Vermont Ski + Ride, Winter/Spring 2019

VT

FREE! WINTER/SPRING 2019

SKI + RIDE

Vermont’s Mountain Sports and Life

Sweet Spring

Mountaintop Adventure Dinners Powder Tips From A Pro Where to Find Sugar on Snow AN AFFORDABLE DREAM HOME

GLEN PLAKE’S DOWN HOME VERMONT www.vtskiandride.com

THE NEW BACKCOUNTRY HUTS

SOUTHWESTERN VERMONT MEDICAL CENTER

ORTHOPEDICS

Fresh Powder. New Knees.

Athletes at all levels rely on Southwestern Vermont Medical Center’s Orthopedics team to restore their competitive edge. Through our team-based approach and Dartmouth-Hitchcock affiliation, you have access to board-certified, fellowship-trained specialists.

Whether you need care for a sports injury or a fracture or a complete joint replacement (or two), our goal is to get you back to the activities you love as quickly—and painlessly—as possible.

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

TM

(Left to right) Paul Donovan, DO; Katherine Kelleher, FNP-BC; Amy Wheaton, PA-C; James Whittum, MD; Suk Namkoong, MD; Jessica Moses, FNP; Kendra Isbell, PA-C; Matthew Nofziger, MD; Samuel Smith, Jr., PA-C

332 Dewey St, Bennington, VT 802-442-6314 | svhealthcare.org

CONTENTS / 04.03 Trevor Graves captured this shot of Vermont-trained snowboard legend Jeff Brushie in 1992. It’s part of the new exhibit, “Shred Vermont: Iconic Snowboard Photography 1980-2000” on display at the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum in Stowe.

FEATURES SOUL REVIVAL p. 28

As Mad River Glen turns 70 this season, skiers celebrate what hasn’t changed.

MAKING KILLINGTON HOME p. 36

When two die-hard skiers moved back to Vermont from Colorado, they found a creative way to build an affordable home here.

THE SWEET SIDE OF SPRING p. 42 Come March, Vermonters dream of corn snow and maple syrup. Here’s where to find the sweet stuff.

Photo by Trevor Graves/Vermont Ski and Snowboard

FIRST TRACKS

COLUMNS

APRÈS| STAY TO SKI, ADVENTURE DINNERS AND WHAT TO GIVE THE SKIER WHO HAS EVERYTHING, p. 9

At these Vermont ski areas, fine dining awaits at the summit.

ADVENTURES | SKI TO YOUR CABIN IN THE WOODS,

New backcountry cabins offer powder by day and a cozy fire at night.

p. 15

LOCAL HEROES | THE DENIM GHOST, THE PATROL DIRECTOR AND THE ULTIMATE SKI BUM, p. 19

These Vermonters know how to hit the slopes.

EDITOR’S LETTER | THE SPRING LIST,

p. 5

COACH | GET OFF THE GROOMED p. 50

Expert ski instructor Doug Stewart breaks down skiing powder in five tips.

GEAR | WHY PUT A LID ON IT?

p. 53

New research sheds light on how helmets work. Here’s what you should know.

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR |

p. 58

CHAIRLIFT Q/A | GLEN PLAKE’S DOWN HOME TOUR,

p. 64

ON THE COVER: Alonso Darias finds untracked powder and a little air in the trees at Mad River Glen. Photo by Jeb Wallace-Brodeur

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 3

Sit Back &

Connect We’re 30 feet off the ground. It’s the middle of winter and we’re flying through the air in a chairlift with an orange bubble overhead. Sometimes the best memories are made in unexpected places.

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THE SPRING LIST Here’s a secret every Vermonter knows: the best skiing of the year happens in the spring.This is the time when the woods fill up with powder and sun turns the icy bumps to corn snow. Maple sap begins to flow, sugaring starts and parties erupt at resorts around the state.

Each spring, I make a checklist of things I don’t want to miss. 1. Get off the groomed. Doug Stewart has some great tips for skiing powder and the trees. See p. 50 for his suggestions and maybe you’ll be able to ski the Trivial Traverse, a new 26-mile skin/ski jaunt from Bolton to Smuggler’s Notch. 2. Have a gourmet adventure dinner on a mountaintop in a hut, lift building, restaurant or yurt.

Some of the best are listed on p. 12. 3. Pond skim. OK, each year I say I’ll do it…4. Engage in organized silliness: Mount Snow’s Duct Tape Derby? Eighties weekend at Stowe, anyone? 5. Sample sugar on snow—and Vermont’s Maple Open House Weekend, March 23-24 is the time to do it. For other sugaring season events, see our story on p. 42. 6. Tailgate like it’s 1999. At Jay Peak, there’s even a tailgate competition on March 27. 7. Sleep in a backcountry cabin— and three new ski-to cabins just came online, see p. 15. 8. Make the pilgrimage to Tuckerman’s Ravine. 9. Ski or ride at one of Vermont’s smaller gems— Suicide Six, Middlebury Snow Bowl, Cochran’s or tiny Northeast Slopes. 10.

Ski closing day of the season. Usually, Killington hosts this with a massive party(last year, shown above, it was June 1) and Mount Snow throws a Memorial Day Peace Pipe rail jam. See you there? —Lisa Lynn, Editor

CONTRIBUTORS Oliver Parini welcomed the chance to travel from his home in Burlington to Killington to photograph Polly and Jason Mikula’s dream home—he’s their brother in-law. He’s also an accomplished photographer who has shot for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Yankee.

Wilkie Bushby, a University of Vermont grad, had a career in advertising in New York City before he “woke up” and moved to Bondville, where he teaches skiing at Stratton and reps this magazine and Vermont Sports. “Now I don’t even like going south of Brattleboro anymore... do you?” he asks.

Jeb Wallace-Brodeur, native Vermonter, Middlebury College grad and chief photographer at the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus, shot Mad River Glen in this issue. He’s also climbed more than 1,000 New England peaks, including the ADK 46 and AMC 4,000-footers in winter.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 5

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, Bud Keene, Brian Mohr, Doug Stewart, Jeb Wallace-Brodeur

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

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6 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

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NEXT LEVEL Expand your skills in one of our specialty camps led by the best of the Killington Snowsports instructors.

Learn more at killington.com/lessons

Donna Weinbrecht Women’s Camps January 26-27; February 23-24 Donna Weinbrecht Mogul Camp, March 23-24 Weekend Mogul Camps February 2-3, March 2-3 Dan Egan Explore The Beast Camps January 5-6, February 9-10, March 16-17

uFIRSTTRACKSu TOPS OF COLOR

HOW TO BEAT THE SUNDAY BLUES It’s Sunday night.You’ve had an awesome ski weekend. Do you really want to drive three hours back home? If the answer is no, consider signing up for one of the new Ski to Stay or Stay to Stay weekends being put on by the state of Vermont.

“We want to show people what a great lifestyle they can have here and connect them with local businesses, realtors and co-working spaces so they might consider moving to Vermont,” says Wendy Knight, Commissioner of the Department of Tourism and Marketing, which is putting on the events. New Ski to Stay receptions are planned at Bromley Mountain and Mount Snow (above) on Feb. 23-25, and at Killington on March 2-4. Each event is hosted by the neighboring towns’ chambers of commerce (Bennington, Brattleboro and Rutland) with receptions on Saturday and a chance to tour the area, meet with local realtors, entrepreneurs and businesses on Monday. Additional weekends are planned for Burlington, April 12-15 and Rutland, April 19-22, as well as on select weekends around the state through November, 2019. And if you are thinking of moving and telecommuting, the state of Vermont is offering up to $10,000 in incentives to a limited number of people who decide to do so. Sign up at thinkvermont.com or vermontvacation.com.

Stowe-based designer Poppy Gall has turned out creative apparel for years (including her own line, Isis) and designed for brands such as Darn Tough, Ibex, Nordica, Obermeyer and Orvis.

Now she’s launching Popia, a line of colorful hats using premium Merino wool that’s spun and dyed in Italy to strict environmental standards. With a double-layer contrasting interior pattern, bright colors and puffy pom poms, these hats ($60) will brighten your day. popia.com

Get a Taste of Vermont As you’re skiing around the state, keep an eye out for the Vermont Specialty Food Tour. Hosted by Ski Vermont, the tour brings local confectioners, cheesemakers, distillers, cidermakers, brewers and more to Vermont ski areas to offer free samples of their wares. Try Cabot’s private stock cheddar, aged for 16 months to give it a smooth, creamy texture with a tart kick. For a sweet treat, try Rutlandbased Ambrosia Chocolates and Confections’ spiced apple cider caramels. If cocktails and spirits appeal, try a taste of Barr Hill Gin, a floral, aromatic liquor from Hardwick-based Caledonia Spirits.

Look for the 2019 tour at these stops: Jay Peak Resort: Jan. 25, Burke Mountain: Jan. 26, Mad River Glen: Jan. 29, Killington Resort: Feb. 9, Pico Mountain: Feb. 10, Middlebury Snow Bowl: Feb. 16, Smugglers’ Notch Resort: Feb. 19, Okemo Mountain Resort: Feb. 22, Bromley Mountain: Feb. 23, Trapp Family Lodge: March 9, Magic Mountain: March 10, Sugarbush Resort: March 16, Stratton Mountain Resort: March 23, Bolton Valley Resort: March 31.—A.G.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 9

Jake Burton’s Signature Line Jake Burton Carpenter has launched a signature line of apparel and soft goods that you can only buy in one place: the Burton flagship store in Burlington.

“When I first started Burton in 1977, I did everything myself, from designing our products and writing ads to fulfilling mail orders out of my house,” says Carpenter, the founder and chairman of Burton Snowboards. “Mine77 is a way for me to be hands-on again with every detail of a collection,” he says. “It’s really personal for me because after being on my deathbed a few years ago with Miller Fisher syndrome, I changed. I wanted to live for the moment, be more creative and do some things that were outside the box. My wife and Burton Co-CEO Donna said I should do my own thing—so Mine77 was born.” The line includes 17 different styles; everything from the Bib pant (which has a pocket that integrates with the underlayer Stash pant) to rawhide leather board bags, to shirts and jackets emblazoned with images of snowboard legend Craig Kelly and Senator Bernie Sanders.

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BUBBLES,TUNNELS AND PIPES, OH MY

Killington went big this season with more than $25 million in upgrades and if you’ve been recently, you’ll notice the changes. For starters, there’s a new six-person super-cushy bubble chair where the old Snowdown Quad used to be. With a cover that comes down to protect against the elements, the new six-pack will be a faster ride to the top (1,100 feet—“close to the height of New York’s Empire State Building,” notes Director of Mountain Operatoins, Jeff Temple). Killington’s old Snowdon Quad has been moved to South Ridge, making that area far more accessible for repeat runs (without having to head back to the base). Also new and part of the largest infrastructure investment in 25 years, Killington plowed massive ski-through tunnels to divert cross-mountain traffic under some of its most popular runs. The Lower Chute and Skyeburst Tunnels are cavernous and fun to ski through. “These will definitely help with traffic flow,” says Killington CEO Mike Solimano. Other improvements that you might not see, but will feel: close to 8 miles (44,000 feet) of new snowmaking pipe.

More Than Sweet Nothings?

Feeling flush? Here are three Valentine’s Day suggestions for the skier/rider who has everything.

$7,778

Cost of a 10-pack of flights on Blade’s Stowe Mountain Express, new regularlyscheduled one-hour flights between Westchester, N.Y. and the Stowe/Morrisville airport. blade.flyblade.com

00 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

$4,000

Starting price, per person, for a Chloe Johnston “Vermont Experience” which includes a Wings helicopter ride from midtown Manhattan to Stratton, Vt., lift tickets and equipment rentals, lodging near the heart of the village, in-suite shopping with Alice + Olivia (a selection of winter clothes are pre-selected and delivered to your home) and a premium liquor “care package” to bring along. wingsair.net

$2,500

For a pair of Bomber Red Dog Skis, handcrafted in Italy and featuring graphics by artist Keith Haring. The skis are full wood core and 78 mm underfoot with a 121 mm tip—“a great beginner-to-intermediate ski.” bomber.com

Are you ready for your Stowe ski house?

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APRÈS

Mountaintop Adventure Dinners There are few things as magical as heading up the mountain under a cold, starlit sky to find an incredible three- to five-course meal waiting for you, complete with beer or wine pairings. More and more resorts around Vermont are serving special dinners in unusual places on the

hill—ranging from the motor room of a chairlift or a yurt at Killington to a cabin atop a mountain in Woodstock. Depending on the location, access is either by snowcat, snowshoes or skinning. Here are a few that are being offered this season. Book early though, as space is limited.

SUGARBUSH RESORT: Allyn’s Lodge and Glen House With Sugarbush’s Remote Fireside Dining Series, you can book Allyn’s Lodge for a private party (minimum is 12) and skin, snowshoe or take the Lincoln Limo (a snowcat) to a multi-course gourmet meal.The dinner feature local food and fireside dining with wine and beer pairings by Vermont Chef of theYear Gerry Nooney. Beer lovers can try the Allyn’s Lodge Beer Dinner Series, where a skin/snowshoe or snowcat ride to Allyn’s is followed by a three-course meal with beer pairings provided by local brewery owners. At Mount Ellen, plan a moonlit skin or snowshoe up to the Glen House for a fun, casual dinner and drinks. Price: $183 per person for Remote Fireside dinners; $150 per person for beer dinners; Tour de Moon cost depends on what you purchase at Glen House. When: Remote Fireside Dining Series: by reservation, any night Dec. 22 through March 31. Beer Dinners: Lawson’s Finest Liquids, Feb. 14; Fiddlehead Beer, Feb. 28.Tour de Moon: Feb. 2 & 16, March 2 & 23. sugarbush.com

Sugarbush’s Allyn’s Lodge

Sugarbush

MAD RIVER GLEN: Full Moon Snowshoe and Lawson’s Beer Tasting Join naturalist Sean Lawson, founder of Lawson’s Finest Liquids, for a one-hour full moon snowshoe ramble and beer tasting (back at the base lodge). Included: fresh air, views of the full moon and a flight of three Lawson’s Finest Liquids beers. The snowshoe tour takes place at and around the ski area. Snowshoe rentals available. Price: $35 per person (no food, just beer).

