you heard? CS: People are naturally skeptical of new concepts — that is just human nature. Our first-time users are surprised by the ankle and foot support it provides. For most of them, they had no idea that snowboard boots are so comfortable. They are no longer dreading the walk to and from the parking lot. We’re hearing feedback that people are finally able to ski full days again for the first time in 15+ years, which is just awesome.
The Envy Ski Boot Frame is available to demo in 13 ski shops across New England. Visit EnvySnowSports.com for more details.
ENVY SNOW SPORTS
EnvySnowSports.com
COACH By Lisa Lynn
LIFE LESSONS FROM AN OLYMPIAN The Cochran family has produced two generations of World Cup and Olympic racers. Now, Olympic gold medalist and performance coach Barbara Ann Cochran shares her secrets to success.
Photo by Lisa Lynn
W
as it a coincidence that Richmond’s Mickey Cochran, a teacher, and his wife Ginny, managed to raise four kids who won multiple national championships and raced on the World Cup—and three who were Olympians? Those four skiers then produced offspring such as World Cup racers Jimmy Cochran, Robby and Tim Kelley, and current World Cup competitor Ryan Cochran-Siegle. Was it genes? Or was it something else? There are few greater dynasties in sport than the Cochran family. And while good genes may get handed down through the generations, in this case, there is something else. Spend an hour sitting in the simple base lodge at Cochran’s Ski Area in Richmond listening to any of the Cochran clan talk about their approach to skiing, to racing and to life, and a philosophy emerges that others have labeled The Cochran Way. If there was a keeper of that magic, or an evangelist for the Cochran Way, it’s Barbara Ann Cochran, 69. The second of Mickey and Ginny’s four kids, she grew up in her sister Marilyn’s shadow. “Marilyn was 11 months older than I was and as a kid she won everything—she even beat the boys,” Barbara Ann recalls as she sits at a wood picnic table at the ski area her nephew Jimmy now manages. Across the walls hang race bibs collected from races around the world. In 1972, both Marilyn and Barbara Ann went to the Olympics in Sapporo, Japan. Barbara Ann won the first run of the slalom.At the bottom, she learned that Marilyn had fallen. As doubt plagued Barbara Ann in the starting gate of her second run, she remembered what her father had told her one time at the World Championships: “I always thought you were the cool cucumber in the family. Now go out and do your best,” he said. “I’d never thought of myself as the ‘cool cucumber’ but from then on I did,” Barbara Ann says. Putting her doubts aside, she followed his advice. “I told myself that I could win just as well as anyone else.” She skied fast enough to win by a miniscule margin of 0.02 seconds and became the first American
A World Champion and Olympic gold medalist in slalom, Barbara Ann Cochran has learned a thing or two about what it takes to do your very best.
skier in 20 years to take home gold. “For most racers, winning is 98-percent mental,” she says. And as a coach, she likes to help everyone (from superstar Mikaela Shiffrin, to her own son,World Cup racer Ryan CochranSiegle to the 3- to 5-year-olds in her Ski Tots program at Cochran’s) achieve their best. What was your first memory of coaching or teaching? My dad had put up lights and a rope tow behind our farmhouse in Richmond and one day a couple in their 20s showed up from New York and wanted to learn. I offered to teach them—I think I was all of 11. After not making much progress, I ran in and asked my dad what to do. He said, “Sometimes you need to change the language. Instead of telling them what to do—as in ‘put all your weight on your downhill ski,’ he said, ‘Tell them the opposite, what not to do—as in unweight the uphill ski.’ I did and it taught me that when things are stuck, change the language. You talk about staying “cool as a cucumber.” How do you actually do that? There’s a cycle whereby you have a thought, then an emotion gets attached to the thought. Every single emotion affects your body
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COACH in a specific way—your heartbeat, your adrenaline, your breathing rate—and so you get a specific athletic response. The emotions you feel at the bottom of a race when you’ve had a great run are the same you want to be feeling at the top. I know athletes (and even Mikaela Shiffrin) who used to be so anxious they would throw up before a race. I tell them: ‘You don’t even want to think about the outcome of the race, you just want to think about doing your best.’ To practice, I ask athletes to circle words on a sheet describing their emotions at the start and at the finish of a race and then to try to keep those in mind. How do you change that mindset? Interestingly, there’s a book called “Mindset” by Carol Dweck that I recommend. It talks about two mindsets: a fixed mindset and a growth mindset. The fixed mindset is focused on the outcome. I look at my sister Marilyn and she definitely had a fixed mindset–she kept her focus on winning. Coming in second
to her meant losing. Me? I was always used to coming in second, or much worse, so I developed a growth mindset. What I was looking for was just to do the best I could and to improve.
Barbara Ann Cochran’s son, Ryan Cochran-Siegle, is currently one of the top-ranked Americans on the World Cup.
Ski season is here. A COPLEY HOSPITAL PRACTICE
And what does it take to be a winner? Honestly, so many of the top skiers have the same skills. They are all good and that’s why you see races won and lost by fractions of a second. What it takes is believing you can do it—and really wanting to do it. You need to tell yourself: ‘I’m willing to put my best effort into this. That’s all it is. I’m just going to try and do my best.’ So, it’s all about the effort—and it is effort. Dad taught us all to work hard if we wanted something. That’s the first thing. Then the second one is to build up your confidence. And that’s something that can come from repeating a simple statement like ‘I can do this’ and saying it until you believe it. And the third thing is trying to get yourself into those positive, high energy, pleasant emotions that bring out the best in you. Try saying something like ‘This is so much fun. I just love racing slalom,’ or whatever it is you are trying to do and see how that changes things. For more on Barbara Ann Cochran’s coaching (she speaks and works with individuals and groups, ski clubs and businesses) visit sportssuccesscoaching.com n
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RETRO VT HIGH TIMES AT SKI CLUB TEN In the 1960s the glitterati descended on Sugarbush and gave rise to one of the oldest, ongoing, on-mountain private ski clubs. By Candice White
I
away from the general public. Peter and his brother Hans, a former Harvard lacrosse team captain, collaborated with eight of their friends to form a private club just a short ski away from what is now the Spring Fling trail at Lincoln Peak. The club would be modeled after the private European ski clubs and called Ski Club Ten. There are differing accounts of who, exactly, were the founding ten members of Ski Club Ten. But First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis’s fashion designer Oleg
Sugarbush founders Damon and Sarah Gadd at Ski Club Ten (above) in the ’60s. The slopeside club and its A-list society members helped earn Sugarbush the nickname, ‘Mascara Mountain.’
Photos courtesy Sugarbush Resort
t was 1959, and Sugarbush was the place to ski in the East. New York City transplants Damon and Sara Gadd, along with 10th Mountain Division member Jack Murphy, had opened the mountain on Christmas Day of the previous year with a threeperson Carlevaro-Savio gondola (the first gondola in the U.S.), a T-bar, the Valley House Lodge, and a handful of ski trails. Former Dartmouth ski team member and Harriman Cup winner Peter Estin, a handsome Bostonian of Czechoslovakian origins, was running the Sugarbush Ski School. And all their beautiful and well-heeled friends from New York and Boston were driving to Warren, Vt., every weekend to ski. And to party. The Wunderbar—one of the first on-mountain après ski bars—was serving martinis and champagne to the Sugarbush crowd, but there was a desire for something more intimate. According to Alex Estin, Peter Estin’s niece, Peter wanted a club where he could hang out with friends
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Hans Estin, whose brother Peter ran the ski school, wearing his wife’s bikini Ski Club Ten’s infamous “Crossover” party, at right. Below, before founding Chez Henri, the slopeside bistro that’s still a must-stop dinner spot, Frenchman Henri Borel (toasting, above) managed Ski Club Ten.
