Vermont Ski + Ride 2021 -1 Winter/Spring

VT

SKI + RIDE

Vermont’s Mountain Sports and Life

The

Sweet Season

Pandemic Apres | Backcountry | Tailgating

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CONTENTS / 05.03

FEATURES ZEB POWELL WILL BLOW YOUR MIND p. 30

He came from nowhere to win the X Games. Now Zeb Powell is making Burlington his terrain park.

SKYFALL p. 38

Inspired by Adirondack Great Camps, this snowboarder from Boston built his dream home in Stowe.

AN EYE ON THE SUMMIT p. 44 He’s mapped the Himalayas, photographed ski celebrities and been a part of Stratton’s history. At 84, Hubert Schriebl still aims for the top.

FIRST TRACKS NEWS | ESCAPE STRATEGIES,

This is the year for cross-country.

p. 10

NEWS | THE AFTER HOURS CLUB, p. 12

More and more smaller ski areas are turning on the night lights.

NEWS | PRO TAILGATING TIPS, p. 15

Check out this van. Get a cool custom fire pit. Or rent this igloo.

NEWS | WHOSE WOODS ARE THESE?, p. 16 Shots rang out when a backcountry skier crossed a landowner.

APRES | VERMONT’S CHOCOLATE TRAIL, p . 9

These 9 boutique chocolatiers are worth the trip. ,

COLUMNS FROM THE TOP | THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT VT,

p. 6

Who is a real Vermonter?

COACH | THE LEARNING CURVE

p. 53

The ski industry wants more beginners, more women and more minorities to learn to ski. Mirna Valerio is all three. And here’s how she’s learning.

COMPETITION | RYAN COCHRAN-SIEGLE SENDS IT p. 56

RCS has had the biggest wins and the biggest crashes on the World Cup. .

CHAIRLIFT Q/A | A TRUE VERMONTER,

p. 64

Molly Gray is a farmer’s daiughter, hardcore skier and now, at 36, the Lieutenant Governor of Vermont.

COVER: Zeb Powell takes to the trees at Killington. Photo by Brian Nevins/Red Bull Content Pool THIS PAGE: It’s daffy season in Stowe for Dylan Gamache. Photo by Scott Braaten vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 5

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THERE’S SOMETHING ABOUT VERMONT

“There’s something about Vermont that gets into your heart and marrow,” said Molly Gray when I interviewed her for the Chairlift Q/A, this issue. Gray is about as Vermont as it gets. A fourth-generation Vermonter and daughter of cross-country Olympian Bob Gray, she grew up Nordic racing in the winter and working on her family’s farm in the summer. In January, Gray, 36 ,became Lieutenant Governor. One of her concerns now is the state’s declining and aging population and how we get more folks to move here.

Mirna Valerio had a very different upbringing. She grew up in New York City where her stepfather worked in the laundry facilities at a nearby hospital. Valerio became a Juilliard-trained opera singer, an ultrarunner and author of the blog, Fat Girl Running. Since 2019, she’s also a Vermonter.

“I remember driving into Montpelier and seeing a Black Lives Matter sign and a Pride flag and I knew I could live here,” she told me last summer. The only thing: she didn’t ski. So this January we took her for a lesson at Sugarbush.

“The first thing I noticed was just how nice everyone was— from the parking lot to the rental area,” said Valerio. “And T-Bar, my instructor, was awesome -— so, so patient.” For years, the ski industry has been facing the same challenges Vermont has: a stagnant demographic. For years, ski industry conferences have echoed the same refrain: we need more women, more beginners, and more people of color.

As Valerio—who is all three— said after her lesson, “You can do everything else right but you’re not going to make that happen if people don’t see themselves on the slopes or in the ads or in the pages.”