When: March 16. madriverglen.com MOUNT SNOW: Beer Dinner Enjoy five gourmet courses at Mount Snow’s 1900’ Burger in the base lodge, all inspired by and paired with beers from Zero Gravity Brewing and Maine Beer Company. The evening will be hosted by a brewery representative and the restaurant’s executive chef, who will introduce each course and describe what you’ll be eating and drinking and why they chose the pairing. Price: $80 per person. When: February 15 (Maine Beer Company) and March 29 (Zero Gravity). mountsnow.com

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Killington Motor Room

Mount Snow

Photos courtesy Sugarbush, Killington, Stratton Mountain, Mount Snow

KILLINGTON: Ledgewood Yurt and Motor Room Bar Two very different settings play host to magical dinners on Killington Mountain, accessed by snowcat. Skiers and riders may know The Ledgewood Yurt, the “glamping”-style yurt with elegant tables, oriental carpets and top-flight fare as a lunch place. But on select nights, you can head there for multi-course candlelit dinners too. Meanwhile, the Motor Room Bar—yes, it is housed in the actual glass-walled motor room drive terminal of Killington’s first four-passenger lift—offers a very different vibe. Climb up for phenomenal views and a menu that might include Raclette cheese, maple pork belly and bacon-wrapped scallops. Price: Ledgewood Yurt Saturday dinners are $135 per person. Motor Room Bar dinners are $75 per person. When: Fridays through March 1 and Saturdays through March 16. killington.com

SMUGGLERS’ NOTCH RESORT:

Smugglers’ Notch Top of the Notch

Top of the Notch Cabin Dinners. Ride the lift to The Top of the Notch, a mountain cabin on top of Sterling Mountain, for a candlelit gourmet dinner from The Hearth & Candle restaurant (think venison stew, local and organic vegetables and other Vermont favorites) in a simple setting, followed by a 40-minute snowshoe back down to the base. Price: $85 per person and you can bring your own beverages. When: Tuesday evenings throughout the ski season. smuggs.com

Photo courtesy Smugglers’ Notch Resort

STRATTON MOUNTAIN RESORT: Mid Mountain Lodge Catch a snowcat ride up to the Mid Mountain Lodge for drinks followed by a gourmet three-course dinner that’s limited to 20. This dinner, with its glamorous fine dining atmosphere, is one not to miss. The menus rotate but dishes might include quail, rabbit roulade or blueberry-ginger sorbets. Price: $156 per person. When: February 2, 9, 16 & 23 and March 2. stratton.com STOWE MOUNTAIN RESORT: Cliff House Series Take a sunset gondola ride to Stowe’s Cliff House, a fine dining establishment perched at the top of the gondola, just below Vermont’s highest peak. Diners can enjoy a multi-course themed meal with wine pairings and a view. Price: $119 per person. When: Jan 26, Chilean themed dinner; Feb. 14 & 16, Spanish themed dinner; March 2, New Zealand themed dinner; March 23, French themed dinner. stowe.com WOODSTOCK INN AND RESORT: Mt. Tom Cabin A guided snowshoe hike from the Woodstock Inn’s Nordic Center leads to a candlelit dinner and live music in the rustic Mt. Tom Cabin, located on the 1,250-foot mountain at the center of Woodstock. Price: $79 per person. When: Feb. 19. woodstockinn.com

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Adventures

SKI TO YOUR CABIN IN THE WOODS

Phoot by Abagael Giles

When you ski into one of theseVermont cabins, you can enjoy backcountry powder by day and curl up by the fire at night.

By Abagael Giles.

Chittenden Brook hut, which sleeps ten and can be booked for $110 to $130 per night, is the new base camp for Brandon Gap’s backcountry glades.

W

hen we arrived at the pull-off for Chittenden Brook Campground off Route 73 in Rochester, the lot was a sheet of ice broken only by pieces of frozen gravel emerging from the dirt road below. I’d come with a group of friends in search of the more than 20 gladed ski runs, some over 1,300 vertical feet, that the Rochester/Randolph Area Sports Trail Alliance’s Brandon Gap Backcountry Ski Zone is known for. It was New Year’s eve and we felt like we’d won the lottery: we managed to book one of the first stays at one of Vermont’s newest public backcountry cabins: Chittenden Brook Hut. It was cold—the first day of bitter cold after a serious,

rain-drenched thaw struck the Greens over Christmas, just after the hut opened in early December. Loading our sled with the night’s dinner and New Year’s day breakfast, we shouldered our packs, slapped skins on skis and gingerly made our way up the two-mile road to the cabin.

Arcing through the forest, we followed Chittenden Brook into the heart of the Green Mountain National Forest, sometimes rising on a ridge above it, sometimes moving along its banks. The beauty of the basin was striking and though we could see maple and beech leaves poking through the thin snow that lay between the trees, we were grateful for the light dusting we found on the icy road and each other’s company.

After an hour of skinning, we reached the hut, where we spent the evening cooking on the gas range, playing card games, eating a multi-course dinner and welcoming new faces as bobbing headlamps emerged at the hut windows. We drank cold beers from Shelburne’s Fiddlehead brewery and sampled an assortment of local cheeses and Vermont-made salumi, followed by homemade black bean chili and warm, freshly-baked molasses cornbread with butter. The cabin was a small bubble of warmth

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 15

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Above left, a skier heads back to Chittenden Brook Hut. Above right, the NEK’s Nulhegan Confluence Hut. Below, the new Triple Creek Cabin in Huntington.

that let us hunker down as sleet pounded the world outside. We laughed, ate well and played charades by the light of our headlamps. It was a welcome break from phones, technology and noise.

When we awoke the next morning it was to four inches of fresh, heavy snow. I marveled at how compelling the wilderness looked from my sleeping bag and dry bunk.We discussed the day’s adventure over piping hot cups of coffee and, later, breakfast burritos. Though the base depth was insufficient to warrant a trip to the Brandon Gap

16 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

A BACKCOUNTRY EXPLOSION This year, Vermont saw a veritable explosion when it came to new year-round backcountry destinations. Skiers have had access to the Green Mountain Club’s Bryant Camp and Bolton Cabin and Vermont State Parks’ Stone Hut for years (and all three have recently had major renovations), but as of this winter, there are a host of new options across the state.

RJ Thompson is the executive director of the Vermont Huts Association, a Stowe-based nonprofit founded in 2016 with the mission of establishing a system of backcountry cabins across the Green Mountain State.

Thompson says that Chittenden Brook Hut’s popularity has already exceeded the organization’s expectations. “We had forecast maybe 60 percent occupancy for this winter, but the hut is booked solid for January and February and there are just two open nights in March,” said Thompson in early January.

Chittenden Brook is one of three new huts the organization has added to the seven huts currently in the system and in 2018 the nonprofit also announced plans to rebuild its cabin at South Pond in Chittenden, Vt., which burned in an arson fire in January 2018.

Geared more for cross-country touring rather than downhill skiing, the Nulhegan Confluence Hut ($25 per night per bed, $75 per night for whole hut), is owned by the Vermont River Conservancy and operated

by Vermont Huts Association. It opened for reservations in September 2018. Built by students at Waitsfield’s Yestermorrow School of Design, the cabin sleeps six and sits at the confluence of the Nulhegan River and its East Branch, just three miles before the Nulhegan joins the Connecticut River.

The Nulhegan is a truly wild river that cuts through the heart of one of the state’s most wild places: the Nulhegan Basin. Ninety percent of the river’s tributaries are protected through public land or conservation easements, and the insulated 14-by-18-foot timber framed cabin sits on a 70-acre parcel of conserved land. A propane range, cooking implements and a woodstove are provided, but guests should be prepared to treat their own water. The cabin features a couch and seating area around the fire, with a loft sleeping area accessible by a wooden ladder. By day, explore the massive network of VAST trails nearby, or one of the many old logging roads near the property by cross country skis or snowshoes.

And in early January, 2019, Vermont Huts opened reservations for a new cabin, the Triple Creek Cabin ($88 per night for the whole hut) in Huntington,

Photos by Abagael Giles, Noah Pollock and Samantha van Gerbig

Backcountry Ski Zone, when we skied out on the road, it was on a generous layer of buttery fresh snow.

just off of Camel’s Hump Road. Nestled against one of Vermont’s highest peaks in the intricate network of backcountry and crosscountry ski trails that surround it, the cozy cabin sleeps four and is a perfect skiers’ getaway. Like the Nulhegan hut, it has a propane cooktop and a wood-burning stove. Because it is located on private land, its exact location is revealed to guests when they make a reservation. It makes for the perfect stop for anyone traveling on the Catamount Trail, which runs along the length of Vermont and comes very close to the cabin’s door, or as a base camp for those hiking the peak in the winter.

Thompson says the organization is “in conversation with the State to assess the condition of the Goodell House in Little River State Park to see if we can restore the historic structure for use as a hut.”

Little River State Park is located on a network of new mountain bike trails that abut Waterbury Reservoir and the proposed path of the Velomont Trail. It offers access to easy backcountry ski terrain in the Mount Mansfield State Forest. The organization is also exploring a hut location in Stowe’s Sterling Forest, just off the Catamount Trail.

MORE HUTS YOU CAN SKI TO The Stone Hut (book it for $225 per night), run by the State of Vermont and located near the top of Stowe’s Toll Road on Mount Man-

sfield, was renovated in 2016. Originally built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1935 as a warming hut, the cabin sleeps 12 and books out almost every year. Additionally, the Green Mountain Club’s Bryant Camp ($97 per night for the whole hut) was restored in 2016 and sleeps eight and Bolton Lodge ($77-97 per night for the whole hut) sleeps eight and was restored in 2017. These popular ski-in facilities are also booked solid for the 2018-2019 season.

For cross country skiing, try the Merck Forest Cabins ($50$90) in Rupert, or the Green Mountain Club’s Hadsel-Mares Camp ($75 per night) on Wheeler Pond in Bartlett. If you stay at Hadsel-Mares Camp, be sure to check out the Northeast Kingdom Backcountry Coalition’s (a chapter of the Catamount Trail Association) new network of backcountry ski glades on Mt. Hor and Bartlett Mountain in Willoughby State Forest. The glades, which are accessible from Hadsel-Mares Camp via the forest’s longstanding 12K network of cross country ski trails, are the first sanctioned backcountry ski trails to be cut on state forest land in Vermont. n To book a hut visit vermonthuts.org (Chittenden Brook, Nulhegan Confluence Hut and Triple Creek Cabin), the greenmountainclub.org (three huts, including Bolton Lodge and Bryant Camp) or, for the Stone Hut in Stowe, vtstateparks.com/stonehut.html. Many are booked full by fall so start thinking now about next season or find out about cancellations.

Do everything or nothing at all – it’s up to you.

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vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 17

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Local Heros

THE DENIM GHOST If you’ve been passed while skinning uphill by a really fast guy skiing in jeans, you may have had an encounter with The Denim Ghost—skimo racer Milan Kubala.

MILAN KUBALA AGE: 45 FROM: Budweis, Czech Republic PRIMARY SPORTS: Running, tennis and ski mountaineering LIVES IN: Stowe FAMILY: Wife, Heidi; daughters Katie (8), Natalie (6) and son Radek (4) OCCUPATION: Director of Tennis at Topnotch Resort and Spa

F

or most people, a typical commute starts with getting into a car or hopping on a bike, but for Milan Kubala, Director of Tennis for Topnotch Resort and Spa in Stowe, it starts with strapping on a pair of skis or lacing up his running shoes.

In the winter, Kubala skis to work most days on the Catamount Trail from his home in Stowe. He covers 4.5 miles each way, dropping 1,400 feet of vert on the way to work and gaining them back on the way home. “I call it Milan time,” says the busy dad of three. “I do it to stay fit, keep my energy and find inspiration. It’s a time for creative thinking, connecting with nature, and decompressing. It also lets me reduce my carbon footprint.”

Kubala is originally from the Czech Republic. He moved to the United States in 1993 to attend Northwood University in Michigan, where he earned a top 10 NCAA ranking and helped his team win an NCAA National Championship in tennis. Prior to that, he attended the prestigious PSK Olympic Prague Tennis Academy in the Czech Republic and was a member of the 1991 Czech National Championship Team. He held an ITF World Junior Tennis Ranking that placed him in the top 100 junior tennis players in the world.

In the winter, Kubala focuses his energy on ski mountaineering, or skimo racing, a sport that involves racing uphill on skis using skins and crampons, then racing downhill. Weekdays, he often skins up Mount Mansfield before the lifts start running. Kubala is also a founding member of Vermont’s only sponsored skimo racing team and is a sponsored Dynafit athlete and a member of the United States Ski Mountaineering Association board of directors. He earned the nickname “Denim Ghost” after

showing up in jeans at local races such as the Catamount Trail Association’s weekly Green Mountain Skimo series at Bolton Valley—and then smoking the competition.

Tennis was what brought Kubala to Vermont in 2004, when he accepted his current position at Topnotch. He had previously served as the director of tennis operations at the Midland Community Tennis Center in Michigan.

He and his wife Heidi came for the job and stayed for the mountains and the community. “Vermont presented the opportunity for a lifestyle that had skiing and tennis as part of one package. I also missed living in the Czech Republic, and Vermont resembles the area of the Black Forest where I used to ski and vacation when I was a child.”

Kubala doesn’t partake in lift-accessed skiing anymore unless he’s with his kids (who, at four, six and eight are already being groomed to join their parents for uphill skiing adventures), but does love bringing them to Bolton Valley for their liberal uphill travel policy, which allows skinning

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 19

u

THE PATROL DIRECTOR Peg Doheny has made a career of finding lost skiers in Jay Peak’s rugged backcountry terrain—and keeping them safe on the hill.

PEG DOHENY AGE: 65 FROM: Everett, Washington LIVES IN: Montgomery Center FAMILY: Husband, Mickey Doheny PRIMARY SPORTS: Alpine skiing, Nordic Skating CLAIM TO FAME: Served as Ski Patrol Director at Jay Peak for 40 years OCCUPATION: Member of the Governor’s Search and Rescue Council, part-time patroller

On January 10, 2018, as a storm began dumping what would become more than 40 inches of fresh snow on Jay Peak, a party of four backcountry skiers reported their friend, an experienced older skier and Northeast Kingdom local, missing in the backcountry. It was about 3:45 p.m. and getting dark. “We had been skiing and working all day because the snow was great, but the visibility was really low coming down the mountain, and temperatures were dropping,” recalls Peg Doheny, who was working Jay Peak’s patrol at the time.