Cassini recalls the club’s ten founders in his book “In My Own Fashion,” excerpted in a 1988 article in Snow Country magazine: “Together, Igor [Cassini’s brother] and I established a private club at the foot of the mountain. There were ten original incorporators, so we called it Ski Club Ten.” Cassini counts as founders he and his brother Igor, the gossip columnist known as Cholly Knickerbocker; Peter and Hans Estin; Henry J. Heinz II of the Heinz 57 Sauce fortune; Basil Goulandris, the Greek shipping and armaments tycoon; banker George Baker, Jr.; former U.S. Ski Team member Andrew Burden; Neil McConnell, heir to the Avon cosmetics fortune; and Michael Butler, producer of the Broadway musical “Hair.” In the early days, the club provided ten ski lockers, slopeside parking spaces, and a bar and restaurant on weekends and holidays. Frenchman Olivier Coquelin served
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as the club’s first manager, setting a precedent for serving gourmet food that lasts to this day. Members go on and on about the quality of the food, from the homemade soups and desserts to the salad bar and hamburgers for the children. “I remember that Mr. Heinz came one weekend and loved my ochre soup,” recalls Sigi Heslinger, who ran the club for 36 years, from 1969 to 2005. “We had homemade soup every day of the year.” The soup today holds to those same standards, as proven by a bowl of chicken and mushroom soup consumed at a recent Saturday lunch with Mike and Kerry Bisner, members for the last ten years. Mike recalls coming to the club for lunch as the guest of a friend, and meeting Hans Estin. “Hans asked me where I lived and I replied Manchester-by-the-Sea, in Massachusetts. Hans then asked me what street I lived on. When I replied, he asked me what number. It turned out that he and I were neighbors. Our properties touched, but we had never met. Hans turned around to another member and said ‘He’s in.’” That was the Bisner’s rather informal initiation to the club. Hans Estin was the unofficial membership director for 50 or so years. And while it was neither spoken nor written, wealth, beauty, and family name appear to have been, and continue to be, influential in the determination of whether someone is membership-worthy. But above all, as Alex Estin remembers, “In Dad’s mind, they had to be fun.” The club was cherished among members for its lunches and its parties. “New Year’s Eve was big,” recalls Heslinger, “but there was always a dispute about what music would be played.” Calcutta Night, held the night before the annual Ski Club Ten race, was another noteworthy event, where Hans Estin would create ski racing teams and auction them off to the members for betting.While the annual ski race continues, the Calcutta was abandoned years ago. Perhaps the most memorable event in the club’s history is the Crossover Party, where Hans Estin appeared wearing his wife’s bikini. Estin Park, an enclave of houses on Golf Course Road near the mountain, was the address of several founding members, including Hans and Peter Estin, Michael Butler, and the New York Pops conductor Skitch Henderson. Alex Estin recalls that her uncle originally lived in the “big house,” and Hans in the “smaller house,” until her uncle died unexpectedly in 1963, leaving the big house to Hans. Alex’s stepbrother now owns the smaller house. Cassini recalls in his memoir hosting many weekend guests, including Senator Ted Kennedy, Eunice and Sargent Shriver and Pat Lawford. Olivier Coquelin ran the club briefly, but left to develop night clubs and discotheques in New York City, including Le Club and Hippopotamus. Coquelin recruited his good friend Henri Borel, another Frenchman, who moved into the basement of the club with his pregnant wife Rosie and his infant daughter Francoise. “They built a small room for me. The furnace, water heater, everything was right
Photo courtesy Alex Estin/Sugarbush
RETRO VT
there in that room.” Borel managed the club for several years, continuing the French cuisine until Damon and Sara Gadd convinced him to open his own French restaurant, Chez Henri, in Sugarbush Village. Local photographer and videographer Charlie Brown also served as manager for several years. But Sigi Heslinger was the mainstay for over three decades. Heslinger ran a tight ship, and insisted on the adults having their own space, separate from the children. Annie Hall, whose father Herbert Tuckerman was a member and friend of Hans Estin, recalls spending time at the club as a teenager, disappointingly relegated to the kids’ room for those under 15. “We would make top-to-bottom runs off the gondola all day long. I would come there to get my hamburger, and then go out skiing again.” She continues, “There was not a lot of heavy skiing in the afternoon, more wine sipping and backgammon. And then that was followed by evenings at Orsini’s, with the whole lot swinging from the chandeliers. . .” That is another story. Lee Estin Cauro, Peter Estin’s daughter, recalls “a very good looking crowd—men, women and children,” as well as an ambiance infused with songs like “Guantanamera,” and others. Her sister Heidi has vivid memories of the redcheckered tablecloths and the sundeck where members, dressed in their posh ski sweaters, would lounge around getting suntans. Annie Hall’s daughter Sarah Weigle, and her family moved from Boston to the Mad River Valley and are current members. Weigle and her husband were there recently, enjoying some lunch and cocktails with friends after a morning of skiing. If Weigle is any indication, along with Sugarbush Wall of Fame inductee Darian Boyle and her mother Florence Boyle, the club’s reputation for beautiful members is very much intact. The club today is an unremarkable-looking house with hunter green siding and a plain red door displaying a brass sign that reads “Members Only.” The only other clue to the building’s identity is a round, white sign with the number ten floating in the middle of what resembles a green dancing sun with ten rays. The entryway offers a locker for each member, a long coat rack and a wall of hooks for ski helmets. The ten original lockers have been expanded to accommodate the now 85 member families. Several rooms lay beyond the entryway, a main dining room with an open bar and two smaller rooms to the side, one of which is still designated for children. Becoming a member of Ski Club Ten today seems to still be fairly low-key. The outdoor sun deck is still intact, perhaps more shaded now than it once was. On a recent winter, it hosted a group of about a dozen members who sprinkled the ashes of the club’s beloved leader Hans Estin over the side. Estin died in 2012 after a short illness. His daughter Alex,
unaware of this ceremony until very recently, had done the same thing, earlier. “I figured part of him needed to be there, as he spent much of his life there,” she said. Shortly before his death, Hans Estin passed the baton to long-standing member Clayton Cormier, who, along with his partner Brian Gurney, now oversees club events and membership. As I sat at the bar with Brian, both of us sipping a generous glass of Chardonnay, there was no mention of a plan to honor Ski Club Ten’s 60th anniversary this year. But the ski season is still young.There is still time to plan a raucous celebration to pay homage to the founders, the fun they had and the bikinis they sometimes wore. n
Today, Ski Club Ten is a low-key version of its former self, a lunch spot that’s popular with several generations of skiers.