Zeb Powell, an insanely talented young snowboarder, would have been our cover story no matter what color his skin is. He’s won X Games gold, he (like Molly Gray) is a Stratton Mountain School grad. Since he moved to Burlington in 2020, he’s also a Vermonter—one who, like Valerio, wants to, in his words, bring “more color to the mountains.” All three of these skiers and riders—Gray, Valerio and Powell—are Vermonters. We’re grateful for that. —Lisa Lynn, Editor

CONTRIBUTORS

11/11/20 4:47 PM

A former Div. 1 ski racer at Williams College, Marina Knight has been editor of Ski Racing Media and is now Director of the T2 Foundation, a non-profit that supports winter sports athletes,.

In this issue, she gives us a front row seat at Ryan Cochran-Siegle’s wild World Cup season.

Wilson Vickers jumped at the chance to write our cover story on snowboarding phenom Zeb Powell and spent hours watching clips of Powell’s runs at the X Games and on the streets of Burlington.

Vickers is pursuing a degree in professional writing from Champlain College.

We provide consistent communication, real-time cost updates, current product knowledge, environmental sensitivity, and a stress-free experience.

View our portfolio at SislerBuilders.com 6 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

For Henry Dolan, life these past few months was—quite literally—a box of chocolates. Dolan pulled the sweet assignment of covering Vermont’s chocolate boutiques. A 2020 University of Vermont grad, Dolan lives in Stowe.

WHERE THE END OF THE TRAIL IS ONLY THE BEGINNING

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 7

EDITORIAL Publisher, Angelo Lynn angelo@vtskiandride.com Editor/Co-Publisher, Lisa Lynn editor@vtskiandride.com Creative Director, David Pollard Editorial Interns: Henry Dolan, Wilson Vickers Contributors: Brooks Curran, David Goodman, Ali Kaukas, Bud Keene, Brian Mohr & Emily Johnson, Lindsay Selin, Doug Stewart, Jeb Wallace-Brodeur

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FIRSTTRACKS

ESCAPE STRATEGIES

Photo by Caleb Kenna

Skiing and riding have become the greatest escape from the pandemic. But if you want to make the most of backcountry skiing, tailgating and avoiding crowds here’s what you should know.

10 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

T

his is the year of Nordic skiing. Even before the first snows fell and Vermont resident Jessie Diggins took the lead in the World Cup, cross-country skiing was heating up. Last fall, in the wake of record bicycle sales, publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to Forbes to Outside began to predict that cross-country skiing would boom.

In Vermont, shops such as Outdoor Gear Exchange in Burlington and Onion River Sports of Montpelier stocked up on gear early on. In Putney, Zach Caldwell (cousin to World Cup racer Sophie Caldwell) and his wife Amy of Caldwell Sport—which specializes in ski sales and tuning for some of the top Nordic racers—bought The West Hill Shop, the legendary bike and cross-country shop.

According to a survey released in December 2020 by the Cross Country Ski Areas Association, the numbers bore out: sales of crosscountry and alpine touring (backcountry skiing) gear were up more than 20%, with snowshoes up 16% and alpine touring gear up 10%.

According to the CCSAA, “Even core downhill skiers are considering

backcountry skiing on weekends when capacity limits at resorts are met and the highest levels of risk from Covid-19 infection are present.”

The good news, in addition to the largest cross country areas — Rikert Nordic Center in Ripton, Stowe’s Trapp Family Lodge and the Craftsbury Touring Center — there are smaller places to escape to.

In January, the Highland Center for the Arts in Greensboro opened a new 1.8 mile-long open air gallery where you can ski past works from local artists, stop at bonfires and enjoy special outdoor performances by musicians and fuel up at the open-air cafe.

At Blueberry Hill Inn and Outdoor Center, one of the first Nordic ski areas in Vermont, explore miles of backcountry trails in the Moosamaloo National Recreation Area. The Woodstock Inn and Resort has 45 km of groomed trails with a luxurious spa waiting when you are done. And at The Grafton Inn’s Grafton Trails & Outdoor Center, Vermonters get 50% off trail passes Wed.-Fri. For more ideas on where to escape, see our Nordic directory on page 28.