As her fellow patrollers finished their final sweep of the mountain and prepared to set out for a search, Doheny settled into the patrol room to take notes and help Assistant Director Russ Ford coordinate the search. The skier was rescued later that night, with the aid of a local farmer and

20 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

area where he learned to ski as a child, close to his hometown of Budweis in the Southern Bohemia region of the Czech Republic. Budweis is the home of European Budweiser beer. “I won’t lie; I do like a cold beer after a hard workout,” says Kubala. —Abagael Giles his tractor, alive but cold.

For 40 years, as Jay Peak’s first female patrol director, Peg Doheny was the person who called the shots to keep patrollers and skiers safe in the wild and unique terrain of Jay Peak. In May 2018, she decided to pass the torch to new patrol director Dave Marchand.This was her first SAR (search and rescue) after passing the reins—though she still patrols two days a week and now serves on the Governor’s Search and Rescue Council.

Unlike other Vermont ski areas, Jay Peak has no municipal or volunteer squad of backcountry emergency responders who are on standby to assist ski patrol when things go awry beyond the ski area’s rugged bounds. With other aid often an hour’s drive away, missing and injured skiers are the responsibility of ski patrol. As Jay’s longtime ski patrol director, Doheny is the mastermind behind many successful rescues.

Since working her first season at the resort in 1979, Doheny estimates she’s been part of more than 20 search and rescue operations at Jay Peak. She’s directed searches, managing logistics and personnel from the base and she’s participated in serious, technical rescues on the ground.

One memorable rescue involved belaying a skier (in a sled) who had fallen and injured a leg out of Pump House chute, a narrow, rocky crevice on the mountain’s steep face.

Under Doheny’s leadership Jay Peak patrollers started using GPS technology and began to learn backcountry rescue skills. “Back in the 1990s we started doing more search training. We had and still have a fair number of hunters on patrol, people who were used to moving through the woods in the dark by headlamp,” says Doheny, who drew on the skills of her team to develop Jay Peak’s backcountry rescue training program for patrollers in the early 1990s.

“Smugglers’ Notch and Stowe have the Stowe Mountain Rescue Team. At Jay Peak, we have incredible backcountry terrain and we like to let people travel uphill during the day.

We try to support skiers who want to challenge themselves.

But we—ski patrol—are the only game in this area if someone gets lost,” says Doheny.This often happens at a place called Black Falls—an alluring gladed terrain trap that drops skiers into a large gully with very poor GPS and cell service.

Back in the early 1990s, when Doheny’s program was green, the Jay Peak patrollers’ knowledge was put to the test when three boys disappeared into the Black Falls area overnight. The skiers were lost for several nights in subfreezing temperatures. Doheny was coordinating the search,

Photo courtesy Peg Doheny

under the Wilderness lift during regular business hours.

“I love getting family time at Bolton. I often will skin and catch them for every other run on the chairlift,” says Kubala, adding that it makes for a good training exercise.

It also reminds him of Kvilda, the small Bavarian ski

which involved massive resources, from Jay Peak’s patrol room. “It became very big.We had to bring in helicopters.The state police were involved and eventually the National Guard. The scale was unprecedented.” In the end, the boys were found, separated from each other, in the Black Falls area.

One hiked out on his own and the other two survived—barely.

Experiences like this one earned Doheny her position on the Governor’s Search and Rescue Council in 2014, where she currently advises the state about how to better coordinate search and rescue efforts.

Doheny came to Vermont from Washington state to ski in 1973, “when plastic boots were just barely happening and Seattle wasn’t hip like it is today.” Backcountry skiing wasn’t as popular then and all of the action, as far as Doheny could see, was in the White Mountains and the Adirondacks. “In Montgomery, I found community, great music, the ability to ski out my back door, ride my bike anywhere and kayaking.” She says that back then, Jay Peak had a “wild West” kind of a vibe. “It’s a family mountain now and that’s great. Before, it was really just hard-core skiers. There was quite the live music and bar scene in Montgomery and even Jay.” In short, she found her people.

With a degree from Johnson State College in environmental economics, she became a ski bum. In 1989, she married Mickey Doheny, a longtime friend who went on to become the director of Jay Peak’s Ski School (he is now officially retired but runs the Ambassador Program).

Doheny was unfazed by the prospect of entering a field with few

[ MANSFIELD

O R T H O PA E D I C S

women and within four years of joining patrol, she became its director. “I was in the right place at the right time.We have a much higher percentage of women on patrol now. I just like the freedom of going out to work on the mountain. It was challenging and interesting and something I could grow with. I started as a ski instructor, but I wasn’t much of a teacher.

I’m more of a doer.”

Though she officially retired in May 2018, Doheny still spends two days a week working on patrol at Jay Peak. “I love Jay Peak.There are just so many good people who work up there.”

When the Dohenys both retired last year, Jay Peak went so far as to rename a trail for them. Powerline, a black diamond and favorite run among patrollers, was renamed “601” for Peg’s radio I.D. Lower Powerline, a classic blue, was renamed “Mickey.”

“We used to call each other on the radio to meet up, which everyone can hear of course. We all have radio numbers, but I’d just call him Mickey. So now Powerline is ‘601 to Mickey,’ which is a tremendous honor.”

Doheny says she spends more time playing hockey, alpine skiing (she prefers catching speed in the steeps to skiing glades these days) and pursuing her other passion: Nordic skating on the Northeast Kingdom’s frozen ponds and lakes. “I wanted to leave the job while I still loved it.

We had a great group of patrollers who were ready for leadership. As director, I was all about change and I felt it was time to let these younger people come in and keep moving the program forward.” —A.G.

]

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u THE ULTIMATE SKI BUM

From permitting (Rather difficult), to finishing touches, The McKernon group was on it. Justus was very helpful in all the little

For some, living in a van (#vanlife) is something to do on vacation or on the weekend. For adventure photographer Adam Sauerwein, it’s a way of life.

ADAM SAUERWEIN AGE: 33 FROM: Buffalo, N.Y. LIVES IN: Killington FAMILY: Parents Chip and Donna; sisters Kara and Leah PRIMARY SPORTS: Skiing, snowboarding and #Vanlife OCUPATION:

aspects of the build that were outside of the construction itself, as well as with the core build. He provided support for wastewater permitting, zoning, site work, and providing subcontractors with important design details. That level of service and expertise is not common, and it really makes a huge difference in easing the stress of the whole project. Also uncommon, is the fact that they finished on time, and on budget.....

― Eric Dutil

Photos by Adam Sauerwein

Wedding and Adventure Sports Photographer

You might not think of a young entrepreneur as the type who would choose to live in a converted school bus in Killington’s parking lot all winter, but that’s exactly what Adam Sauerwein has done.

Sauerwein has spent the last five years living out of a converted 2001 Ford e350 short school bus and shooting photos and video of his life on the road as an East Coast ski bum. During the summers, he works long hours out of his studio in Buffalo, N.Y. shooting weddings and doing event management. Come winter, he hits the road to film when he can and ski as much as possible. Most days at about 7:30 a.m. you can find him finishing his home-brewed (or bus-brewed) coffee in the parking lot at Killington Mountain Resort.

It wasn’t always this way. In 2012, Sauerwein was working nineto-five at a prominent environmental firm in Buffalo, N.Y. “I was part of the hustle like everybody else and I was living in this world where money ruled everything,” recalls Sauerwein. After getting caught in a particularly grueling traffic jam, he decided to give three weeks’ notice and dive head-first into what had been his side-hustle: wedding photography.

He bought an old school bus from his home school district (raising the eyebrows of a few former teachers), ditched his apartment, bought

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u a Mr. Propane portable space heater, grabbed his skis and snowboard and started touring the East, looking to meet and document the people, mountains and terrain that make East Coast skiing unique. He slept in his bus in parking lots, slowly built out the interior and made a video series called “The Pursuit” about his season chasing not just powder but “local legends”—the people who give New England’s ski areas their soul. His tactic? Sleeping in the parking lot and offering lots of friendly cups of steaming hot, French press coffee.

“I wanted to meet the local guys and gals who are like, ‘yeah, I’ve been skiing here for 40 years,’” says Sauerwein, a telemark skier who is at home in the backcountry and in the park. “The bus is a free pass to that group of skiers that exists at every mountain, the keepers of the local intel. They look at the bus and they’re like, ‘OK, you’re not a tourist. You get it. We can share our secret spots with you.”

Over the years, he has built a bed in the bus, experimented with a woodstove, built bookcases, installed an oven and created seating.

He’s found secret powder stashes on the back side of Killington, chased locals up and down Mount Ascutney and skied steep and deep trees with patrollers at the Middlebury Snow Bowl.

To pay his way, Sauerwein pieces together three endeavors: a business called SH Wedding Photography, his own adventure photography and videography business, Adam Sauerwein Photography, and a gig as an equipment lead for Silverback

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Enterprises. “People often think I am postponing life, just passing through places, but I have a great business and a career. I have a photography studio. Believe it or not, I have a savings account.”

Though Sauerwein just purchased a brand-new adventure rig and converted it (he now lives in a Dodge ProMaster Camper Van), he is still loving life on the road in the East. He has no plans to chase powder out West.

“Here, no one cares about your backstory. You show up at the same place every week, and you’re here to ski and you will, whether it’s rainy or windy, or cold. And whatever the conditions, you’re going to have a great time. You get psyched about stuff that other people wouldn’t look twice at. You find what you can. It’s this diehard skiing culture that I don’t think you quite get on the West Coast.” —A.G. n

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AS MAD RIVER GLEN TURNS 70, SKIERS ARE

28 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

CELEBRATING WHAT HASN’T CHANGED.

BY LISA LYNN

PHOTOS BY JEB WALLACEBRODEUR

Calvin McLellan of Shelburne, Vt., finds his slice of heaven in the glades off the Sunnyside double chair at Mad River Glen.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 29

The Single Chair rises into oblivion.The beat from the base area—Grateful Dead today—fades slowly and strains of jazz and blues build as the chair moves toward Midstation.There Brian Aust, lift attendant and ornithologist, has his playlist blaring from speakers powered by a solar array, built for him by another Mad River skier and shareholder.

Aust nods as my chair rumbles on past his shack and on into the clouds. Quiet sets in.The world narrows to the dense hemlock and birch that line the sides of the trail. Two ravens circle directly above. I can hear skiers calling to each other somewhere off to the right, then nothing. At that moment I realize how rare this has become, silence.

Getting off the chair, I wipe my goggles but the fog is too dense to see much. Ahead, Eric Friedman, Mad River’s colorful and plain-spoken spokesperson, has disappeared, diving down into the powder stashes of Paradise. Weaving through the trees, I follow blindly, skiing by Braille, feeling the mountain, its bones and bumps and its supremely sweet, deep, soft spots underfoot.

We eventually come back to more open trails. At one point, Friedman points to a grove of saplings, “I think we’re the only ski area that actually plants trees in the middle of their trails,” he says. “The goal is for the canopy to cover them—that both protects the snow and keeps the ski area out of sight.”

As ski resorts around the country have Botoxed their trails (blasting them wide and, sending them straight down the mountain), built terrain parks to mimic the natural rolls and then “gladed” the remaining patches of forest in between, Mad River has left nature pretty much alone. Here, trails meander over ledges and skirt ravines and waterfalls. The trails are not necessarily difficult, but they make you pay attention to an occasional exposed granite backbone, and encourage you to keep the spring in your knees.

Blessed with this year’s early natural snow, Mad River skis like the best tree run you can find in Vermont, but with less puckerbrush. There is no “out-of-bounds” here and few closed trails. If you know where to go, you can meander off Antelope and find your way to a cold beer at the Mad River Barn, a.k.a the 19th hole. But there are also plenty of forgiving, meandering blue-square runs. Basically, Mad River is less “ski it if you can” than ski it where you can, and, most importantly when you can.

30 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

THE ORIGIN STORY

“I remember watching them build Mad River and putting in the lift towers” says Steve Joslin, an eighth-generation Vermonter. “We lived off Bridge Street in Waitsfield, up the hill from my dad’s feed store, and would drive up the dirt road in his Pontiac to watch. Route 17 was all dirt then and farmers could make money using their horses to haul skiers whose cars got stuck in the mud.”

More than a decade earlier, Palmedo, a Lehmann Brothers investment banker who had skied in the Alps, had pored over topo maps and decided that Mt. Mansfield might have good terrain for skiing. Long before there were lifts, he and his New York friends skied the old logging roads and woods above Ranch Camp, and he eventually helped underwrite the Mt. Mansfield Lift Co.’s first chairlift at Stowe in 1936.

As Stowe’s ski area was developed,various business interests clashed.

Palmedo, a Navy pilot who had seen two World Wars, and friends Charlie Lord and J. Negley Cooke began exploring south along the Green Mountains for a new place to ski.

They flew over, hiked and skied General Stark Mountain, elevation 3,637 ft. In a letter to Palmedo that Mary Kerr quotes in her excellent history, A Mountain Love Affair:The Story of Mad River Glen, Cooke wrote: “We had the most wonderful time skiing on Stark Mountain,” and “the snow is equally good at every altitude as on Mt. Mansfield and the skiing possibilities are much greater.”

Palmedo hiked nearly every inch of the terrain, looking for its natural contours.Together with Lord, theVermont highway engineer who had laid out Stowe’s trails, they mapped and cut the mountain’s five original trails: Fall Line, Catamount, Lift Line, Porcupine and Grand Canyon. Mad River Glen opened Dec. 11, 1948. Of the last two trails, The NewYork Times wrote at the time, “No old fashioned ‘tubes through the forest,’ these two trails still retain the variety and appeal of trails as opposed to open slopes.”

By the time he was in eighth grade, Joslin was working at the new ski area as part of the crew that packed the trails. “We sidestepped down the mountain to groom trails,” he remembers. His mother baked pies that were sold at Tex Thompson’s restaurant at the Basebox (as the base lodge is known). Joslin’s father, Riford, worked at Mad River Glen’s ski shop.

On some weekends he helped set up cots at the Waitsfield High School, which became a ski dorm. Occasionally, Riford slept there, to keep the coal-fired boiler going. Joslin’s ex-father-in-law Howard Moody was the first manager of Mad River Glen before Jack Murphy took over.

Palmedo had founded the Amateur Ski Club of New York in 1931, one of the first ski clubs in the country. Soon, the Amateur Ski Club had a building next to the base to lodge its members. Gradually Palmedo sold off more lots around the mountain to other clubs, a half-dozen of which still have lodges there.