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PHOTO: HUBERT SCHRIEBL
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THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR JANUARY 17 | Cider Pairing Dinner with Citizen Cider, Mount Snow Head to a five-course dinner with discussions about selected pairings, why they were chosen and how to pair your own ciders at 1900’ Burger. mountsnow.com 18 | TUCK IT! Fastest Skier & Rider in the East, Magic Mountain Skiers bomb the roughly 1,500-foot top-to-bottom run on the ski area’s face and are ranked by the speed at which they fly past the radar gun at the base. Last year’s winner clocked in at over 70 mph. There is a $1,000 cash prize. magicmtn.com 18 | Grand Opening of the T-Bar, Mt. Ascutney Ascutney Outdoors hosts a chili cookoff to celebrate the grand opening of its brand new T-bar. ascutneyoutdoors.org 18 | MLK Weekend Fireworks, Smugglers’ Notch Enjoy a bonfire, fireworks and a torchlight parade. smuggs.com 19 | Torchlight Parade and Fireworks, Mount Snow Ski and Snowboard School instructors descend the Canyon ski trail in a beautiful torchlit glow followed by a stunning fireworks display. Repeats Feb. 15. mountsnow.com 20 | Grommet Jam #2, Mount Snow The second in a series of three rail jam competitions for skiers and riders under 12 at Carinthia Parks. mountsnow.com 22 | Winter Wild at Magic Mountain, Londonderry Run, skin or snowshoe up the slopes to the summit of Magic Mountain Ski Area, then descend for a three-mile route with 1,450 feet of vertical gain. teamampactive.org 24 | Winter WonderGrass presents The Ghost of Paul Revere, Stratton Head to Grizzly’s for a night of live music from The Ghost of Paul Revere and special guests Saints and Liars. stratton.com 24 | 37th Annual Farmers’ Appreciation Day, Jay Peak Each Vermont farm is allowed three free lift tickets for Friday, January 24. jaypeakresort.com
26 | Split & Surfest with the Catamount Trail Association, Bolton Valley Bolton Valley Resort hosts a day of exploration in the backcountry on splitboards, with free demos, clinics, games, tours, food and beer. boltonvalley.com 26 | Fire on the Mountain Chicken Wing Challenge, Bromley Support Ski for Heat, a local fundraiser to support families in Southern Vermont with heating assistance. Finish your basket of specially-cooked super-hot wings in three minutes and Bromley will donate $25 to the cause. bromley.com 26 | 83rd FISK Trophy Race, Suicide Six The longest running ski race in North America is a rite of passage for serious Eastern ski racers. Notable past winners include Chip Knight, Jimmy Cochran and other Olympians and U.S. Ski Team members. suicide6.com 28 | Roll Back the Clock Day, Mad River Glen Celebrate Mad River Glen’s 71st anniversary with $3.50 lift tickets—the price they were on opening day in 1948. madriverglen.com 28-29 | Banff Mountain Film Festival, Lebanon, N.H. Rab, Banff and Lake Louise Tourism and Chestnut Mountain Productions present the Banff Mountain Film Festival World Tour. Different mountain adventure films screen each night with live music starting at 6:30 at the Lebanon Opera House. chestnutmtnproductions.com 31 | Onion River Outdoors Snowshoe Romp, Montpelier Join Onion River Outdoors for a candlelit snowshoe romp from Hubbard Park Old Shelter through the woods to a bonfire with hot chocolate. Bring a headlamp or flashlight. Snowshoes are available to rent and this event is free. onionriver.com 31 | Foam Beer Dinner, Sugarbush Sign up for a special dinner paired with Foam Beer at Allyn’s Lodge, atop Gadd Peak. Skin, hike or ride the limo cat to the event and enjoy a multi-course meal and then descend via skis in the moonlight or take the snocat to the base area for dessert and a final pairing at Rumble’s Bistro and Bar. sugarbush.com
FEBRUARY
24-26 | Craftsbury Super Tour & UVM Carnival & Eastern Cup, Craftsbury Common Enjoy a classic 10K mass start citizens’ race after the elite races. craftsbury.com
1 | Road to Ruin, Magic Mountain A Mad Dash group downhill race from the summit to the base. “A throwback to the classic ‘80’s ski movie Hot Dog,” all on double black diamonds. No style points, no gates but a $1,000 prize purse. Great after-party. magicmtn.com
24-26 | Smuggs Ice Bash, Smuggler’s Notch Winter’s biggest climbing event happens at Smugglers’ Notch and at Petra Cliffs in Burlington. Sign up for free gear demos, clinics, slideshows, talks, competitions, an epic dry tooling comp, a party and prizes. smuggsicebash.com
1 | Blauvelt’s Banks in Support of P.O.W., Bolton Valley Pro snowboarder Jake Blauvelt hosts a banked slalom event and day of celebrating all things snowboarding at Bolton Valley with all proceeds benefiting Protect Our Winters (P.O.W). boltonvalley.com
24-26 | USASA Southern Vermont Series—Slopestyle, Mount Snow Mount Snow hosts an epic event that draws serious park competition from around the region in snowboarding and freeskiing. mountsnow.com
1 | Vans Hi-Standard Series, Killington In this jam format competition, snowboarders can earn cash by throwing challenging tricks with style and control. Prizes awarded for worst bail, most improved and MVP of the day for both men and women. killington.com
25 | WinterFest, Cambridge Presented by the Cambridge Rotary Club, this free celebration of winter includes pie, free snowshoe or cross country rentals at Smugglers’ Notch Resort, mini snowmobiles, games at the community center, a lasagna dinner, skating, fireworks and more. smuggs.com 25 | Rikert Fatbike Roundup, Ripton Enjoy group rides and a game of fatbike polo at Rikert Nordic Center, followed by a beer garden and party. rikertnordic.com
1 | Walt’s After Dark, Sugarbush A moonlit skin or snowshoe up Mt. Ellen to the Glen House for dinner, followed by a ski or ride back. Repeats Feb. 8, 29, March 7, 14 and 21. sugarbush.com 1 | 5th Annual Snowshoe “Face Race,” Suicide Six A 1.5-mile race up “The Face,” a black diamond, and back down Easy Mile with 600 feet of elevation gain and a post-race party at Perley’s Pourhouse. suicide6.com
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THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR
1 | Intro to Trees and Bumps Telemark Clinic, Bromley Get comfortable skiing on ungroomed and uneven snow, charging moguls or ducking into the trees. bromley.com 1 | 3rd Annual Bromley Winter Games, Bromley Form a team of two and challenge your friends to determine who is the best cornhole duo on the mountain to win lift tickets. bromley.com 1 | 8th Annual Grafton Winter Carnival, Grafton Go tubing, skiing or snowshoeing with new demo equipment from Rossignol, Dion and Nevitrek snowshoes or take a sleigh ride at Grafton Outdoor Center. Grab food and beer at the Grafton Inn. graftoninnvermont.com/grafton-trails/ 1-2 | 2020 Marathon Ski Festival & National Masters Championships, Craftsbury The American National Masters Championships, along with the 39th Annual Craftsbury Marathon, with racing distances for Nordic skiers of 33k and 50k classic on Saturday, followed by 16k & 33k freestyle marathons on Sunday. craftsbury.com 3 | No Boundaries Ski Day, Magic Mountain No Boundaries is a nonprofit organization that works to make skiing and riding affordable to all. Ski or ride for free at Magic Mountain with live music from First Chair Travel Co., plus demos. Become a No Boundaries member to ski for free. skinoboundaries.com/free-day 6-7 | Onion River Outdoors and East Coast Avalanche Avalanche Level 1, Montpelier Learn a how to interpret an avalanche forecast, use snowpack tests and conduct a companion rescue, among other skills. Includes two days of real-time training in the field in Smugglers’ Notch. eastcoastavalancheeducation.com 7 | 17th Annual Mom’s Day Off, Bromley Show a picture of your kids at the ticket window and ski or ride Bromley all day for a $25 donation to the Southwestern Vermont Regional Cancer Center. bromley.com 8 | Lawson’s Finest Beer Lover’s Dinner and Full Moon Snowshoe, Mad River Glen Join brewer and naturalist Sean Lawson for a full moon snowshoe followed by a dinner paired with Lawson’s Finest brews. madriverglen.com 8 | Tour de Moon with Outdoor Gear Exchange, Sugarbush Join guides from OGE for a snowshoe or skin up Mt. Ellen to the Glen House for dinner and beverages, followed by an exciting night ski or ride to the base. Repeats Feb. 29, March 7, 21 & 28. sugarbush.com 8 | Weston Backcountry & Parlor Skis Demo Day, Sugarbush Try some of the splitboards and skis at Mt. Ellen. sugarbush.com 8 | Ski to Defeat ALS Day, Jay Peak The third annual fundraiser with live music from 4-7 p.m. jaypeakresort.com 8 | Women Only Telemark Ski Clinic, Mad River Glen Learn to telemark or hone your skills on Mad River Glen’s legendary terrain at this clinic for women, coached by women. Repeats March 14. madriverglen.com 8 | Babes in the Woods, Bolton Valley Backcountry touring clinics for women skiers and riders of all abilities hosted by women guides (including Bolton Valley’s President, Lindsay DesLauriers, Ski Patrol Director Kaitlyn Fowle and Skida founder Corinne Prevot). boltonvalley.com 8 | Mini Shred Madness, Killington A fun rail jam for groms ages 13 and under. The perfect place to get a feel for what skiing and riding in the park is all about in a light competition setting. killington.com