Brandon photographer Caleb Kenna has become known for his striking aerial shots of landscapes and patterns that many of us miss at ground level. Here, his drone captures the late afternoon sun on skiers at Rikert Nordic Center.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 11

BRING ON THE NIGHT!

More and more small ski areas are turning on the lights for night action.This season, Magic joined the club.

Magic lights up its new terrain park this season, and changes up the features there on a regular basis.

I

n mid-December, Magic Mountain opened its new terrain park… under the lights. What was once Magic’s tubing area is now the only nighttime terrain park in southern Vermont: a flourishing garden of rails, boxes, jumps, hips, and any other unique features the parks crew can come up with.

“Southern Vermont has always been a place where snowboarding history is kind of made,” said Sam Eisenhauer, a member of the parks crew and resident of Londonderry, the town where Jake Burton Carpenter first began making snowboards. “It’s cool to build on that and attract a lot of kids who are frustrated with the corporate nature of other resorts.”

Ian Anglum, 19, of Manchester is one of those kids. “[At night] you kind of feel closed off from the entire mountain and it’s just this one specific area. It’s almost like a skatepark...it definitely gives off a different feeling,” he says. “Having that younger demographic actually sculpting how they want the park to look and having the dudes that know how to run the machinery is really helping.”

The parks crew makes do with what they have. New features are formed from leftovers of other projects or old snowmaking pipes. Rather than hindering the design and build process, recycling brings out unique ingenuity. When building a feature, Magic’s crew considers how it can be used in multiple ways. “We figure out if this

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Bolton Valley is the largest resort to offer night skiing in Vermont: running a tow rope, two double chairs, and a quad. Currently, 10 trails are open at night, offering top to bottom access. Just 30 minutes from both Burlington and Montpelier, it’s a great opportunity to get some laps in after work.

Night skiing is Tuesday through Saturday from 4-10 P.M. Tickets are $25.

Cochran’s Ski Area gets lit up on Friday nights for their famous Friday Night Lights sessions. The mountain T-bar runs up brightly lit slopes where the next generation of Olympians are often training, following in the Cochran family’s winning legacy. While the popular Friday night dinners have been curtailed due to the pandemic, the lift tickets are $5 for everyone on Friday nights.

Other tiny ski areas that turn on the lights include Hard’Ack Recreation Area (open to 6 pm, Fri.-Sun.) in St. Albans, Brattleboro Ski Hill (Saturday nights until 9 pm), and the Lyndon Outing Club (Friday and Saturdays until 9 pm).

Ascutney Outdoors has offered Thursday night races in past years but will not this year due to Covid-19. Many smaller areas’ hours are dependent on snow conditions.

is something that would be fun to ride and is it something that doesn’t just serve one purpose?” says Eisenhauer. Features such as rails, boxes, and tubes are often moved or rotated to create different features and lines through the park.

One advantage of being a small mountain is that the parks crew has a lot of control over snow allocation. “With a cat driver, we can just spend a whole night in here pushing mounds or hips and little bumps in the snow that I think another mountain wouldn’t necessarily create,” says Eisenhauer. Creativity and adaptability are essential, and the turnout has showcased that it pays off.

Restrictions due to Covid-19 have limited the number of people allowed each night to and made social distancing a major priority.

Magic’s after-hours park is open Fridays, Saturdays, and holidays from 4-7 pm. Tickets are $29. —WilsonVickers n

Photo by John Hatheway/Magic Mountain

THE AFTER-HOURS CLUB

10

year

anniversary

MADE IN CONNECTICUT CUSTOM TABLES AND LIGHTING dunesandduchess.com @ dunesandduchess

15 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

Tailgating Pro Tips

When it comes to tailgating, you could call Danielle and Colin Moffat pros. Danielle, a former ski racing coach who grew up in Stowe, owns the wine bar Cork in town. Colin, who coaches ski racing at Mount Mansfield Academy, is a Norwich local. Their two kids, Soelden and Winter are also, you guessed it, ski racers. Here’s how the Moffats approach Covid-friendly tailgating.