THE UNRESORT

“Roland Palmedo was probably the first ski resort developer,” says Friedman as we ride the double chair, one of five lifts that serve the 53 trails, 115 acres of mapped terrain and 800 acres of tree skiing. “He sold off tiny lots and more than 70 houses were built around the mountain.”

For the most part, the houses around the mountain are small mid-

Vintage photos courtesy Hyde Away Inn - this page; Mad River Glen and David and Steve Joslin ; Snowboard photo by Mike Ridder

T

Seventy years ago, Roland Palmedo didn’t want to develop another Stowe when he carved out a ski area here. Even then, he envisioned Mad River Glen as the antidote to what skiing was becoming.

credit

In 2012, Mad River Glen became the first ski area to be named to the National Historic Register. Left page; The view from the Basebox in the 1950s. This page, top: The Amateur Ski Club of New York still draws guests to its clubhouse near the Basebox. Burton Snowboards organized a mass “poaching� on the day the new Single Chair opened in 2007. Middle: Ski bums Steve Goss and George Cavanaugh in the 1960s; MRG founder Roland Palmedo and former owner Betsy Pratt. Bottom: skiers parked their cars at the top of the T-bar lift.

Bottom right: In 2018, the Birdcage got a renovation and a new deck.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 31

MRG has produced top freeskiers such as Ben Friedman, below. In January, 2019, extreme skiing legend Glen Plake paid a visit and led kids down the mountain (right). Naturalist Sean Lawson, right center, still hosts moonlit snowshoe tours when he’s not brewing his award winning beers from Lawson’s Finest Liquids. Eric Friedman (Ben’s dad), skiing as General Stark, the mountain’s mascot.

32 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

century chalets and A-frames, tucked out of sight of the slopes. “For better or for worse, Palmedo was a little too ahead of his time and he sold off most of the land. Because of that, there’s no room left for big hotels or a base lodge, a waterpark or even a big parking lot,” Friedman notes.

The one big parcel of land that is still available is a plot of 800 acres, just south of the resort. It is land that Steve Joslin’s great-grandparents once owned, adjacent to the Mad River Barn and Annex. Today, it remains in the hands of the woman who has had the biggest impact on Mad River’s “modern” history: Betsy Pratt, now 90.

Truxton Pratt, a banker and pilot from Greenwich, Ct. and his wife Betsy bought a vacation home in the Mad River Valley in 1954. Then in 1972, along with real estate developer Brad Swett, who had visions for a base village, condos and more lifts, they bought Mad River Glen.

Three years later,Truxton died at age 49. Betsy rolled up her sleeves, bought Swett out and started her 20-year-reign, presiding over the ski area and her hostel, the Mad River Barn, in a dusty blue coat and earning a reputation as a maverick not to be messed with.

“I hate the ski industry,’’ Pratt said in a 1989 article in The NewYork Times.

“I’m not a member of the ski industry, I’m a steward of a mountain.”

Pratt’s mission was to preserve Palmedo’s vision. She carried on a tradition previous owners had started Les and Alice Billings had started , of making Mad River Barn into a near-legendary lodge and watering hole, a place where ski bums made pilgrimages.

She reluctantly allowed snowmaking and she famously banned snowboarding. John Ayers, the patrol director who has been at Mad River for over two decades, recalls what led to the ban. “From 1986 to 1992, snowboards were allowed on the mountain. But riders kept swinging the Single Chair as they dismounted so much that we had to hire someone to catch it, so Betsy banned them from the single. One day, a group of snowboarders armed with a video camera confronted Pratt at the supermarket, questioning her decision and she got into it with them.”

As tensions escalated, the video shows Pratt turning to walk away with a final repartee: “We’re a ski area anyway so forget snowboarding.”

And that was it. Since then, Mad River Glen (along with Utah’s Deer Valley and Alta) remains one of three areas that ban snowboards in the U.S.

SKI IT IF YOU CAN

Driven less by a business plan than by gut instincts, Pratt realized early on who the Mad River Glen target was—and wasn’t. After meeting New York ad man Gerald Muro on a chairlift, she decided Mad River would be in Muro’s words “the first specialty ski area in the U.S.” In 1984, Muro’s red and white bumper stickers began to appear emblazoned with “Mad River Glen: Ski It If You Can.” They sell for a dollar and the walls of General Stark’s Pub at the base are plastered with photos of the stickers shown in all parts of the globe—and beyond: the most famous shot is of astronaut Cady Coleman holding a sticker in the Space Shuttle.

The stickers helped articulate a reputation Mad River already had for turning out skiers whose names might not have made history but who could, literally, ski anything.

Part of the Triple Crown, the Vertical Challenge started as a way to see who could log the most vertical feet of skiing in a day, bell to bell, on the Single Chair. In 1999, Olympic downhiller and World Championship bronze medalist, Doug Lewis took on Tiger Baird, a Mad River Glen ski patroller and proprietor of Waitsfield’s Tiger Auto Repair. By the end of

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 33

Deep powder on Upper Glades, good times at the base lodge’s General Stark Pub and a sign board that changes to catch the mood of the day are some of the hallmarks that helped sell more than 2,200 shares in Mad River Glen’s co-op. When it came time to replace the old single chair with a new lift, shareholders voted overwhelmingly to simply replicate the old single (with upgraded machinery), down to the hemlock seat slats, and raised $1.8 million in donations to pay for it.

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the day they had each logged close to 28 runs, or 57,036 vertical feet.

Lewis edged Baird out by just 20 seconds on the final run.

After the new (faster) Single Chair went in, that record was upped to 31 runs and is held by Aidan Casner. The Triple Crown also includes a bump skiing and a freesking contest, challenging new generations of skiers to ski fast, send anything and land.

In 2011, three MRG skiers—brothers Lars and Silas ChickeringAyers and Tom Runcie—took all three podium spots at the Subaru U.S. Extreme Skiing Championships at Crested Butte, Colo.The ChickeringAyers brothers returned to help create a new generation of freeskiers, the Green Mountain Freeride Team, which included Mad River Valley local, Ryan Hawks. Hawks earned the nickname Flyin’ Ryan before a backflip off a cliff during a competition at Kirkwood, Calif. in 2011 tragically ended his life.

Today, Mad River Glen’s freeskiers continue to dominate. In January, 2019, when extreme skiing legend Glen Plake showed up to ski with the team he was impressed. “So often I’m looking over my shoulder to see who’s lagging behind. We had 40 kids screaming down after me and even the littlest was right there. Man, can those kids ski!” Plake said.

IT TAKES A VILLAGE… OR A CO-OP

One of the kids Plake skied with in January was Meg Hourihan’s 10-yearold son, Ollie. “It was one of the best days for him ever,” says his mother.

“Those kids are out there skiing every day, whatever the conditions are and to be able to ski with Glen was like a dream for him.”

Hourihan grew up skiing Mad River with her family, before moving out to the San Francisco Bay area where she co-founded Pyra, the company that launched Blogger, the personal blogging software.After selling the company, Hourihan was drawn back to Vermont and moved to Warren.

“What drew me back was that Mad River Glen has somehow maintained that spirit of what skiing is all about. It’s not a ‘ski resort’—it’s not about anything but the pure love of skiing, being in the mountains and having a good time, no matter the conditions,” she says. Hourihan shas erved on the co-op board and helped recruit Matt Lillard, the new general manager, from Eaglecrest, a community-owned ski area in Juneau, Alaska.

“The difference between Eaglecrest and Mad River Glen is there I had to please the 30,000 tax payers and here I have 2,000 shareholders in the co-op,” quips Lillard, who has also worked at Okemo and has served as a general manager at Magic Mountain.

In 1995, rather than sell to American Skiing Company or one of the other ski conglomerates, Betsy Pratt did something unusual: she sold shares in Mad River Glen to herself and other skiers, creating the co-op structure that exists today. For $2,000 you can buy a share (with just $150 down). It’s the only co-op-owned ski area in the U.S. “My husband gave me a share as a wedding present,” says Barclay Rappeport, a ski industry veteran who now leads e-commerce and promotion for Marker Dalbello Volkl, USA. “I liked the vibe that MRG gave off and knew that it was a more appropriate place for me to hang my hat than bigger resorts. I had previously worked at Stowe, Sugarloaf in Maine and Perisher in Australia. I wanted a place where our kids would be able to run wild and ski by themselves,” she says.

Rappeport, a co-op board member, remembers the discussion the coop board had around replacing the old Single Chair with a new single—86 percent were in favor. “I think a lot of people really wanted to preserve the terrain and realized that if we kept the Single Chair, that would help.”

Instead of installing a new quad, the co-op, along with help from the Preservation Trust of Vermont and the Stark Mountain Foundation, replicated the old chair, right down to replacing the hemlock slats on the seats.

(The new chair came with synthetic slats, which were removed and now form the flooring of the nature center).The $1.8 million was raised largely through donations and sales of the old Single Chairs. As you ride up the new chair, plaques on the towers and seat backs tell the story of who gave.

Today, the ski area is two-thirds of the way to raising $6.5 million through a capital campaign called Preserve Our Paradise. “There’s a lot of maintenance that needs to be done to the base area and snowmaking improvements [some of which have been done],” says Lillard. In 2018, a deck was added to the mid-mountain Birdcage and they plan other improvements at the base—“all in keeping with Mad River’s character,” says Friedman, who broadcasts a hilarious weekly local TV show, Mad River Today, from a corner table in General Stark’s Pub. When I asked Barclay Rappeport what she would do if Mad River had the funding of other ski areas, say $40 million, she replied. “We’re not looking to build a posh Basebox, or put in escalators….just putting a little more room in the cafeteria, streamlining the ski school and ski patrol areas—simple things that don’t require double digit millions.

Forty million dollars? That would just ruin it.”

As I head back to my car I notice a small van parked next to me in the parking lot with New Jersey plates. “Skied here before?” I ask the driver as he steps out. “Nope, I was supposed to come up with my son. He’s heard about this place and wanted to come ride the Single Chair—it’s like history to him,” the man says. “My son got sick, but I decided to see what it was like anyway,” he says.

And with that, he shoulders his skis and heads off across the dirt lot toward the Single Chair. n FOR MORE ON MRG: See vtskiandride.com for links to: > Mad River Today broadcasts > Brian Aust’s Midstation Single Chair Playlists > Video from Betsy Pratt’s run-in with snowboarders

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Slanting roofs and siding that alternates between light shingles, dark wood and Coreten break up the exterior of the 2,400-square-foot, four-bedroom Mikula house and helps it blend into the wooded hillside. The mudroom entry (left) opens onto the main living area with kitchen, living room and master bedroom while the entire downstairs (on the downslope side) has two bedrooms and another rec room with doors that open onto a summer patio.

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Making

Killington

Home

WHEN TWO YOUNG, DIE-HARD SKIERS MOVED BACK TO VERMONT FROM COLORADO, THEY TOOK OVER A BUSINESS AND FOUND A CREATIVE

WAY TO BUILD AN AFFORDABLE HOME HERE. BY LISA LYNN | PHOTOS BY OLIVER PARINI vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 37

A

Polly and Jason (with baby Esmé, top) wanted a house near the slopes with room for extended family. The split levels allowed them to create a ground-floor bedroom with a queen for guests and loft for Jason’s two older kids. Jason fashioned the railings and ladder from plumbing pipe.

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s you head up the access road to Killington Resort, the hills on either side are dotted with condos and motels. Down the road, the town of Killington boasts a year-round population of 771, but on weekends the access road lodging fills up as 10,000-plus skiers and riders arrive at the resort. It’s a community of weekenders, many of whom ski hard and party hard for two days before the Sunday night slog home to New York or New Jersey or elsewhere.

Just off of the Killington Resort access road is not where you might expect two 30-somethings from Colorado to make a full-time home.

In 2011, Jason Mikula and Polly Lynn were working in Denver. Polly taught skiing at Vail. Jason, a former Canadian Junior National Team hockey player, had played in a number of local Colorado leagues and worked in sales for Wilson Sports. Both had gone to Middlebury College and Polly’s family, the Lynns, ran a newspaper in Middlebury, The Addison Independent (and, full disclosure, own this magazine). When Killington’s local newspaper, The Mountain Times came up for sale, the couple saw an opportunity and moved back to Vermont to run it.

That was in August, 2011. On August 27, just a week after they closed on the paper, Tropical Storm Irene hit Vermont, washing out bridges, cutting off the town and resort and flooding The Mountain Times offices. “We put out the paper from the former owners’ dining room in Rutland,” Polly remembers.

In the aftermath, they discovered in Killington a tight-knit community that banded together to rebuild and one that eagerly welcomed the two newcomers.

“We met so many great people who live here and have made this area what it is, both on the mountain and off,” Polly says. “We quickly realized we wanted to make Killington home.”

So they began looking for houses.

However, finding what they wanted in the $300,000 to $400,000 price range wasn’t easy. “A lot of buildings were put up quickly and inexpensively and might make great ski homes but weren’t our style— or in our budget,” says Jason.

Then, they saw a five-acre plot of land just off the access road near the Wobbly Barn. It had a 700-square-foot, one-bedroom, chalet-style house.

It was one of the cheapest homes on the market, priced at $140,000. They bought it in 2012 and renovated the chalet, which they dubbed “Little Tiny.”

“Our goal was always to build and the five acres was already subdivided for three lots,” says Jason. To save up, they rented out Little Tiny on Airbnb on holidays and slept in the office basement. After six years, they had saved enough to build the new house.

“It’s a beautiful piece of land,” says Polly’s brother-in-law Sam Ostrow, an architect with Vermont Integrated Architecture in Middlebury, as he looks out through the tall trees at the snowy landscape. Up the hill from Little Tiny, the Mikulas carved a second homesite in the ledgy terrain— out of sight and secluded in the forest. Ostrow drew the plans for the house Polly and Jason had dreamed of.

“I wanted the new house to take advantage of the natural feeling of prospect (or overlook) that you get being on a hillside—and a lot of care was taken to frame the long view typical of a mountain house. But I also wanted to ground the home with views of the forest canopy uphill and the rocks and mountain scenes on the cross slope,” says Ostrow.

Mission accomplished. As you walk in it feels as if you are in a treehouse with views in every direction, as Polly’s other brother-in-law, photographer Oliver Parini, captures in these photos. Jason sums it up:

From the mudroom (far left in the photo above) the house opens up to a kitchen, made bright by south-facing exposure and the high windows the slanted roofs afford. The walnut kitchen island separates the kitchen area from the main living room (below).Reclaimed barnboard clads one wall of the living room and was used for shelving and other details around the house. The stair in the living area leads up a half-flight to the master bedroom, closet and bath. For more photos and details, see the slideshow at vtskiandride.com.