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8-9 | Wounded Military Heroes Weekend, Bromley Mountain A weekend dedicated to veterans who have been wounded in action, giving them the opportunity to ski or snowboard with professional instructors, followed by a reception in the base lodge. bartadaptive.org/wounded-military-heroes-weekend.html 9 | The SoPo Ranch Slopestyle Contest, Suicide Six A friendly jam-format contest for kids to celebrate the new SoPo Terrain Park. suicide6.com 9 | 11th Annual Sweetheart Nordic Ski Race, Suicide Six Join in for a fun race on the nordic trails at Woodstock, with a Zak Cup Race as part of NENSA’s annual Nordic race series and an event for youth racers. suicide6.com 14 | Cloud Nine Nuptials, Mount Snow Celebrate Valentine’s Day at Mount Snow by renewing your vows (or getting married) on the mountain at the top of Cloud Nine. mountsnow.com 14 | Valentine’s Day at Smugglers’ Notch Purchase one full-day adult lift ticket and receive a second free with a chocolate from Lake Champlain Chocolates. smuggs.com 14 | Glow Tubing, Killington From 4-7 p.m. the tubing park will transform into an all-out laser light, glow sticking, glow in the dark party. Tube fast downhill in the middle of it. killington.com 14 | Beer Pairing Dinner with Allagash Brewing, Mount Snow Kick off Presidents’ Day Weekend with a five-course meal with each course paired with a beer. mountsnow.com 14 | Bromley Season Passholder Appreciation Day, Bromley Lifts spin for passholders at 7:30 a.m. with a complimentary cocoa or coffee break and snacks from 8:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. in the base lodge. Apres party starts at 4 p.m., with a complimentary buffet and a meet-and-greet with managers. bromley.com 14 | The Sun, Peru Head to Bromley Mountain for this USSMA-sanctioned skimo race, the sixth in the NE Rando Race Series. Expect a three-circuit competitive race and a shorter recreational option. nerandorance.blogspot.com 14 | Beer Pairing with Allagash Brewing Company, Mount Snow A five-course meal at 1900’ Burger featuring conversations with the chef and specially tailored beer pairings. mountsnow.com 14 | Valentine’s Day Special, Smugglers’ Notch Purchase one full-day adult 3 Mountain Ticket at Smugglers’ Notch and get one Full Day Ticket free, plus a Lake Champlain Chocolate. smuggs.com 15 | Winterfest, Northeast Slopes Live music, a cook-out with wood-fired pizza, free rides in a horse-drawn sleigh, fun activities for kids and adults and old-school skiing with a fun vibe. northeastslopes.org 15 | The Great Uphill-Downhill Race, Northeast Slopes Northeast Slopes hosts a longstanding annual tradition—a slalom race that starts with competitors riding the rope tow uphill to the ski area’s summit, then racing as fast as possible to the bottom on the main slope to the base area. northeastslopes.org 15 | February Festival and Fireworks, Bromley Bromley hosts a day of celebration followed by a torchlight parade and fireworks around 7 p.m. bromley.com
15 | Gathering of the Groms, Sugarbush Introduction to freestyle skiing and snowboarding for groms age 13 & under. Groms gather at the Lincoln Base area/Repeats Feb. 29 sugarbush.com 15 | President’s Weekend Torchlight Parade & Dance, Suicide Six Suicide Six employees participate in a torchlight parade down the mountain’s slopes followed by dancing in the lodge for kids and adults alike. suicide6.com 15 | Legacy Ski Club Race, Mad River Glen Mad River Glen’s historic ski clubs come together to compete toe to toe on the Practice Slope for bragging rights in this epic day of fun ski racing. madriverglen.com 15 | Vertical Challenge, Bolton Valley A day of family-friendly, recreational racing, prizes and giveaways. boltonvalley.com 15-16 | Harris Hill Ski Jump, Brattleboro Join thousands and watch some of the world’s top ski jumpers shoot at speeds of over 60 mph to jump more than 300 feet in the air at New England’s only Olympic-size venue, with food and live music, a bonfire and tailgating. harrishillskijump.com 16 | Great American Shovel Race, Magic Mountain Grab your shovel (or borrow one of a limited number of loaners) and race for the best time of two runs on the tubing slopes. magicmtn.com 16 | Winter Carnival and Duct Tape Derby, Hard’Ack, St. Albans A duct tape derby with awards for the most creative design, but all sleds must be homemade from only duct tape and carboard boxes. Catch live music at the base while competitors race down the main face. stalbansvt.myrec.com 16 | Never Summer Demo, Smugglers’ Notch Demo splitboards and snowboards on the mountain from 8:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. at Smugglers’ Notch. Repeats March 21. smuggs.com 16 | Troy Wunderle’s Circus Workshop, Bromley Local instructor Troy Wunderle leads a two-hour workshop in circus performance for kids and families at Bromley Mountain. bromley.com 16 | Raptor Encounter, Killington Vermont Institute of Natural Science offers two free programs for families where kids can see and meet live birds of prey from falcons to hawks and owls, and learn about their role in Vermont’s mountain ecosystems. killington.com 17 | Merck Forest & Farmland Maple Sugaring Event, Bromley Merck Forest staff members teach kids about maple sugaring in Vermont with a series of interactive stations featuring maple traditions (with storytelling puppets), a memory game, hands-on “tree” tapping and more. bromley.com 17 | Grommet Jam Finals, Mount Snow The third and final competition in this fun series for skiers and riders 12 and under. mountsnow.com 17 | Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Social, Killington Head to Snowshed or Ramshead Base Lodge for FREE ice cream from 3-4 p.m. as supplies last. killington.com
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17 | Winter Carnival, Brattleboro Head to the Brattleboro Ski Hill at Living Memorial Park for a day of skiing in costumes, live music and wholesome fun. brattleborowintercarnival.org
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THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR
17 | North East Ski Company Demo Day, Mad River Glen Demo skis from a boutique up-and-coming ski manufacturer that designs gear specifically for the conditions found on the East Coast. madriverglen.com
22-23 | 35th Annual Kare Andersen Telemark Festival, Bromley Rip it up with some of the best telemark skiers in the East, with a weekend of clinics and instruction, racing and more. bromley.com
18 | Naturalist Snowshoe Tour, Burke Take a guided snowshoe hike at Dashney Nordic Center and learn about the ecology of the forest with Northwoods staff. Repeats Jan. 19 and March 15. skiburke.com
23 | 75th Annual Stowe Derby, Stowe This historic classic returns, sending skiers on Nordic or skate skis on a course that often descends from the top of the Toll Road nearly 13 miles into the town of Stowe. There’s also a fat bike division and prizes for the Derby Meister. mmsca.org