When did you decide to buy a van?

With two kids – both ski racers—we knew a van would be a good idea long term and this year it really made sense. It lets us load up all the gear for the four of us, stock the fridge, and have our own baselodge. We even got the license plate “BASELODGE” for it. While we’ve seen dozens of Sprinter vans in the parking lots this year we found this 1999 Ford Econoline with 50,000 miles on it for $8,000 off Craigslist.

What’s your Covid-19 ski strategy?

We’ve been Nordic skiing a lot just to steer clear of crowds. And we don’t ski Saturdays at Stowe because lines are long but we get up there around 11 on Sundays just as the crowds thin out and find a great parking space. We always load some hot dogs for the kids and our charcuterie plate from Stowe. At Cork, we offer up a Tailgate Package which has Vermont Salumi Fennel Salami, Vermont-made Lil Hosmer cheese from Jasper Hill, Jan’s Crisps (these amazing crackers developed by Stowe skier Jan Gorham) and our own Cork Sage-Honey Mustard. We package that with a Tucher Helles lager four-pack and a Fermina Monastrell red wine for $50.

As for staying warm?

We bought a propane-powered Outland fire pit off Amazon. We had a Solo stove but you need real wood and the heat goes straight up. With this we can just unplug it and put it away. I’m also planning on getting some sheepskin throws from Ikea to use on our camp chairs just to keep them warmer (and more stylish). We also bring thermal mugs to keep cocoa or coffee warm and wine or beer cold.

INSANE FIRE PITS Firepits are a thing in this year of insanity. And that’s what got Liam Fracht-Monroe, a former member of Okemo’s marketing team, thinking about what you could do by customizing them. So he launched Insane Firepits out of Mendon, Vt., (just down the road from Pico Ski Area) and started making stainless steel firepits with custom panels. The Anything But Standard (standard) pit is 32 x 31 x 36 inches, weighs 80 lbs and costs $495. But the coolest thing is the company offers more than 75 different panel designs that you can use to customize the pit ($50) each. Those include one panel that shows a skier, snowboarder and mountain biker. You can also order a custom panel with your family name or other design.

Courtesy photos

DINE OUT IN AN IGLOO The hottest table in Vermont right now may well be in an igloo. At Spruce Peak at Stowe Mountain Resort you can reserve a cozy igloo on the Mansfield terrace for up to six people. A five-course catered dinner there is $195 per person. You can also reserve the igloos during the day or for apres-ski in 90-minute increments and dine on fresh sushi and other fare.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 15

WHOSEWOODS ARE THESE? If you don’t know whose backcountry you’re skiing in, you may be trespassing.

O

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Backcountry skier Aaron Rice finds a pow stash on state-owned land in central Vermont.

While more and more Instagram shots of backcountry skiing are captioned “On the occupied lands of the Abenaki,” many skiers are not aware of who owns the land they ski.

Photo by Cyril Brunner

n the third weekend of January, somewhere in the backcountry glades of Braintree Mountain Forest, shots rang out. It wasn’t a hunter after coyotes but a life-long Vermonter protecting his property from a backcountry skier. Though the land was posted with ‘No Trespassing’ signs, skiers sometimes ignore them as they pick fresh lines down from a trail near the home. When this skier, also a life-long Vermonter, crossed over onto the private land, the landowner had enough and fired a few warning shots.

No one was hurt but the skier filed a police report. “After, the skier was sincerely apologetic about it all,” said Braintree resident Zac Freeman, who along with Angus McCusker founded the Rochester/ Randolph Sport Trails Alliance (RASTA), the group that has developed the backcountry trails in Braintree and at Brandon Gap, near Rochester.