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Architect Sam Ostrow designed each of the three “wings” or sections of the house to serve a purpose. The living areas are in the back of the house while the front of the house (where the porch is) house the main entry and kitchen, with big living rooms (upstairs and down) in the middle. A half-flight of stairs down from the living room, a landing and daybed sit just off baby Esmé’s room (left). The stairs continue down to the lower level with two more bedrooms (bottom, left) that open up onto a patio.

One of the things that I love about the new house is that from the top of the driveway it doesn’t look like a very big house. It really sits into the landscape nicely and is hidden away. From the new house, you can’t even see Little Tiny, the first house, which sits farther down the slope, hidden by the hillside and trees.”

That sense carries forward into the interior, as Jason explains. “When you walk in, you get that sense of space and “Wow,” thanks to the big windows and the views. Some people wanted to cut down all the trees around it, but we pushed back hard to keep many of them so that when you are in the house, you are sort of perched up in the woods and away from the world. It feels super remote, even though we are walking distance to 14 restaurants and 7 minutes away from riding the lift to the peak.”

On the outside the house appears broken up into three sections, with each roof slanting an opposite way to create the high ceilings.

The three rooflines also help minimize snowload and are capable of holding “tons of snow,” says Ostrow. Inside, each connected “wing” serves a different function.

“The split-level bedroom wing was a way to give a sense of privacy to the sleeping spaces. For the most part, the bedrooms are physically close together but feel separate because of the stairs between. It is a way to have both privacy and intimacy at the same time,” says Ostrow.

In total, the 2,400-sq.-ft. house has four bedrooms, three baths and a separate downstairs living area with a washroom and storage area.

Working with Ostrow and general contractors Carl Holmquist and Charles Biondi, the couple sought to make the house as energy efficient as possible and to reuse materials where they could.They settled on heat pumps for the house and Steve Spatz of Efficiency Vermont helped them choose an insulating Solitex Mento wrap on the walls and roof and a Lunos air exchange system. The house is so warm they don’t need the wood stove—but they use it anyway. “Just the feeling of waking up and drinking coffee in front of the fire is amazing. Life is too short not to wake up that way every day,” says Jason.

The exterior is shingled with vertical slats of black, pre-treated wood siding on the center section and the lower half of the home is sided with Coreten. Inside, to give a nod to Vermont’s heritage, the couple wanted to wrap one wall in barnboard. Quechee woodworker Dane Tillson helped them find wood salvaged from a Tunbridge barn from the 1800s. The maple floors came from Lathrop’s in Bristol and the stone for the slate sinks and granite counters fromVermont Marble and Granite inWhitehall, N.Y. “The thing I love about our house is that it is designed around the way we live,” says Jason. “You walk in and you have this amazing mudroom where you can dump your skis and clothes.The floors are heated so your stuff dries quickly” says Jason.

From every vantage, the windows look out into the forest canopy and up the mountain which drew them here. “We can skin right out our back door, and ski right back to it,” says Polly, who, before Esmé was born was the defending champion in Killington’s weekly ski bum race series.

So yes, it’s a ski home. But first and foremost, this house is a family home. “With room enough for weekend visitors!” Polly adds. n

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IN THE SPRING, VERMONTERS DREAM OF CORN SNOW AND DECADENTLY SWEET MAPLE SYRUP

BY ABAGAEL GILES

t’s early March and the pre-dawn air is crisp. The woods are still and the snow is firm. Roger and Doug Brown pull on their Carhartt work vests, strap on their toolbelts, and strap skins onto their skis—Doug, a pair of beat-up Volkls with alpine touring bindings and Roger, a telemark set-up.

Under the fading stars, they ski their way up the steep hill at Cochran’s Ski Area, following a clear tube. They check each place where it connects with an individual maple tree in their sugarbush. With sunshine and 40-degree temperatures in the forecast, they know two things: by the end of the day, they’ll be boiling maple sap for syrup and skiing buttery-soft corn snow.

The brothers, sons of Olympic gold medalist ski racer Marilyn Cochran Brown, are partners in Slopeside Syrup. The sugaring operation supplies maple syrup for UnTapped, a company the Browns launched in 2013 with pro cyclist Ted King and former Middlebury College Nordic ski coach Andrew Gardner. Today, UnTapped sells single-serve Maple Syrup Energy Gel packets (think Gu) for runners, skiers and endurance athletes. King and World Cup racer Robby Kelley (also a Cochran cousin) fuel with syrup when they race and swear by it. With traces of 50 antioxidants, amino acids and electrolytes such as calcium, riboflavin, manganese, zinc and potassium, maple syrup offers them an unprocessed alternative to energy gels.

While UnTapped may be new as a sports fuel, maple syrup has been energizing ski racers for generations at events like Stowe’s Sugar Slalom, one of North America’s oldest and longest-running alpine ski races.

Originally founded in 1939 by the Mount Mansfield Ski Club, the race (held April 6-7) often attracts more than 1,000 racers—from World Cup competitors to tutu-clad nine-year-olds—and hundreds of spectators.

At the bottom of the run, the ski racers are met with a treat: hot maple syrup boiled to a temperature of 235 degrees Fahrenheit, then poured over troughs of snow.

The sudden cold of the snow causes the syrup to curl on itself, making a pure maple taffy that kids scoop up with popsicle sticks. If you cut the intense sweetness with the classic sides—a bite of sour pickle or a plain cake donut—you’ll find the chewy candy has a warmth and freshness that belies its source: the nutrient-rich lifeblood of Vermont’s most iconic tree.

How it’s Made

When pure maple syrup is boiled and then poured on snow, it hardens into a sticky taffy—the perfect treat after a long day of sunny spring skiing.

During the winter, Vermont’s roughly 1,600 commercial sugarmakers work around the clock to drill new taps in each and every sugar maple in their plot, or sugarbush. They canvass the woods, visiting each and every tree, assessing its health and drilling a new hole to allow last year’s taphole to heal.Then they connect that “tap” to a network of plastic tubes that runs down to a main line that connects with their sugarhouse.

Come spring, the same cycles of freezing cold nights and warm, sunny days that turn November’s hard-pack base into March’s mashed potatoes and perfect corn snow kick the state’s sugar maples into action to produce gallons upon gallons of sap.

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Sam von Trapp makes a telemark turn in spring corn snow while gathering buckets of maple sap to boil into syrup at Trapp Family Lodge.

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Skiers by Day, Sugarmakers by Night

“When you have that first spring ski run where it’s 45 degrees and sunny and you’re carving into perfect corn snow, you feel like you’re coming out of hibernation,” says Colton Blackman, who, with his wife Katie, owns and operates Killington-based First Chair Syrup. “The same can be said for sugaring.When you first fire up the evaporator, it’s usually a warm day. I like to step out onto the deck of the sugarhouse and listen to the forest, which is so quiet in the winter, start to wake up.There’s an energy in the air.”

The couple launched their operation in 2015 on a little sugarbush off of the Killington access road. Colton, 27 and Katie, 26, met as students at Woodstock Union High School. He was a Killington skier, she grew up skiing Mount Ascutney. After he earned his business degree and she hers in international affairs at George Washington University, they decided to move back to Vermont. The pair had both learned to sugar as part of an annual project at their respective elementary schools, using buckets and wood-fired evaporators. Today, Katie does marketing and sales for the company and Colton does the books—when they aren’t getting first chair at Killington Mountain Resort or skinning up for predawn laps before a day of collecting sap and checking their 400 taplines.

“It’s nice to get back to your roots,” says Colton of the move.

“Skiing and making syrup are two things we’ve both been doing for as

Photo by Brian Mohr/EmberPhoto

Before the watery, liquid sap is introduced to a massive evaporator, most commercial operations run it through a reverse osmosis machine, which allows as much as 75 to 80 percent of the water to be extracted before it is boiled in the evaporator, saving time and energy. As a general rule of thumb, it takes about 40 gallons of maple sap to produce a single gallon of pure maple syrup. Over the course of a season, the color and flavor profile of the syrup shifts, from the lightest “Grade A Golden Color and Delicate Taste” at the start, to “Grade A Dark Color and Robust Taste” to “Processing Grade” at the end.

Though modern technology like reverse osmosis allows larger commercial operations to either boil until just after dark, when the sap stops running, or to automate the process through the night, many sugarmakers, whether backyard hobbyists or small-scale producers, still man their evaporators through the wee hours of the morning as Vermonters have done since the 1700s.

They may invite friends and family to stack wood and feed the fire that fuels their evaporator (larger operations use gas). Kids skim foam off the surface of the hot sap. Some serve big meals and feed their neighbors as thanks for their help, inviting them to gather, local craft beers in hand, in the steamy, gently sweet air of the sugarhouse.

Then, for some sugarmakers, those late nights are followed by early mornings—on skis.

(Clockwise from top left) Photos courtesy Slopeside Syrup, First Chair Syrup, Doug Zecher, Brian Mohr /EmberPhoto

Clockwise from top left: Roger Brown of Slopeside Syrup (bottom left) checks a tapline at Cochran’s Ski Area; Katie and Colton Blackman of First Chair Syrup at their Killington sugarhouse; Doug Zecher’s operation Havoc Hill Maple in Dorset; Brian Mohr gathers sap by ski.

long as we can remember.”

Like the Cochrans, the Blackmans do much of their winter work on alpine touring gear. They haul tools and use climbing skins to work their way up their north-facing sugarbush. “I think the geography of Vermont lends itself to using skis to do this work.You climb to the top of a ridge, checking lines as you go, and ski back down.”

To the north, in the Mad River Valley, photographers Brian and Emily Mohr operate a small sugarbush on their property using just a few taps with sap buckets.The couple and their two young daughters grow much of their own food. Like many Vermont landowners, they sugar because it’s a great thing to do with little kids (collecting sap, tending the fire, tasting the syrup and labeling containers) and it makes them feel connected to their land.

The sugar shack sits at the base of a small, homemade rope-tow in their backyard and the sugarbush sits at the top. “There’s not really a day that goes by during the snowy months when we are not out on skis, so skiing

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Sugar & Snow

Nothing says spring like piping hot maple syrup on snow. When made perfectly, it produces a sweet, rich, lightly chewy candy that, when paired with a salty, sour pickle spear, allows the maple’s floral and earthy undertones to shine through.

To make your own, heat syrup to 235 degrees Fahrenheit, or until a tablespoon gets a little bit tacky when you remove it from the heat. Drizzle the syrup in ribbons onto packed snow and watch it curl and harden into an amber taffy. Twirl it up with a spoon or roll it onto a popsicle stick and serve it in the Vermont way: with a savory pickle spear and old-fashioned, buttermilk donuts.

Across the state, there are lots of opportunities to sample sugar on snow, maple sugar and syrup in all its forms. Each year, many Vermonters open their sugarhouses to the public for demonstrations, samples, food, live music and more during the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association Maple Open House Weekend. And young ski racers (as shown above) look forward to sugar on snow at Stowe’s Sugar Slalom, a race that’s endured for generations.

Here are a few events around the state where you can get the sweet stuff straight from the source and partake in this Green Mountain tradition.

March 16-31 | Vermont MapleFest, Smugglers’ Notch A SmuggsPass gets you access to tours of local sugarhouses, daily samples of maple products, a sugaring demonstration at Mother Nature’s slopeside tipi, a clinic in small-scale sugaring at the Smuggs’ Nordic Center and entrance to the MapleFest Winter Carnival. smuggs.com March 16 | Sugar Daze, Okemo Celebrate sugaring season with live music, local beers, samples and food. okemo.com March 23-24 | Vermont Maple Open House Weekend, Statewide Celebrate the first crop of the season as Vermont sugarmakers open their sugarhouses and invite visitors to experience the process of boiling sap and tasting syrup. For the full schedule of events, visit the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association website. vermontmaple.org April 6-7 | 2019 Sugar Slalom, Stowe You never know who will show up to race at this two-day USSA slalom race and celebration of all things spring skiing and sugaring season. Don’t miss the costumed contest on day two or the delicious sugar on snow at the finish line. mmsc-mmwa.org/events/sugar-slalom

Photo by Angelo Lynn

while we are sugaring seems totally natural for us,” says Brian, who skins up to check or retrieve buckets and skis down with sap. “Sugaring also tends to coincide with some of our favorite snow conditions of the season—corn snow—which freezes hard at night, but then softens in the spring by afternoon, offering smooth, buttery turns.” When the Mohrs boil sap, they usually build an outdoor fire and make an evening of it.

At Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, you can cross-country ski through the von Trapp Family’s 2,000-tree sugarbush, and right up to the sugarhouse where, on spring days, wood smoke rises and sugarmakers Chris Pocher and Alex Femiac will offer skiers a taste of the newly-boiled syrup. At Trapps’, about 600 of the 1,400 trees in the sugarbush are tapped with old-fashioned buckets which hang from trees just off their 37 miles of groomed and 62 miles of backcountry cross-country ski trails. The commercial sugaring operation makes 500 to 700 gallons of syrup per year and taps some of the oldest sugar maples in the state. Some have tap scars that date back to 1850, when the land was part of an old dairy farm.

The von Trapp family has been sugaring at the property since 1943, the first winter they spent there after immigrating from Austria.

When Sam von Trapp moved back toVermont in 2007 to join the family business, he took over the sugaring operation, skiing between trees to manually gather sap in buckets for several years.

“I was just coming off an eleven-year stint where I was doing two winters a year working in the ski industry—one in the southern hemisphere and one in the northern hemisphere,” says von Trapp, who uses waxless touring skis outfitted with Salomon X-Adventure bindings. “On shallower grades, I could fill up buckets and just glide back to the sugarhouse,” says von Trapp.

In East Dorset, Doug Zecher and his son Kyle run Havoc Hill Maple. Zecher has served as the director of ski patrol at Bromley Mountain for the last 30 years (he’s been on patrol for 52) and runs a 5,000-tap sugaring operation, producing about 2,000 gallons of syrup annually. He grew up and learned to ski on his parents’ 200-acre dairy farm in Manchester at the base of Bromley Mountain. He then studied maple sciences at the University of Vermont.

Today, he makes his living as a patroller, a sugarmaker, a property manager and a snowplow driver. “Every month is a different chapter,” he says.