18 | Mr. Twisty Free Magic Show, Mount Snow A fun, free magic show at the Snow Barn. mountsnow.com 18 | Allyn’s Lodge Remote Fireside Dining Series, Sugarbush A fireside dinner at Allyn’s Lodge at Sugarbush, with a multi-course meal and wine and beer. Skin to the cabin or take the snowcat. Repeats Feb. 20. sugarbush.com 21 | Après Relay, Mount Snow Compete in an epic four-person relay race with four legs that include a fatbike ride, a snowshoe dash, a team pull of an inflatable kayak up a slope (with a ride down) and mandatory corn hole toss at the finish. mountsnow.com 21-23 | Subaru Winterfest, Killington Get Subaru swag, free snacks, beverages, daily giveaways, gear demos, dog activities and a live concert series at Bear Mountain. killington.com 22 | Ski Prom, Bolton Valley Dress up for prom and go wild for a fun-filled day of live music in the James Moore Tavern and a throwback prom party on the mountain, all day. boltonvalley.com 22 | USASA Northern Vermont Race Series, Bolton Valley A fun day of family-friendly slalom and giant slalom races with day-of registration. This race series is fun with a little bit of competition tossed in. boltonvalley.com 22 | Rockefeller Challenge, Mad River Glen Tuck down the Practice Slope and up Rockefellers to see how far and how fast you can go. The trick? A combination of technique, aerodynamics, bulk, waxing and a lot of luck. madriverglen.com 22 | Parlor Ski Demo Day, Sugarbush Try the latest t high-end sticks for free for East Coast skiing. sugarbush.com 22 | Mardi Gras, Mount Snow Catch live music from the funk band Krewe Les Gras on Cuzzins Deck Stage plus High and Mighty Brass Band at the Snow Barn. There are $12,000 in giveaways in lift lines, lodges and parties all day. mountsnow.com 22 | 10th Annual Sugarbush Dog Parade, Sugarbush Bring your pup to this costume contest and dog parade to benefit the Pawsitive Pantry. sugarbush.com 22 | Protect Our Winters Open Forum, Sugarbush Sugarbush hosts a public forum about climate change and related issues. Representatives from POW will be present. sugarbush.com 22 | Winterbike 2020, East Burke Demo fatbikes, participate in group rides, attend clinics and more at this epic celebration of all things fatbiking on the trails of Kingdom Trails. kingdomtrails.org 22-23 | Smugglers’ Notch X Weston Demo, Jeffersonville Demo Weston’s snowboards, splitboards and skis at Smuggs. smuggs.com
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23 | The Box Race, East Corinth Head to Northeast Slopes for the annual cardboard box race, where teams of competitors ride down the main slope in homemade sleds made of cardboard, glue, tape and wax (only cardboard and wax may touch the snow). It’s a great spectator event, with a barbecue at the base lodge. northeastslopes.org 23 | Blue Cross Blue Shield Snow Day, Bolton Valley Blue Cross Blue Shield offers a free day of cross-country skiing or snowshoeing at Bolton Valley. Rentals are free to the first-come. bcbsvt.com/snowdays 25 | Pico Mountain Takeover, Pico TRIP has booked Pico Mountain for a day of skiing and riding only open to those who purchase a $49 lift ticket. After they recoup their rental costs, all further ticket proceeds will go to Vermont Adaptive. pico-takeover.ridj-it.com 26 | Taste of the Kingdom, Jay Peak Sample small plates prepared by the region’s top chefs and food producers, along with a selection of fine wines, desserts and craft beer and cider. Evening includes a silent auction, benefitting Green Mountain Farm-to-School. jaypeakresort.com 28 | International Skiing History Association Day, Mad River Glen A presentation about the history of skiing in the Mad River Valley. madriverglen.com 28 | 3rd Annual Pico Hiko Splitfest, Pico Mountain From beginners to seasoned split veterans, check out demos, clinics, tours and more to get you into the backcountry and meet other splitboarders. picomountain.com 28 | USASA Night Rail Jam, Bolton Valley Bolton hosts a fun-filled evening of family-friendly park laps under the lights with a friendly competition open to walk-on skiers and riders. boltonvalley.com 29 | Parlor Skis Demo Day, Mad River Glen Test the latest Parlor Skis for free on serious East Coast terrain. madriverglen.com 29 | Abe-BERM-Ham’s Fat Bike Slalom, Suicide Six A fat bike banked slalom three-quarter-mile downhill race that is on a course mellow enough for groms but challenging enough for experienced riders. Celebrate afterward with an outdoor beer garden and food. suicide6.com 29 | Extreme Challenge, Smuggler’s Notch The Smugglers’ Notch Ski & Snowboard club hosts a freeskiing and freeriding competition on Lift Line. Open to adults and juniors. smuggs.com 29 | Tour de Moon with Outdoor Gear Exchange, Mt. Ellen Sugarbush and Outdoor Gear Exchange host a moonlit skin or snowshoe up to the Glen House for dinner and drinks, followed by a ski or snowboard back down. Repeats March 21. sugarbush.com
RACE ON MT. WASHINGTON
SKI, SHOE & FATBIKE TO THE CLOUDS 29 | 3rd Annual Split the Peak, Jay Peak For $25, enjoy demos of splitboarding and alpine ski touring gear from Lynx Mountain Guides, Never Summer Snowboards, Jones Snowboards, Parlor Skis and Black Diamond Equipment. jaypeakresort.com
March 8, 2020 10 AM Start
GreatGlenTrails.com Register online
MARCH 1 | Upper Valley Hawks Special Olympics, Suicide Six Supported by Vermont Special Olympics, this day of multiple races and events is great for spectators and athletes alike. suicide6.com 1 | Molly Rail Jam, Smuggler’s Notch A rail jam and fundraiser where you dress in pink and enjoy a potluck. smuggs.com
NORTH AMERICA'S TOUGHEST 10K! Choose the skiing, snowshoeing or fatbiking category
1 | Jack Jump World Championships, Mount Snow Dual slalom race for the best time. Speed, great racing and great crashes await those brave enough to race down the slopes on homemade sleds. mountsnow.com 1 | High Fives FAT Ski-a-Thon, Sugarbush Support athletes who have sustained life-altering injuries by completing as many runs as possible at Lincoln Peak on the Valley House Lift. sugarbush.com 1 | Hope on the Slopes, Jay Peak Partake in an all-day vertical challenge to raise awareness and proceeds for the American Cancer Society at Jay Peak. jaypeakresort.com 1 | USASA Northern Vermont Slopestyle Series, Sugarbush Test your park skills and compete with your friends a the 2020 USASA NVT Slopestyle Series at Sugarbush’s Mt. Ellen. sugarbush.com
All races start with 4 km of scenic trails, and then climb 6 km on the legendary Mt. Washington Auto Road
10TH ANNUAL HOPE ON THE SLOPES Après Ski Party: Saturday, February 29th Main Event: Sunday, March 1st all events take place at
3 | Town Meeting Day Slalom, Cochran’s, Richmond A panel slalom for U10 boys and girls in the Northern Vermont Council. The race was started by Cochran’s co-founder Ginny Cochran in the 1980s. cochranskiarea.com
CONNECT AT & HOTSJAYPEAK.ORG
3 | John Kearns Memorial Town Meeting Day Slalom, Mad River Glen Vermont school kids ski for free all day at Mad River Glen. Catch the annual Mad River Ski Club alpine race. madriverglen.com 5 | Lawson’s Finest Beer Dinner, Sugarbush Hosts Sean and Karen Lawson of Lawson’s Finest Liquids host a dinner with speciallypaired beers, even new releases. Ride the Lincoln Limo Cabin Cat or skin/hike up to Allyn’s lodge, then ski down in the moonlight. sugarbush.com 6-8 | 7th Annual Slash & Berm Banked Slalom, Killington A banked slalom just for snowboarders, this event is almost as fun to watch as it is to participate in. Friday race by invitation only. Saturday open to all. killington.com 7 | 2020-2021 Demo Day, Stratton Mountain Resort Test the latest ski and ride gear for 2020-2021. stratton.com 7 | Ski for MS Vertical Challenge, Stratton Raise funds for Multiple Sclerosis research and relief as you join a national effort to ski 5 million feet across seven ski mountains and raise $250,000. Stratton’s crew is aiming for 450,000 vertical feet of skiing on this day. stratton.com 7 | March Madness, Brattleboro Brattleboro Ski Hill hosts a themed costume party on the slopes with a bonfire at the base and a costume contest. vtsnowsports.org
HOPE ON THE SLOPES is a one of a kind experience for individuals & teams to enjoy indoor & outdoor fun. All age & ability levels are welcome. Buffet dinner, live music, awards ceremony & more included with registration!