RASTA promptly closed the area and began working with the abutting landowner to reroute the trail. “I’ve heard his frustrations before – and hey, I don’t think anyone would want a steady stream of skiers going by their kitchen window,” said Freeman. “But a big stewardship responsibility rests on the shoulders of each trail user.”

In addition to rerouting the trail and posting signage, RASTA is creating a quiet-zone trail head at Braintree. “People live right near there and they don’t want to listen to radios blaring and folks partying it up,” Freeman says.

While the glades at Brandon Gap were cut on National Forest Land – the first legally-sanctioned glades on National Forest land in the country—Braintree’s glades are cut on New England Forestry Foundation’s land which abut and sometimes cross private property on a town right-of-way.

Last year, Kingdom Trails – the network of 100 miles of mountain biking trails in the Northeast Kingdom— suffered a blow when three landowners pulled their properties from the heart of the trail system, gutting main connector routes.This may have followed an altercation between mountain bikers and one of the landowners, but it built on village-wide complaints about excess noise, traffic and illegal parking around the trails. Other trail groups, such as the Vermont Association of Snow Travelers, which manages snowmobile trails and the Catamount Trail Association have also had to negotiate with landowners for permission to cross their properties and handle complaints about trail users.

This winter, backcountry skiing is seeing some of the same growing pains. “I’ve seen people parking all over the place at trailheads, by the sides of the road and in places they shouldn’t. And I wouldn’t blame towns or landowners at all if they decide to start towing cars,” said Freeman.

Like many mountain bike chapters, RASTA is primarily staffed by volunteers, with two paid director positions and funded by membership and donations. Though the organization does offer online memberships and as well as selling maps at The Gear Shop House in Randolph, Freeman estimates that only 10- to 20-percent of all RASTA trail users contribute to the organization. “We are working to change that,” he says.

At Kingdom Trails, ambassadors were stationed at key areas to monitor trail use last summer, reminding people of trail etiquette and collecting trail fees. “That’s something that the new funds being allocated to outdoor recreation might be able to help us and others do down the road,” says Freeman, referring to the nearly $10 million Gov. Scott proposed in his 2021 budget for supporting community-based outdoor recreation projects and trail building.

“The silver lining to this is we hope people better realize the importance of knowing where they are, where they’re going and heightening their consciousness as to the impacts they may have on the area they’re recreating in,” Freeman notes.

And, as he reminds us all “Skiing here is a privilege, not a right.” —Lisa Lynn

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Après

VERMONT’S CHOCOLATE TRAIL

In ski towns aroundVermont, boutique chocolate shops are turning out handmade delicacies using local ingredients ranging from fresh herbs and forged mushrooms to Bayley Hazen Blue cheese. By Henry Dolan

T

Photo courtesy Tavernier

Dar Tavernier-Singer and John Singer take a savory approach to Tavernier’s chocolate “charcuterie” and use ingredients such as spruce or edible flowers.

he Swiss brought two of their favorite things to New England when they came here in the 1930s and 1940s: skiing and chocolate—and the two seem to pair well.

Think of steaming cups of hot chocolate after a long day out in the freezing cold and bars of chocolate tucked into coat pockets for an energy boost on the slopes.

Denise Monte, part of the Monte family that runs Village Peddlers in East Arlington notes, “Chocolate may be so popular because it pairs well with the wines, beers, and cheeses that are a large part of the ski lifestyle.” Leigh Williams, of Laughing Moon Chocolates of Stowe, agrees: “All of my staff, and so many of our customers are skiers and riders. Our busiest part of the day for sales is after the mountain closes.”

Around Vermont, boutique chocolatiers have popped up in ski towns creating their own hand-made specialties using local products. At many you can also learn about —and even participate in —the chocolatemaking process. Make your own chocolate bar at Village Peddlers in East Arlington; take a self-guided tour at Lake Champlain Chocolate’s flagship store in Burlington. Drive up Route 7, and you can literally taste your way up the state.