“I love that, like farming, with sugaring and skiing I don’t do the same thing for long because the seasons change.” n

Naturally Epic Photo credit: ŠBrian Mohr/EmberPhoto

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Middlebury Undiscovered • Unchanged • Unpretentious Terrific skiing • Unbeatable value • Authentic Vermont

Discover Middlebury and you’ll come to love an authentic ski community right in the heart of Vermont that still has its original charm. With a ski racing heritage connected to Middlebury College and an active ski club, the Middlebury College Snow Bowl also has border-to-border tree skiing with fresh tracks on powder days with no lift lines!

Rikert Nordic Touring Center is just a mile down Rt. 125 offering 55Km of trails on some of the best terrain in the state. It’s a onetwo punch that offers the best of Nordic skiing, with state-of-theart snowmaking, and a great intermediate alpine mountain — without the crowds and at a great price for families!

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amily-friendly atmosphere includes FREE access to our Sunkid Wonder Carpet, a cozy lodge with wireless internet and great food. On-site ski shop open 7 days a week starting early November with lease packages, rentals, retail and full tuning. Middlebury Snow School has over 30 instructors who offer all levels of coaching in skiing, snowboarding and telemarking. Ask about the Middlebury Ski Club activities for kids, they’re phenomenal!

Vermont-inspired comfort fare, craft cocktails, 32 beers on tap & oysters all weekend.

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Winter –– At At Your Your Pace Pace Winter

Brett Simison Photography

Brett Simison Photography

Fine food and lodging since 1810

Dinner nightly, Sunday brunch, 11-2 Route 125 . East Middlebury . 802-388-4015. WayburyInn.com

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88 spacious guest rooms and suites • Suites with jetted tubs and fireplaces Courtyard Refreshing Business Bistro • Indoor pool, whirlpool and fitness center • Cable TV with HBO • Complimentary high-speed internet access Middlebury Courtyard Marriott • 309 Court St., Rte. 7 South, Middlebury 1-800-388-7775 • 1-802-388-7600 • www.middleburycourtyard.com

For more information visit www.rikertnordic.com/packages

COACH

BY DOUG STEWART

GET OFF THE GROOMED One of the joys of spring skiing is finding deep pockets of snow just off the trail or in the woods. Here are five tips to help you become an Eastern powder hound.

T

he ungroomed run is where your versatility gets tested: your skiing either comes together and you feel like a hero, or it’s a series of linked recoveries that remind you there is more to learn. Getting your skis to perform with precision on ungroomed, natural snow is the essence of good recreational skiing. Here, Doug Stewart, a PSIA examiner, instructor at Stowe and boot expert at Skirack in Burlington, offers some pointers for what to do when you get off the groomed.

1. PICK YOUR LINE When skiing natural terrain, looking where you are going is super important. Don’t be tempted to look at the trees, or rocks or other fun features; keep your focus on the snow you are going to ski and pick your line. Look at the spaces, not the obstacles. Also, use your goggles to keep your eyeballs safe and opt for a lens that will adjust to the light, because usually if you duck into the trees, you’ll be in shadow.

2. KEEP THE BASKETS, LOSE THE STRAPS Having poles in the woods is very helpful, but sometimes you might need to let them go. When the mountain knocks you off your game, which will happen at some point, it’s a good idea to not go down with the poles attached (as skier Caroline Kessler, here, has them). Sometimes a pole basket can also get caught on a piece of nature and it’s nice to let the pole go and keep your arm and shoulder. Either ski without your strap around your wrist or use a pole with a break-away strap.

3. PUT YOUR FEET ON THE SAME PAGE While racing down a groomer, we get the feet apart and really drive the power to the outside leg. Sometimes we might drive as much as 90-percent of our weight to the outside ski, so we are skiing 90/10. When skiing bumps or powder or trees, we need to keep the feet more under the body, closer to each other, and not let our weight go quite so heavily to the outside foot. Think about being more 60/40 off trail, with a stance that is about hip width.

This helps the two skis work a little more as one. It will also make your skiing less edgy. On ungroomed snow, think about keeping the skis flatter and not letting them roll up on edge as high as they do on groomers.

5. GET THE RIGHT TOOLS ON YOUR FEET Modern skis have been carving turns on firm groomers well for a number of years, but more recent innovations have really changed how skis deal with natural snow. The addition of some width, and more importantly, rocker and changes in side cut, have made skis from the last four or five years much easier to handle on ungroomed terrain. Rocker, or reverse camber (meaning when the ski is flat on the snow, the tips and tails of the skis are slightly higher off the snow) helps the tips float more in deeper snow and makes it easier to initiate a turn. Super-fat skis and big rocker have been dialed back in the past few years.

You don’t need a super fat ski but if you want to improve your off-piste skiing, get on a modern ski that is designed for natural terrain and has a minimum waist width underfoot of 95-mm. You will also find that having a little softer flexing boot will add to your ability to stay balanced over your skis when skiing terrain that’s variable.

50 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

Photo courtesy Smuggler’s Notch Resort/Dennis Curran

4. SKI DOWN, NOT ACROSS The temptation when you get into heavier snow or trees is to slow down and hunt and peck for places where you can make wider turns. When skiing in ungroomed snow, there is more resistance, so we can let the turns out a little, and let the skis stay closer to the fall line a little longer in our turns. This straighter turn will add continuity and a little speed, which is helpful to break through the snow. Before heading down a run, look at the terrain and think how water might flow down it. Then consider that line and try to follow it.

A big bowl of powder chowder brings a big smile to Vermonter Caroline Kessler’s face as she charges through new snow on Freefall at Smuggler’s Notch Resort.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 51

SAVE THEIR SNOW!

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GEAR

BY ABAGAEL GILES

WHY PUT A LID ON IT?

A new study by UVM doctors and researchers takes a fresh look at helmets and just how effective they are.

I

At Okemo Resort (above right), Stowe and all Vail Resorts properties, helmets

Photo right, courtesy Okemo; top, Burton

are a mandatory part of any equipment rental package.

At Burton, (top) helmets are tested to the standards legally required for sale in Europe using this machine.

n the far corner of a warehouse located on the Burton campus in Burlington lies the helmet testing machine.

The machine looks a little like something you might find at a traveling carnival—but really shiny and new.

To test Burton’s line of Anon helmets, helmet engineer Dave Connery places a 5 kilogram solid metal mannequin’s head inside of a helmet. He chooses from one of several shudder-inducing metal objects (a flat-headed peg, a metal fin, a hemispherical surface and one terrifying metal spike, called the “penetration tester”), which he fixes at the machine’s base. Connery then calibrates a series of lasers that measure the helmet’s acceleration upon impact.

He presses a big red button. The helmet, attached to a small arm, rises slowly to a height of two meters as pistons audibly compress. After a series of ominous beeps, the helmet plummets to the surface below, hitting with a sickening thud and several bounces. Connery watches as the force transferred to the “head” inside the helmet on impact is mapped in real time on a computer screen.

What Connery is trying to determine is whether the helmet adequately protects the metal head it encases from the sorts of damaging forces a skier or snowboarder might experience on the trail. He’s looking at the G-force, a phenomenon created by the combined pressure produced by your body’s sudden deceleration and its weight pressing against the thing that contains it (in the case of a head-on impact, the containers at play are your skull, your helmet and whatever you hit). G-force is what makes your stomach leap into your throat on a roller coaster ride, and it’s the phenomenon that doctors believe causes concussions and other traumatic brain injuries.

As Connery, a splitboarder and accomplished bike racer, removes the helmet from the machine, revealing a small indentation in its protective Styrofoam interior, he grins. It comes as no surprise when he says that his last job was with the Army’s Natick Soldier Systems Center working to develop ballistic-proof helmets for soldiers to use in on-the-ground combat.

Connery, like his counterparts at helmet manufacturers POC, Smith, Pret and Giro, is doing everything he can to keep your noggin safe. “[When designing helmets for

Anon,] I try to combine materials to allow the head to decelerate over a longer period of time during an impact and [thereby] reduce the force transmitted to the head,” says Connery of his research.

As the market has shifted over the past ten years from serving primarily ski racers to supporting helmets for recreational skiers and riders, helmet manufacturers have added innovative features like adjustable vents and magnetic chin straps. In 2010, Swedish body armor maker POC began building Multi-Directional Impact Protection Systems (MIPS) into ski helmets. What one gearhead we interviewed called, “the biggest thing to happen in helmets in 20 years,” MIPS is designed to protect the head against rotational forces from an angled impact by slowing the rate at which your head decelerates during a collision.

However, a study published this year by researchers at the University of Vermont found that while skier injuries overall have declined over the last 35 years and helmet use is on the rise, the rates of traumatic brain injuries sustained by skiers and riders remain constant.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 53

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JUST HOW SAFE ARE SKI HELMETS? Dr. Matthew Gammons, the Medical Director of Sports Medicine at Killington Medical Clinic and Rutland Regional Medical Center, treats a lot of concussed skiers and riders. He is a past president of the American Medical Society for Sports Medicine and is a former team physician for the U.S. Ski Team.

Gammons, whose undergraduate degree was in biomechanical engineering, says, “helmets do a pretty good job at helping to protect the head in collisions at low to moderate speeds, but they don’t protect against concussions and don’t make much of a difference at really high speeds.” To make matters more challenging, “It’s not clear why some individuals experience long-lasting or permanent damage from

54 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

relatively minor collisions and impacts and why some people appear to be fine after major collisions.”

With regard to concussions, Gammons says, “we’ve misinformed the public about what the capabilities of helmets are and that’s probably a disservice.”

Gammons says concussions and more serious traumatic brain injuries are caused by forces at work inside of your skull that are difficult to model in a laboratory setting. “Think of your brain like a big block of Jell-O on a plate. That’s about the consistency of live brain tissue,” says Gammons.

He described a scenario in which a skier takes a hard fall and hits their head against the ground, stopping suddenly. “The Jell-O inside the skull was moving in one direction, then suddenly it stops, deforms

Above, engineer Dave Connery sets up a helmet for testing at Anon’s Burlington headquarters. Right, he holds one of the metal objects he uses to test a helmet’s strength and efficacy. This one tests the durability of air vents.

in the forward direction, and then moves back in the other direction.”

When this happens, he says, the brain tissue is pulled in opposite directions, causing axons, the fibers that connect it, to stretch in the microseconds during which the collision takes place.

“This is an incredibly complex thing that’s happening from an engineering standpoint,” says Connery. “The medical community is still trying to understand what happens during a concussion and it’s actually really difficult to model all of the forces that are transmitted when you have an impact to the head and in particular to the brain.”

This is even true for helmets outfitted with MIPS, an elastic layer that allows the shell and liner to slide relative to the head upon an angular impact, with the goal of protecting the head against the sort of angular motion researchers believe causes a concussion. Though successful experiments have been conducted to test how well MIPSequipped helmets can protect crash test dummy heads—and its

Photo by Jesse Dawson, Burton Snowboards

Have these innovations worked? Between 1995 and 2012, the percentage of skiers at American ski areas who wore helmets increased from 8 to 84 percent, according to a study published in 2015 in the Journal of ASTM International. The authors of the study found that over the same period of time, the prevalence of head injuries decreased from 8.4 percent to 6.8 percent. Of 10 observed skull fractures, only one occurred while a skier was wearing a helmet.

Dr. Nate Endres of the University of Vermont Orthopedics Department has been studying skiing related injuries for several years and is working to establish original research on the topic. In a review to be published in Sports Health in 2019, he found that, overall, the frequency of skiing injuries in Vermont declined by 55 percent over the 35 years from 1972 to 2006.

Despite this pattern, head and neck injuries still account for 13 percent of all skiing and snowboarding-related injuries nationwide.

According to Endres, that figure has remained relatively constant over the years, despite increased helmet use. According to Endres’ study, so has the frequency with which skiers and snowboarders die from traumatic injuries, of which brain injuries are the most common.

Endres points out that helmets are great at protecting against facial trauma, skull fractures and penetrative injuries, but they have their limits. A 2018 study from the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that in 7 of 9 videotaped crashes by FIS World Cup ski racers resulting in head injuries, the recorded pre-impact velocity of the head was greater than the maximum speed of 6.8 meters per second required

by FIS for helmet tests. In fact some skiers’ heads were moving twice that fast when they hit the ground.

“Though there is no good reason not to wear a helmet these days, there is a threshold beyond which they just don’t protect the head,” says Endres.

And you don’t have to be a racer going 40 mph or an advanced rider to need one. A 2005 study by the American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) of skier and snowboarder behavior across the United States found that at resorts, recreational skiers traveled at an average highest speed of 27.6 miles per hour while snowboarders traveled at an average highest speed of 24 miles per hour. In 2009, actress Natasha Richardson died after sustaining an undiagnosed traumatic brain injury during a minor fall on a bunny slope at Mont Tremblant during a beginners’ ski lesson. She was not wearing a helmet at the time.

THE BEST HELMETS OF 2019 rotational function has been proven to work—Gammons says it remains unproven whether the technology better protects the brain.

Connery echoed this, saying, “We don’t have a way to measure the internal forces that are being applied [during an impact to the head]. We only have the ability to measure external forces. There is a lot of energy that is absorbed in the impact equation. MIPS does a bit, but the EPS [industry-grade Styrofoam] still does most of the work,” says Connery, who tests both helmets that use the system and those that don’t.

WHAT’S THE BEST HELMET? Unlike in Europe, there are no mandatory safety regulations a helmet manufacturer has to meet to sell their product in the United States.

However, to ward off liability, most manufacturers test their helmets to

Just like with boots, if you’re buying a helmet, it’s worth taking a trip to your local ski shop to get fitted. It’s also a good idea to replace your ski or snowboard helmet every five to ten years. “By the time you get to 15, 20 years of use, a helmet will degrade like an old Styrofoam cup,” says veteran Skirack bootfitter Doug Stewart.

Smith Quantum MIPS ($299): This MIPS helmet features a lightweight, super-breathable AercoreTM interior, made of a super strong honeycomb material called Koroyd, in addition to traditional EPS. It comes with 22 adjustable vents, a BoaA fit adjustment dial and a magnetic strap buckle for one-handed adjustments on the chairlift.

Photo by Jesse Dawson, Burton Snowboards

Anon Echo and Omega MIPS ($189.95): This is Dave Connery’s top pick and what he tours with.