Join hundreds of supporters bringing the community together to remember loved ones lost, honor survivors of all cancers, & raise money to help the American Cancer Society attack cancer from every angle with lifesaving cancer research, free services and programs.
Register online to join TOP OF VT this March! Discover the Jay Peak Region at topofvt.com
For cancer information, local resources, and support, day or night call 1.800.227.2345 or visit cancer.org
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THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR
7 | Master of the Mountain Extreme Biathlon, Magic Mountain Skiers and riders get one extreme run down all of Black Line, with the first half of the course set up as an extreme ski competition and the second half a giant slalom. The fastest time wins, with time deducted for freeski scoring/points. magicmtn.com
13-15 | The 8th Annual Vermont Open, Stratton A celebration of the beginning of snowboarding and its progress since, the Vermont Open invites snowboarders of all ages to ride, party and compete for a $20,000 prize purse. stratton.com
7 | Vertical Challenge, Suicide Six One of a series of free casual ski and snowboard races held at ski resorts across the Northeast each winter. Skiers and snowboarders are divided by age to compete for medals in a festival-style day of racing. skiverticalchallenge.com
14 | 1st Annual Grafton Fatbike Bash, Grafton Trails & Outdoor Center “Ride a Fatty for St. Paddy.” Check out youth activities, skill clinics in fatbiking, a fatbike rodeo and awesome bike demos. graftoninnvermont.com/grafton-trails/
7 | Ryan Hawks Memorial IFSA National/FWQ2 Competition, Mad River Glen A two-day IFSA-sanctioned event. All ages can test their mettle as part of the Ski the East Freeride Tour. A benefit for the Flyin’ Ryan Foundation. madriverglen.com 7 | Down Rails & Double Kinks, Mt. Ellen Meet at the base of the Sunshine Quad at noon and ski a fresh setup with no practice, no qualifiers, no pressure and a lot of fun. There will be three categories of challenges with gear prizes from sponsors and a focus on rail tricks. sugarbush.com 7 | Learning Zone Challenge, Bromley Beginner skiers and riders can participate in this fun obstacle course. Test your skills and maneuver through the obstacles in the learning zone. Each participant receives cocoa, a cookie and a Bromley sticker. bromley.com 8 | 2nd Annual Pro Dual Race, Cochran’s Richmond A non-traditional dual race with single poles, including hairpins and flushes. Race for prize money on a dual slalom course. cochranskiarea.com 8 | Vertical Challenge, Bromley Bromley Mountain hosts a free, fun race event for all ages and abilities—the finale in a season-long series across resorts in the Northeast. This race is the last chance to qualify for the national championships. bromley.com 8 | Ski, Shoe & Fatbike to the Clouds, Gorham, N.H. Long referred to as North American’s Toughest 10k, this race challenges participants to cover 4k on Great Glen Trails’ Nordic system, followed by a 6k climb with an average 12% grade up the snow-covered Mt. Washington Auto Road. Open to Nordic skiers, fatbikers and snowshoers. greatglentrails.co/ski-shoe-fatbike 8 | Antique Ski Race, Suicide Six Don your wooden skis, bamboo poles and pine tar for a 5k tour on the picturesque trails and carriage roads in Billings-Rockefeller Park. Awards given for best vintage gear and vest vintage outfit, with a pancake brunch at the end of the race. Skis must predate 1990. suicide6.com 10 | Sugar Moon Naturalist Snowshoe Tour, Burke Take a guided tour with a naturalist from Northwoods Stewardship Center at Dashney Nordic Center in the moonlight. Be sure to bring a headlamp, as this is a nighttime tour. skiburke.com 13 | Rope-a-Thon at Cochran’s, Richmond This annual fundraiser challenges each skier to ski as many individual runs as they can, with the collective goal of skiing 2,000,000 vertical feet in a day to raise over $75,000. Beer, catered dinner, live music at the lodge to follow. cochranskiarea.com 13 | Ski & Ride with the Point, Sugarbush Get 50% off the cost of a full day lift ticket with your Ski & Ride with the Point button and coupon book. sugarbush.com
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14 | 5th Annual Sidesurfers Banked Slalom, Sugarbush Sidesurfers and Sugarbush’s Park teams will create an exciting track with turns, berms, bumps, jumps and technical aspects. sugarbush.com 14 | 23rd Annual Castlerock Extreme Junior, Sugarbush Talented young shredders 14 & under are invited to compete in a freeski competition on a highly challenging and technical trail. sugarbush.com 14-15 | Castlerock Extreme, Sugarbush Expert skiers and riders 15 and older are invited to charge the cliffs and drops of Sugarbush’s toughest terrain in the 23rd annual Castlerock Extreme. sugarbush.com 15 | Burke Mountain Bridal Expo, Burke Planning a wedding? See vendors, etc. at the Burke Mountain Hotel Ballroom. All brides plus four are free with pre-registration. skiburke.com 15 | St. Patrick’s Day Scavenger Hunt and Festivities, Bromley Search Bromley Mountain for a pot o’ gold that contains a 2020/2021 season pass. bromley.com 17 | St. Patrick’s Day, Mount Snow Ski for $17 all day followed by live music on Cuzzins Deck Stage. mountsnow.com 17 | Free Skiing and Riding for Leprechauns, Burke Come dressed wearing your best leprechaun costume this St. Patrick’s Day and get a free lift ticket from guest services. skiburke.com 20-22 | Bud Light Reggaefest, Mount Snow Live reggae music at the Base and Snow Barn. Catch Dub Side of the Moon, Easy All-Stars, Radiodread, Lonely Hearts Dub Band, Thrillah and Giant Panda Guerilla Dub Squad. Plus, Tropidelic and The Big Takeover. mountsnow.com 21 | The Spring Splash Featuring the Southern Vermont Penguin Plunge, Bromley Raise funds for Special Olympics Vermont and take the plunge into Bromley’s icy pond in your best costume. There will be food, beer and an after-party. bromley.com 21 | Bud Light Sink or Swim Pond Skim, Mount Snow Can you make it across Mount Snow’s 100-foot, icy-cold pond? Grab your best costume and try for a chance to win a 2020/2021 season’s pass. mountsnow.com 21 | 3rd Annual Vermont Brewers Festival, Killington The Vermont Brewers Association brings an outdoor, winter-themed beer festival to Killington Mountain Resort, with firepits and live music, food trucks and tastings from Vermont and regional breweries. killington.com 21 | 8th Annual 24 Hours of Stratton, Stratton Stratton Mountain lights its trails for one night only so that skiers and riders can ski around the clock. There are also live music, fireworks and more. stratton.com
LET THE ADVENTURE BEGIN WITH UMIAK OUTDOOR OUTFITTERS
21-22 | Island Week, Sugarbush Celebrate spring skiing with live reggae music, island cuisine and drink specials, tiki bars, live après music, hula dancing, Hawaiian shirts and more. sugarbush.com 21-23 | Mad River Glen Triple Crown competition, Mad River Glen Compete for the title of Mad River Glen’s best skier in three events: the Unconventional Terrain Competition (a big mountain freeskiing competition), the Mogul Challenge and the Vertical Challenge—to see who can ski the most vertical feet under the Single Chair in a day. All three are in one weekend this year. madriverglen.com 22 | Duct Tape Derby, Mount Snow Build a craft of cardboard with nothing but duct tape, zip ties and paint, then race it down the slopes in front of a cheering crowd. mountsnow.com
ROXA 22 DESIGNS VOILE MADSHUS ROSSIGNOL DYNASTAR K2 G3 SCOTT SCARPA FISCHER OUTDOOR RESEARCH MAMMUT TUBBS
RENTALS SALES TOURS
27 | Beer Pairing Dinner with Four Quarters Brewing, Mount Snow Mount Snow’s 1900’ Burger hosts a five-course dinner with each course paired with a beer. Enjoy lessons and conversations about food and drink with the chef. mountsnow.com 28 | Thank God for Snow Making Race at Cochran’s, Richmond A slalom race to celebrate the new snowmaking system. cochransskiarea.com
WWW.UMIAK.COM
28 | Burke Mountain Annual Pond Skim (Prom), Burke Bring out your best costume or prom attire and try to skim your way across Burke Mountain’s pond to a barbecue and beer garden. Celebrate with an after-party in the lodge. skiburke.com 28 | Vertical Challenge Finals, Jay Peak A fun alpine ski race for all at Jay Peak followed by awards and a party. jaypeak.com 28 | Friendly Freeski Challenge, Smuggler’s Notch Skiers and riders compete by age to be judged to have taken the most memorable run on Madonna/Lower Lift Line. Potluck and award ceremony after. smuggs.com