It features 15 vents, is an in-mold helmet, is lightweight (it weighs less than one pound) and has a magnetic lock closure for the strap. You can save a little by opting out of the MIPS model. “I wear it for side country tours because the venting system is comfortable enough that I can wear it while moving uphill,” says Connery.

the standards for “non-motorized snowsports” set forth by ASTM (you can see their sticker on the rear interior of helmets they’ve certified).

Essentially, a helmet must prevent a “head” from experiencing too much G-force as it impacts each of the objects described previously at -6 degrees Fahrenheit, 98 degrees Fahrenheit and 106 degrees Fahrenheit, with an impact speed of about 14 miles per hour. Under those circumstances, the helmet must ensure that no more than 300g of force is transferred to the test head on impact. Each ASTM-certified helmet passes this test by withstanding this impact when dropped from a height of two meters with a five kilogram solid, head-shaped weight strapped inside of it.

Beyond that, says Connery, one helmet is just about as safe as the next. What distinguishes them are features that improve fit and ventilation, how lightweight they are and things like removable earphone pockets.

Ski and snowboard helmets—like bike helmets—are singleuse. This means that their structural integrity is compromised after one serious impact. The industry standard is to build helmets out of expanded polystyrene, also known as EPS, which is essentially a series of beads forced together in a manufacturing process and calibrated to tear and shear in predictable ways. It’s very light and is designed to

Pret Lyric X and Haven X MIPS ($120): At 395g, this is a lightweight but affordable helmet perfect for touring. It features a closed vent but effective in-mold design, MIPS technology, a magnetic chin strap for easy removal and a liner made with blended wool and recycled fleece.

Giro Ledge MIPS ($80): “Giro is a part-owner in MIPS, which means that you can often get the technology in their helmets without the premium cost you see in other brands,” says Stewart. If MIPS is important to you, Giro’s Ledge model offers the added protection for just $80 in a hard-shell construction with fixed vents, something Stewart says is just about impossible to find. “It’s at the $100 price point that you start to see features like adjustable vents,” says Stewart.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 55

GEAR

absorb the force of an impact to the head by tearing and breaking.

This might seem counter-intuitive but, as Connery explains, helmets are designed to take the tremendous force generated when your head hits the ground or another object and transfer it away from your brain. “Breaking something is a really good way to release kinetic energy,” he says.

Ideally, the industrial-grade Styrofoam breaks so your head doesn’t have to. “EPS doesn’t absorb an impact like rubber or other materials, which deform on impact and then spring back. Instead, it releases that energy by compressing to a point, then snapping,” explains Connery.

“It’s precisely the fact that it doesn’t rebound and transfer all of that kinetic energy from the impact back into your skull that makes it such a good helmet material.”

However, EPS, like Styrofoam, starts to degrade after about five to ten years, compromising its structural stability. “As the helmets get older, the bonds between the material beads in the impact layer break down. When the helmet receives an impact, it relies on these mechanical bonds between the beads to absorb energy so when the material is weak, either due to age or a previous impact, it causes more impact to transfer to the head and not be absorbed by the helmet as it crushes,” says Connery.

In general, Connery says that if you take a fall and see an imprint of your liner in the EPS in your helmet or any other deformities, it’s time to replace it. He’s replaced three cycling helmets following cyclocross and mountain bike crashes in the last three years and said, “Having

tested those deformed helmets in the lab, I can state emphatically that if you see any damage on the inside or outside of the helmet that looks like the smallest of cracks or compression, you should replace it.”

HELMET OR NO? According to one study published by the National Ski Areas Association in 2017, 89 percent of all minors wore helmets consistently throughout the 2016-2017 ski and snowboard season and 80 percent of skiers and snowboarders overall wore helmets.

And why wouldn’t they? As designers like Connery can attest, even more affordable helmets are now lightweight, durable and offer features that make them more comfortable to wear than a hat. Endres went so far as to call not wearing a helmet “just stupid.”

“There is a lot of data to suggest that if you protect your head, you will be in better shape in the event of an impact,” says Connery.

If you want a lighter helmet, try an in-mold model. Like bike helmets, they are made of one piece of molded EPS.They are just as strong, a little more susceptible to wear and tear over time than hard-shell helmets and much lighter. For a cheaper, more durable option, Connery recommends a hard shell helmet, which features an EPS interior bonded to a separate shell that is typically made from a high-impact ABS plastic.

“At the end of the day, the best helmet for you is the one you can afford and that you will wear consistently,” says Gammons. “If you can afford a helmet with MIPS technology, that’s great, but the main thing is to look for something that meets the industry standards and fits properly.” n

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THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR JANUARY

FEBRUARY

25 | Annual Farmers’ Appreciation Day, Jay Peak Jay Peak offers each local Vermont farm four free day tickets. jaypeakresort.com

2 | Vans HiStandardSeries Snowboard Jam, Mount Snow With no rotations beyond 720 degrees or inverted maneuvers allowed, this competition is truly about style. mountsnow.com

25 | The Moth StorySLAM, Sugarbush Prepare a five minute story on the theme of “winter” or come to hear others share tales of Sugarbush’s earlier days. sugarbush.com

2 | Ride and Ski New England Après Party, Sugarbush Head to the Wunderbar for live music, great food, beer and giveaways. sugarbush.com

25-27 | Smuggs Ice Bash, Smugglers’ Notch Winter’s biggest climbing event is at the Notch and at PetraCliffs in Burlington. Free gear demos, clinics, slideshows, competitions, a party and prizes. smuggsicebash.com

2 | 6th Annual Burke Backcountry Adventure Skimo Race, Burke Mountain Race uphill on your skis for 7.5 miles with ascents and descents totalling more than 4,500 feet in vertical gain. Seven transitions and a bootpack. skireg.com/BBA2019

26 | Mad River Glen’s 70th Anniversary Gala, Mad River Glen Party like it’s 1949—the year the ski area was founded. Celebrate seven decades of skiing at Mad River Glen. madriverglen.com

2 | Road to Ruin Mad Dash Downhill, Magic Mountain Skiers and riders race in a single start mad dash under the Black Line lift. First one to the bottom wins, no points for style. Great spectating from the tavern. magicmtn.com

26 | Parlor Skis Demo Day, Jay Peak Try the latest gear from Bern (helmets) and Parlor Skis. jaypeakresort.com

2 | 4th Annual Face (Snowshoe) Race, Suicide Six Ski Area Race up The Face and down Easy Mile—approximately 1.5 miles with 600 feet of vertical gain. Don’t miss the after party at Perley’s Pourhouse. woodstockinn.com

26 | Cocktails for Scholarships, Okemo Catch the Mara Flynn Band and free appetizers at this on-mountain fundraiser to support scholarships for students at the Okemo Mountain School. okemo.com 26-27 | 13th Wounded Military Heroes Weekend, Bromley This weekend-long event helps veterans who have been wounded in action experience skiing or snowboarding with their families for free. bromley.com

2-3 | 38th Annual Craftsbury Marathon, Craftsbury This classic ski marathon is a wave start cross-country ski race of 25K or 50K, held on a 12.5K loop with three aid stations. craftsbury.com 2-3 | Intro to Trees and Bumps Telemark Clinic, Bromley Learn to ski bumps, trees and ungroomed terrain with style. bromley.com

27 | Ski for Heat and Chicken Wing Challenge, Bromley Finish your basket of six extra hot chicken wings in three minutes and Bromley will donate $25 to help Vermont residents with winter heating assistance. skiforheat.org

2-3 | 2019 FIS Freestyle NorAm Cup, Stratton Mogul skiers from around the world will compete in this qualifying event for the 2019 FIS Freestyle World Cup. stratton.com

28 | Bring a Friend Day, Suicide Six Ski Area Receive a free trail pass and equipment rental for a friend when you show your season’s pass or make a day pass purchase. woodstockinn.com

3 | 82nd Annual FISK Trophy Race, Suicide Six Ski Area Get out your alpine skis and follow in the tradition of skiing greats like Bode Miller by participating in the oldest alpine trophy ski race in North America. woodstockinn.com

29 | Roll Back the Clock Day, Mad River Glen Celebrate MRG’s 70th anniversary while the resort “rolls back” the lift ticket price to what it was in 1948, when you could ski for $3.50. madriverglen.com

7 | Vermont Adaptive Snow Ball, Sugarbush The Grift plays and proceeds benefit a new adaptive facility at Mt. Ellen. sugarbush.com

30 | 3rd Annual Wax and Wine Clinic at Outdoor Gear Exchange, Burlington Learn to wax your skis, both Nordic and Alpine/AT from store technicians as you enjoy a glass of wine. Nordic clinic starts at 6 p.m. and Alpine starts at 7 p.m. gearx.com

8 | 16th Annual Mom’s Day Off, Bromley Show a photo of your kid(s) at the ticket window and ski/ride for a day for just a $25 donation to Southwestern Vermont Regional Cancer Center. bromley.com

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58 Winter/Spring 2019 vtskiandride.com

9 | Ski to Defeat ALS Day, Jay Peak Catch live music from The Yoozsh and a raffle to raise funds. jaypeakresort.com 9 | Junior Castlerock Extreme, Sugarbush Talented skiers 14 & under are invited to compete in a highly challenging and technical run down Castlerock’s infamous liftline. sugarbush.com 9 & 17 | USASA Skier/Boardercross Competition, Jay Peak Two back-to-back weekends of bank turns, rollers, jumps on skis or snowboard for points in this annual skier/boardercross race series. jaypeakresort.com 9-10 | 24 Hours of Bolton and Bolton Backcountry Carnival, Bolton Valley This 24-hour backcountry ski and splitboard race features a daytime loop in Bolton’s backcountry and an overnight loop on Bolton’s groomed terrain. nativeendurance.com 10 | Mansfield Nordic Skiathlon, Craftsbury Outdoor Center Men and women 16 and older compete in a race that requires switching skis halfway through, with 6K of classic skiing and 6K of freestyle. mansfieldnordic.org 14 | Valentine’s Day Kissing Special, Mad River Glen Kiss your partner at the ticket office and you both ski for half price. madriverglen.com 16 | Meet Oberon the Owl, Burke Mountain Hotel Learn about the owls of Vermont and their cool adaptations and meet Oberon, a Barred Owl, from 7 to 8 p.m. at the Burke Mountain Hotel. skiburke.com 16 | Harris Hill Ski Jump, Brattleboro Two days of ski jumping competition on New England’s only Olympic-size 90-meter hill. Live music, food court, bonfire and beer tent. harrishillskijump.com 16-17 | Frost Mountain/Rikert Eastern Cup, Rikert Nordic Center Nordic skate skiing interval starts on Saturday with a classic mass start on Sunday for a variety of distances ranging from 5K to 15K. rikertnordic.com 17 | Winter Wild Skimo Race Series at Ascutney, Brownsville A 3.1-mile trail run with 800 vertical feet of climbing. Plan to navigate by the light of a headlamp as the start is at 6 p.m. winterwild.com

19 | Vermont Institute of Natural Science Family Presentation, Okemo Have a first-hand encounter with falcons, hawks and owls and learn about these natural predators at the Roundhouse Cafe. okemo.com 19 & 21 | Allyn’s Lodge Remote Fireside Dining, Sugarbush Take a two-mile guided hike or the Lincoln Limo to Allyn’s Lodge for former Vermont Chef of the Year Gerry Nooney’s three-course meal. sugarbush.com 21 | Naturalist Snowshoe Tour, Burke Mountain Resort Join the NorthWoods Stewardship Center staff and explore the track and trails around the Dashney Nordic Center. skiburke.com 23 | Military Veterans Only Intro to Backcountry Touring Course, Bolton Valley Military veterans can enroll in a free two-day hut-based course that offers guiding, gear and instruction in backcountry ski touring or splitboarding. bit.ly/boltonvalleyvets 23 | IFSA Southern Vermont Freeskiing Extreme Challenge, Magic Mountain Skiers and riders tackle the Black Magic trail to find out who is the best skier/rider on the mountain. magicmtn.com 23 | Mini Shred Madness, Pico Mountain Introduce kids to park skiing and riding for a fun competition, free coaching and giveaways. killington.com 23 | Rockefeller Challenge, Mad River Glen This uphill-downhill race starts with an alpine descent down the practice slope and ends with a coasting/herringboning ascent up Rockefellers. madriverglen.com 23 | 2nd Annual Abe-BERM-ham’s FatBike Slalom, Suicide Six This quarter-mile downhill course is mellow enough for groms but boasts enough berms and features to challenge everyone. woodstockinn.com 23 | Mount Snow Adaptive Sports Winterfest, Mount Snow An evening of music and food with a silent auction fundraiser. msadaptive.org 23-24 | Winterfest, Magic Mountain Two days of après parties, buffet dinner, live music and fireworks. magicmtn.com

17 | Citizens Skiathlon, Rikert Nordic Center This fun skiathlon race series is open to all skiers and will feature two race starts: one for juniors and one for adult racers. nensa.net

23-24 | 34th Annual Kare Anderson Telemark Festival, Bromley Tip with some of the best tele skiers in the East, participate in clinics for all ages and abilities and compete in a USTSA-sanctioned race on Sunday. bromley.com

18 | Curling Clinic, Okemo A two-hour curling clinic at Okemo’s Ice House at Jackson Gore. okemo.com

27 | Taste of the Kingdom, Jay Peak Resort Sample small plates along with beer and cider prepared by the region’s top chefs and food producers. jaypeakresort.com

Join us each month in the heart of Stowe for an informal forum (and a beer) with top experts on topics such as:

Brought to you by

THE BEST NEW SKIS | BACKCOUNTRY HUTS SNOWBOARD PHOTOGRAPHY | LEGENDS FROM THE TENTH MOUNTAIN DIVISION | VERMONT’S ICONIC SKI PATROL LOST VERMONT SKI AREAS AND MORE. For a full schedule visit VTSSM.COM, or follow the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum on Facebook.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2019 59

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR MARCH 1-3 | Winterbike, Kingdom Trails, East Burke The East’s largest winter fatbike festival returns to Kingdom Trails. mbtvt.com 2 | 2nd Annual Master of the Mountain Extreme Biathlon, Magic Mountain Compete to be named the best skier or rider in the East in this mad dash down Black Line. The course is half extreme ski competition and half giant slalom. magicmtn.com 2 | Light the Night Rail Jam, Okemo Skiers and riders of all ages are welcome to compete in this nighttime rail jam competition on Bull Run for a $5,000 purse. okemo.com 2 | One Liner Rail Jam, Sugarbush Catch live music from Crusty Cuts at this after-hours rail jam at Mt. Ellen’s base.

Competitors get one hour to hit one line for a chance to win prizes. sugarbush.com 2 | Skiing History Day, Bromley Join the International Skiing History Association for this event featuring a vintage skiwear slopeside parade and a multigenerational alpine downhill race. bromley.com 2 | Frigid Infliction and Test Your Nettle Adventure Races, Bolton Valley Take on a 10-hour orienteering challenge featuring snowshoeing, cross-country skiing and a surprise activity or “test your nettle” with the three hour race. gmara.org 2 | Light the Night Rail Jam, Okemo Skiers and riders of all ages compete for a $5,000 cash purse. okemo.com 2-3 | Bill Koch Nordic Festival, Rikert Nordic Center Anyone is welcome to compete in cross-country ski events such as orienteering, beanbag biathlon and tandem ski races followed by live music. rikert.com 3 | Hope on the Slopes, Jay Peak Resort Partake in an all-day vertical challenge competition to see who can ski the most vertical feet and raise funds for the American Cancer Society. jaypeakresort.com 3 | Jack Jump World Championships, Mount Snow Rig your own jackjump (a skiing device with a bench attached to one ski) for this slalom race followed by an award ceremony and raffle. mountsnow.com 3 | 7th Annual High Fives FAT Ski-A-Thon, Sugarbush Participants complete as many “fun-runs” as possible at Lincoln Peak on the Valley House Lift to raise funds for the High Fives Foundation. sugarbush.com 4 | The Endurance Society Pico Skimo Event, Pico Mountain Grab your skis and skins and choose one, two or three laps on Pico’s uphill travel route, with a ski descent on trails. 2,000 feet of vertical per lap. endurancesociety.org 5 | Fat Tuesday Party, Sugarbush Don’t miss Sugarbush’s annual Mardi Gras party at Castlerock Pub, with live music, beer specials, Jambalaya and giveaways from Magic Hat. sugarbush.com 5 | Parlor Ski Demo Day, Mad River Glen Demo the latest Parlor Skis. madriverglen.com 7 | History of Lost Ski Areas in Waterbury and Stowe, Waterbury Center Join historian Brian Lindner at the Green Mountain Club Visitor Center for a talk about the history and origins of skiing in the Stowe e. greenmountainclub.org 8-10 | The 7th Annual Vermont Open, Stratton This annual celebration of snowboarding features live music and an epic rail jam open to riders of all ages and abilities for a prize purse of over $20,000. stratton.com

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9 | Flyin’ Ryan Memorial–IFSA National FWQ2 Competition, Mad River Glen Test your mettle on some of the most challenging terrain in the East in this Ski the East Freeride Tour freeskiing competition. Open to all ages. madriverglen.com 9 | Castlerock Extreme, Sugarbush Expert skiers and riders are invited to charge the cliffs and drops in this stop on the Ski the East Freeride Tour. Registration closes March 7. sugarbush.com 9-10 | Park Affair, Mount Snow Join fellow female riders for a lady-shred weekend packed full of park riding, progression, socializing and making memories. mountsnow.com 10 | Cares and Shares Spring Food Drive, Okemo Donate at least five non-perishable food items to receive a coupon for a $45 lift ticket good the same day. okemo.com 10 | Vertical Downhill Challenge Race, Bromley A fun, free and competitive alpine downhill ski race open to all skiers. bromley.com 10-12 | 7th Annual Vermont Open Snowboard and Music Festival, Stratton Snowboarders of all ages are invited to ride, party and compete in a variety of on-hill events for a cash purse of over $20,000. Don’t miss the live music. stratton.com 16 | Wild & Scenic Film Festival, Stratton Catch this series of environmental and adventure films showcasing beautiful landscapes and the challenges facing communities working to protect them. stratton.com 16 | New England Rando Race Series presents “The Sun,” Bromley Race uphill on skis using skins and then race back down to the mountain’s base. Part four in a five-part annual series. nerandorace.blogspot.com 16 | 2nd Annual Real to Steel, Jay Peak Open to skiers and riders, at this competition you can test your skills on challenging upper mountain terrain with one run on each course. jaypeakresort.com 16 | Sugar Daze, Okemo Celebrate sugaring season with live outdoor music, local beers and food. okemo.com 16 | SideSurfers Banked Slalom, Sugarbush Competitors get two runs each in this snowboard-only banked slalom event at Mount Ellen, through table tops, berms, rollers and more. sugarbush.com 16-17 | 7th Annual 24 Hours of Stratton, Stratton Form a team or compete as an individual in this 24-hour ski and ride party. Lifts will be open for a full 24 hours. Catch the opening party on Friday. stratton.com 20 | Annual Pond Skim, Jay Peak Test yourself (as long as you are 16 or older) against Jay’s pond. Prizes for: best run, best costume, best bail and best splash. jaypeakresort.com 22-24 | Retro 80s Weekend, Stowe Mountain Resort Bring out your pegged pants, neon windbreakers and onezies and start growing that mullet for this weekend of stylish skiing, Karaoke and break dancing . stowe.com 23 | 39th Annual George Syrovatka Ski Race, Jay Peak This annual ski race benefits Leukemia research and features a dual slalom for both ski and snowboard and post-race party with a raffle. jaypeakresort.com 23 | Retro Jam, Okemo Bring out your acid-washed jeans, your brightest neon and smoothest on-snow moves for this 1980s-inspired rail jam. Prizes for Best Daffy, Best Method and Best Outfit. okemo.com

23 | Mad River Glen Junior Mogul Challenge, Mad River Glen Kids 15 and under test their mettle against the shapeliest moguls in New England in this alpine downhill race. madriverglen.com

6 | Pond Skimming, Sugarbush Can you skim across the 120-foot pond at Lincoln Peak? Awards for best costume, style and splash. sugarbush.com

23 | Bud Light Pond Skim, Mount Snow Can you make it across the 100-foot long ice cold pond? Competitors to be judged based on costume, form and style. mountsnow.com

ONGOING

25 | Spring Fling and Annual Pond Skim, Stratton Ski across Stratton’s pond Prizes for best costume and best fall. stratton.com 27 | Annual Tailgate Party at Stateside, Jay Peak A contest for the best dish, best drink, best presentation, best dessert and best overall tailgater. Followed by an after-party with live music from Lazer Dad. jaypeakresort.com 30 | 2019 Triple Crown Unconventional Terrain Comp, Mad River Glen The first in the Triple Crown series, this race challenges skiers to hit Lift Line trail and ski all of the steeps, cliffs, jumps and rocks they can. madriverglen.com 30 | Hops on the Snow Brewfest, Okemo A festival in the Jackson Gore Courtyard with 10 new seasonal local beers. okemo.com 30 | 24th Annual Smuggs’ Brewfest Part 2, Smugglers’ Notch Enjoy samples from 2 Roads Brewing, Stone Brewing, 14th Star, Zero Gravity and more to appetizers and a DJ set. smuggs.com

Jan. to April | Free Heel Fridays, Mad River Glen Every Friday except holidays, try a telemark clinic at the ski area. madriverglen.com Feb. 16, March 2 | Gathering of the Groms, Sugarbush Free intro to park skiing and snowboarding from Sugarbush’s coaching staff for kids 13 & under. March 2 at Mount Ellen, February 16 at Lincoln Peak. sugarbush.com Jan. to March 5 | Nor’East Skimo Race Series, Bolton Valley Catamount Trail Association’s Tuesday night friendly uphill races. catamounttrail.org Jan. to March 14 | Bolton Dawn Patrol, Bolton Valley Catamount Trail Association hosts a pre-work lap up Bolton on Thursday mornings.

Newcomers welcome. catamounttrail.org Jan. 25 to March 3 | USASA Southern Vermont Series Catch snowboard and freeski rail jams, boardercross, giant slalom, halfpipe, slopestyle and more at ski areas across southern Vermont. southernvermontseries.com

30 | 11th Annual Mount Snow Winter Brewers Festival, Mount Snow Celebrate spring with live music and local craft brews. mountsnow.com 30 | Trivial Traverse, Bolton Valley Join the Catamount Trail Association for a 26-mile ski tour from Bolton Valley to Smugglers’ Notch Resort with Kevin Duniho. catamounttrail.org 31 | 2018 Triple Crown Mogul Challenge, Mad River Glen Race through a grueling moguls course on the Chute Trail–so single chair riders can have a bird’s eye view of the competition. madriverglen.com 31 | Bud Light Glade-iator, Mount Snow A mogul skiing contest on the soft springtime bumps of the legendary Ripcord. Spectators, don’t miss the slopeside cash bar. mountsnow.com

APRIL 1 | 2019 Triple Crown Vertical Challenge, Mad River Glen See how much vertical you can rack up in a day on Chute and Lift Line trails. The record is over 60,000 vertical feet. madriverglen.com 1 | April Fools Day Special, Mad River Glen Act foolish in the ticket office and you ski for half off. madriverglen.com 4-6 | Sugar Slalom, Stowe Since 1939, this USSA slalom race has been a celebration of spring skiing and maple sugaring season. mmsc-mmwa.org/events/sugar-slalom 6 | Vertical Challenge Finals, Jay Peak Claim the fastest time of the season in this recreational alpine ski and snowboard downhill race. Open to all ages and abilities. jaypeakresort.com 6 | Slush Cup and Splash For Cash, Okemo Costume-clad competitors skim across an 80-foot-long man-made slush pond in the Jackson Gore Base Area. okemo.com

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DRINK VT [SPONSORED CONTENT]

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 at vtskiandride.com.

VERMONT BEER, WINE, CIDER + SPIRITS

133 North Main St, St. Albans, VT 802528-5988 | 14thstarbrewing.com

46 Log Yard Drive, Hardwick, VT 802-472-8000 | caledoniaspirits.com Open daily 12-5 for free tours and tastings at the distillery.

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.

Caledonia Spirits is a craft distillery in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. Raw honey distinguishes our Barr Hill vodka, Barr Hill gin, and Tom Cat barrel aged gin by imparting a pure and soft botanical essence into each bottle. All of our spirits reflect our deep connection to the land and Vermont’s agricultural heritage.

316 Pine Street, Burlington, VT 802-497-1987| citizencider.com

3597 VT-74, Shoreham, VT 802-897-2777| champlainorchards.com

Building character by making great fermented ciders since 2010. We use 100% locally sourced apples 100% of the time. See our story online; for events follow us on Facebook.

Visit our cidery on Pine Street in Burlington for special taps, meals and live music.

Open daily 9-5. July-Nov.

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.

FIND MAPS AND MORE AT

vtskiandride.com/drink-vermont

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

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

610 Route 7, Middlebury, VT 802-989-7414 | dropinbrewing.com

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 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.

155 Carroll Rd, Waitsfield, VT 802-496-HOPS | lawsonsfinest.com 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 creations of the highest quality and freshness paired with locally-produced light fare.

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 preservative-free 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.

The Chairlift Q+A

GLEN PLAKE’S DOWN HOME TOUR What happens when America’s most famous badass skier decides to barnstorm acrossVermont with his wife in a converted semi tractor trailer, busting in on small ski areas as he goes?

G

len Plake arrived in Vermont in January, 2019, with his hair down, his signature spiky mohawk replicated by a fake one on his helmet. That mohawk, along with his outsized personality and penchant for extreme skiing, has made him one of America’s bestloved two-plankers.

He’s appeared in numerous ski films, most famously Greg Stump’s classics, Blizzard of Aahhs and License to Thrill. A native Californian, Plake has made first ski descents in Europe, Japan, North and South America and Asia. “Skiing 50-degree slopes at 20,000 ft. is a game where the rules have not changed,” he says.

Plake is also a national champion in both slalom and marathon waterski racing—“skiing at over 100 mph.” He’s won multiple titles in off-road rally car racing including the Baja 1000 and 500, and is a 508 (endurance cycling) solo finisher. But in recent years, he and his wife Kimberly have devoted part of their winter to loading up a giant semi tractor trailer with everything they need to live on the road and headed out on what they call the Down Home Tour, helping perform his role as an ambassador for National Learn to Ski and Snowboard Month. In January their seventh Down Home Tour stopped in Vermont.

Why Vermont?

Well Kimberly and I actually met at a trade show at Stratton almost 30 years ago. We’ve come back a lot but there are a lot of places in Vermont we’ve never skied.

after a week of rain, stand at the top of the mountain and look out at the sunset over Lake Champlain and the Adirondacks. What a view! And then at Sugarbush I got to ski with John Egan and meet Win Smith— he’s such awesome guy—and my old pal Deano [Dean Decas]. Those places are still real and really what help keep skiing alive. You can’t argue that skiing is expensive when at Sugarbush you take three lessons and you get a season’s pass. It’s these independent places that are going to save skiing. I also skied with the junior freestyle kids at Mad River Glen, which I hadn’t skied since Mrs. Pratt owned the place.

Why go to all the small places ?

I’m appalled at what skiing has become in so many places—they’re like amusement parks. I wanted to go to “ski hills” and “ski areas”— places where skiing is all you do, not “ski resorts.”

And your favorite?

Man, you have to go to this little community ski area up in Corinth, Northeast Slopes! We rocked in there the night before a storm in our big ol’ rig, slept in the parking lot and then helped the guys plow a foot of snow out of the parking lot and rev up the rope tow the next morning. There were like three generations of cousins running the place and it seems like they’re all volunteers. And lift tickets are $15! It’s places like these that still have the heart of skiing in them.

So what was on your hit list?

I really wanted to make a pilgrimage to the areas where two sets of brothers I’ve skied with (in my extreme skiing days) come from: Rob and Eric Deslauriers at Bolton and John and Dan Egan at Sugarbush. I’d never skied at Stowe before and had to go to a trade show there so hit that up too.

What were the highlights?

It was amazing to ski up Bolton with Adam Deslauriers and,

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Where next?

We’re headed to New Hampshire and Maine next, but we never really plan our trips. We don’t call ahead.

We’ve turned down big media sponsorships. We want to keep it real so we just sort of show up and ski with whoever is there. So maybe we’ll swing back here. I’ve wanted to ski the Middlebury Snow Bowl and I’ve heard really good things about Magic. —L.L.n

Photo courtesy Northeast Slopes

Glen Plake (left) catches a powder day at Northeast Slopes in early January.

sugarbush.com

800.53.SUGAR

Adventure Awaits For the best deals on season passes, discount tickets, lodging and more, visit sugarbush.com.

PHOTO: JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR

60 Years. Proudly Independent. Be Better Here.