W H E R E VE R M O N T E ATS P I Z Z A W H E R E VE R M O N T E ATS P I Z Z A
28 | 25th Annual BrewFest Part 2, Smuggler’s Notch Sample local ciders, beers and more from breweries across the state. smuggs.com 28 | The First Annual Sidehit Seance, Sugarbush The Sugarbush Parks Team, Snowboy Productions and Rome Snowboards put on a wild snowboarding event at Mt. Ellen. sugarbush.com 28 | 12th Annual Winter Brewers’ Festival, Mount Snow Celebrate spring, live music and beer. After-party at Snow Barn with Four Sticks. mountsnow.com 28 | Blast from the Past, Smuggler’s Notch Skiers 21 & older bash gates and relive their glory days with a qualifying GS race course followed by a pro-style, dual slalom course for the top competitors. Hamburgers, hotdogs and beverages are also included. smuggs.com 28 | Spring Fling and Pond Skim, Stratton Attempt to skim Stratton’s pond with a competition for the best costume, best crash and more. Wear your best outfit and show off your goggle tan. stratton.com 28 | Marchdi Gras Winterfest, Stratton Celebrate Mardi Gras with live music following the pond skim, an oyster bar, fireside yoga and an ice luge shot on the deck of the main lodge. stratton.com
ORDER ORDER ONLINE ORDER ONLINE ONLINE
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vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 77
THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR Presents
New Season Starting September 19 VERMONT SPECIALTY FOOD DAYS
Monthly
Red Bench
Each winter, Ski Vermont brings some of the state’s top food and drink makers to ski areas across Vermont. The tour highlights the unique products, people and ingredients that make food culture such a big part of skiing here. On these days, you can wander through a wonderland of samples of everything from hard cider to handcrafted chocolates and cheeses. skivermont. com/sfd-tour
Speaker’s Series
Topics Relevant to Todayʼs Skiers and Riders For More Info: www.vtssm.org/news-events
January 24: Jay Peak Resort | January 25: Burke Mountain January 28: Mad River Glen | February 8: Killington Resort February 9: Pico Mountain | February 15: The Quechee Club February 18: Smugglers’ Notch Resort | February 22: Bromley Mountain Resort | February 22: Okemo Mountain Resort February 28: Middlebury Snow Bowl | March 7: Trapp Family Lodge March 8: Magic Mountain | March 14: Stratton Mountain Resort March 15: Mount Snow | March 21: Sugarbush Resort March 22: Bolton Valley Resort
1 South Main St. Stowe, VT 05672
Presented by
29 | The Bud Light Glade-iator Challenge, Mount Snow This epic mogul skiing contest takes competitors down Ripcord. Racers are judged based on time, form, line, aerial maneuvers off one of two jumps. mountsnow.com
APRIL Feb. 15–16 Sat. & Sunday
10:00 AM Gates open
Brattleboro, VT
12:15 PM Competition begins
Adults, $20 Youth 6-12, $15 Under 6 Free
Exit 2 off I-91, follow signs
11:30 AM Opening ceremonies
To purchase tickets: HarrisHillSkiJump.com/tickets
3 | Wall of Fame Celebration Ceremony, Sugarbush Celebrate the local legends who make the mountain what it is with an induction ceremony for the 2020 Wall of Fame. sugarbush.com 4 | 40th Annual George Syrovatka Ski Race, Jay Peak A dual slalom for both skiers and snowboarders with age categories, followed by awards and raffle to benefit the fight against leukemia. jaypeakresort.com 4 | 10th Annual Pond Skimming, Smuggler’s Notch Smugglers’ Notch hosts a wild event on the Sterling Mountain Practice Slope in the Zone Terrain Park. Prizes are awarded for best costume. smuggs.com 4 | Pond Skim at Lincoln Peak, Sugarbush Try to skim across a 120-foot pond at Sugarbush’s base area. Awards for best costume, style and splash. Keep an eye out for owner Win Smith. sugarbush.com 4 | Nor’Beaster Bud Light Bear Mountain Mogul Challenge, Killington Amateur bumpers take to the slopes of Outer Limits to battle for a place in the finals. This race is open to skiers only, and is followed by live music outside the lodge. killington.com 4 | 2nd Annual Pond Skimming Extravaganza, Mad River Glen Head to the Practice Slope and test yourself against the pond. Costumes are highly encouraged at this fun and surprisingly competitive, yet raucous event for skiers of all ages. madriverglen.com 4 | Slush Cup and Splash for Cash, Okemo Okemo Mountain Resort hosts its annual pond skim event, with prizes and awards for the best splash and more. okemo.com
78 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
5 | Nordic Cross, Cochran’s Richmond A citizen’s Nordic Ski Cross Race for all ages. Banked turns, gates and rolles, hilarious antics and lots of fun. Costumes are highly encouraged. Free pancakes served with Cochran’s maple syrup. cochransskiarea.com 10-11 | WonderGrass Presents Sugar & Strings, Stratton Catch live music from more than 10 bands and sample from a dozen local and regional craft breweries over two days at this family-friendly festival. stratton.com 11 | Nor’Beaster Bud Light Dazed & Defrosted, Killington Celebrate spring with soft bumps, cold brews, on-snow demos and great live music. Bring out your finest old-school spring skiing attire. killington.com 12 | Sunrise Service and Easter Egg Hunt, Jay Peak Head to the summit of Jay Peak for the annual Easter Sunrise service. Ski or ride down to the base or take the tram back down. Then celebrate with an Easter Egg hunt at noon at the Pumphouse Water Park. jaypeakresort.com 12 | Easter Festivities, Mad River Glen Mountaintop service on the summit of General Stark begins at 8 a.m., followed by two on-mountain Easter Egg hunts, a chicken barbecue and the Easter Costume Parade at the base area. madriverglen.com 18 | Annual Pond Skimming, Jay Peak Get wet and wild at Jay Peak’s annual pond skim. Costumes are encouraged and prizes will be awarded for best run, best costume, best bail and best splash. jaypeakresort.com 18 | Annual Pump House Beach Party, Jay Peak Break out your sandals and sunblock and head to the Pump House Indoor Waterpark to ring in the spring ski and snowboard season with live music by the High Breaks, games and giveaways. jaypeakresort.com
MAY 1 | Nor’Beaster May Day Slalom, Killington Show off your spring skiing with a fun but competitive spring slalom to a deck party at the Umbrella Bar. killington.com 22-24 | Total Archery Challenge, Killington Yeti Total Archery Challenge fueled by MTN OPS is coming to Killington and Pico to host a three-day outdoor archery experience. With courses and competitions for kids and adults, this is a fun outdoor weekend of on-mountain archery. killington.com
STAY TO STAY WEEKENDS Curious about making Vermont your permanent home? The Vermont Department of Tourism & Marketing is here to help. If you’re curious about employers, lifestyle, or Vermont’s mountain communities, check out one of these Stay to Stay Weekends. You’ll meet prospective employers, local leaders, realtors, neighbors and more importantly, see some of the best ski areas around the state. vermontvacation.com/stay-to-stay
Winterbike
FATBIKE FEST AT KINGDOM TRAILS FEB 22ND, EAST BURKE, VT
Jay Peak Resort: Dec. 13-16 | Bromley Mountain: Feb. 21-24 | Mount Snow: Feb. 21-24 | Killington Grand Resort: March 13-15
BUY TIX AT KINGDOMTRAILS.ORG
vtskiandride.com Winter 2020 79
DRINK VT
The Green Mountain State is home to some of the best breweries, wineries, cideries and distilleries in the world. And most invite you to stop by their pubs, restaurants and production houses for a tour and to sample their goods. 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 802528-5988 | 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. Find your favorite 14th Star brews in our Brewery Taproom (open Tues.-Sun.) 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. 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 Sun.-Thurs.12-8; Fri. & Sat. 12-9
Join us at our distillery and bar overlooking the Winooski River in downtown Montpelier for a cocktail, free spirits tasting, and distillery tour. 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
FIND MAPS AND MORE AT
vtskiandride.com/drink-vermont
Open daily 9-5. July-Nov.
Rt 100 Waterbury Center, VT 802-244-8771 | coldhollow.com
Visit us in Shoreham 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.
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.
Open seven days a week.
610 Route 7, Middlebury, VT 802-989-7414 | dropinbrewing.com
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.
6308 Shelburne Rd, (Rte. 7)Shelburne, VT 802-985-8222 | shelburnevineyard.com Open daily, 11-5 Nov.-Ap.r; 11-6 May-Oct. Taste, tour, 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.
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.
69 Pitman Rd. Barre, VT 802-424-4864 | oldroutetwo.com
Old Route Two Spirits sets out to make all our spirits from scratch, doing everything the hard way under one roof. Each one of our spirits is carefully crafted to ensure you can enjoy it neat, while also making some of the most delicious cocktails you’ve ever tasted. Learn about the local ingredients in our Joe’s Pond Gin and the uncommon woods that shape our unique aging program for our Barrelhead rums.
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 new 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
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 7 days a week serving sample flights, pints, and selling cans and growlers 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.
Lift Lines
5 LEGENDARY LADIES WHO SHOOK THINGS UP
Pioneers in their own areas, these Vermont women didn’t just rip—they changed snowsports. By Abagael Giles ANN “NOSEDIVE ANNIE” BONFOEY TAYLOR (1910-2007)
BETSY PRATT (1928-Present) If anyone in the ski industry deserves the moniker “maverick,” it’s Betsy Pratt. She and her husband Truxton Pratt bought Mad River Glen in 1972. When he died three years later, Betsy rolled up her sleeves, bought out their other business partner and started her 20-year reign. At the time there were hardly any ski areas in America owned and managed by women. Pratt held fabulous parties at the Mad River Barn, the ski lodge she also owned, skied hard and arguably set the course for Mad River Glen’s legacy and brand. She famously told The New York Times in 1989, “I hate the ski industry. I’m not a member of the ski industry; I’m the steward of a mountain.” In 1995, she sold the ski area back to skiers, creating the existing cooperative—the first and only one of its kind in the United States. Her legacy is ever-present in the sustainably managed ski glades and trails.
82 Winter 2020 vtskiandride.com
JAN REYNOLDS (1956-Present) Jan Reynolds grew up on a farm in Salisbury, Vt., which is probably where she got the strong work ethic she’s known for as a mountaineer. After cross-country skiing for Middlebury Union High School’s Nordic team, she skied for the University of Vermont where she was named most valuable skier. After college, she switched gears, beginning a series of mountaineering expeditions to places ranging from Morocco to New Zealand to Mount Everest. In 1980 she set what was then the women’s world record for high altitude skiing on Tibet’s 24,600-foot high Muztagh Ata peak. She completed the first circumnavigation of Mt. Everest in 1981-1982 and in 1985, made the first descent of Toubkal, which is, at 14,000 feet, North Africa’s tallest peak. She joined the U.S. Biathlon team and in 1983 led them at the World Championships. Now 64, she lives in Stowe, still crushes, and is the author of several books. Her most recent is “The Glass Summit: One Woman’s Epic Journey Breaking Through.”
Andrea Mead Lawrence may be best known for being the first American skier to win two gold medals in a single Winter Olympics. She did so in Oslo, Norway in 1952 at age 19—a feat that put her on the cover of TIME magazine. The daughter of Pico Mountain founders Janet and Bob Mead, Andrea went to her first Olympics at age 15 in St. Moritz. But perhaps her greatest legacy is as a political activist who spearheaded a grassroots environmental movement that radically expanded the scope of environmental review in California through the California Supreme Court Case, Friends of Mammoth v. Mono County (1972). She served in political office in Mono Co., Calif., home to Mammoth Mountain Ski Area, for nearly 20 years. During that time she testified before U.S. Congress many times as an advocate for public lands. She wrote a book, “A Practice of Mountains” and raised five kids. DONNA CARPENTER (1964-Present) As co-owner of Burton Snowboards, Donna Carpenter has built snowboards, answered phones and served as CFO. Alongside her late husband Jake Burton Carpenter, she’s helped take Burton from a regional innovator to an international powerhouse and the most renowned snowboard company
on the planet. She also leads the nonprofit Chill Foundation, which she and Jake founded in 1985 to bring boardsports to kids who couldn’t otherwise access them. She’s helped countless kids learn to ride. A strong advocate for sustainability, she has also helped Burton continue to build boards in more eco-friendly ways. Carpenter has been a champion of women at Burton, developing internal programs to recruit and mentor women. In January 2017, she covered employees’ costs to attend the Women’s March on Washington.
Photos: Carpenter by Ben Sarle , Pratt by Scott Markewitz. Reynolds courtesy Jan Reynolds; Mead and Taylor, courtesy Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum
Skiing was just a second career for Ann Bonfoey Taylor, who first hit the world stage as a tennis star. Before starting her ski racing career, she competed at Wimbledon. When she moved to Vermont with her family, she quickly mastered “Nosedive,” one of Stowe’s steepest and most notorious trails, earning her nickname and a spot as an alternate on the U.S. Olympic Ski Team for the 1940 Winter Olympics. When World War II broke out and cancelled the Games, she did what any sensible athlete would do: enroll in an aviation program at the University of Vermont to become a pilot. Bonfoey became one of 25 women flight instructors for Army and Navy pilots during the war. She later wrote a book about the experience before changing careers once again, designing fashionforward, highly practical women’s ski clothing, that she sold for many years from her shop in Stowe. Her pieces were featured in Harper’s Bazaar, Vogue, LIFE and taken up by Lord & Taylor. Her clothing collection now resides at the Phoenix Museum of Art.
ANDREA MEAD LAWRENCE (1932-2009)
with her ski racing husband Dave Lawrence. And man, could she ski.
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