From Christmas to Valentine’s Day to Easter, chocolate season intersects with ski season. For skiers and riders who can’t make it to Switzerland, here are 9 decadent chocolate boutiques near popular Vermont ski areas. While some are closed to visitors now due to Covid-19, many are still open and are fascinating places to visit: South to north, they make a sweet chocolate trail.

TAVERNIER, BRATTLEBORO Charcuterie and...chocolate? At John Singer and Dar Tavernier-Singer’s chocolate shop, Tavernier in Brattleboro, you may be surprised to find chocolate on the charcuterie board along with all the fixings. “Our Chocolate Charcuterie really stands out because it is made with savory ingredients like herbs, nuts, and dairy. It is made to be paired with cheese, real charcuterie, bread, and condiments, as well as wine and craft beer,” Dar remarks. “The chocolate comes wrapped to look like charcuterie, and people love to serve it at gatherings.”

Tavernier’s chocolate bars are also works of art, garnished with flower petals and sprigs of herbs such as lavender as well as some ingredients you wouldn’t expect.

“We use locally foraged spruce, mint and mushrooms,” says John. “We grow our own mint, edible flowers and other herbs, such a black garlic, are organically grown by High Meadows Farm, just up the road in Putney.”

They also add in local berries and apples when they are in season, Vermont crafted cheeses and spirits, and maple, birch or shagbark hickory syrups.

The chocolate itself is not overly sweet and is ethically sourced. “We do not use added colors, preservatives or flavorings and balance the flavors of our confections so you can really taste the chocolate, which is single origin, direct trade and ethically sourced from South American producers,” Dar notes.

While their brick-and-mortar store has been temporarily closed during Covid-19, you can order online or find their bars at shops around the state. But once the shop reopens, make Brattleboro a stop on your way to the slopes.

THE CHOCOLATE BARN, SHAFTSBURY The Bottum Farm, which dates back to 1842 was once the largest sheep farm in Vermont.

But since 1976 it has housed The Chocolate

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 19

MIDDLEBURY SWEETS’S SIMPLE TRUFFLE RECIPE:

3. THE VILLAGE CHOCOLATE SHOPPE, EAST ARLINGTON After a day on the slopes of Stratton or Nordic skiing at Prospect Mountain, take the kids to the Village Peddler and Chocolatorium in East

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Ingredients: 12 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped 1/3 cup heavy cream 1 teaspoon vanilla extract In a medium saucepan over medium heat, combine chocolate and cream. Cook, stirring, until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat and whisk in flavoring (you can add your own flavorings or extracts.) Pour into a small dish and refrigerate until set, but not hard, 1 1/2 to 2 hours. . Use to fill candies or form balls and roll in toppings such as powdered sugar, cocoa powder, sprinkles or other toppings.

For more recipes from these specialty chocolatiers see vtskiandride.com/chocolate-trail/

An entire chocolate village awaits at Village Peddler in East Arlington. The shop is also the place to find Cocoa, a life-sized chocolate teddy bear, or to make your own chocolate bar.

Arlington to see Cocoa, the world’s largest chocolate teddy bear. (Or, if going through Bennington, stop at the sister location, the Village Chocolate Shoppe to see Benny and Molly, two giant chocolate moose.)

Inside the Village Peddler, an old wagon shed, you’ll also find an entire mountainside village made of chocolates, a ski town, with chalets of smooth white chocolate walls and dark chocolate roofs.

Part of what makes the Village Peddler so unique is the Monte family’s enthusiasm to teach others about chocolate and get them involved in the process. The Village Peddler is something of a chocolate museum where you can learn about the history of chocolate, how their business operates, and have quite a few taste tests.You can even rent out the Chocolatorium and create your very own chocolate bar or purchase home-kits for the kids to make chocolate fishing poles or sugar stones.They have many recipes on their website for you to try at home like the Ice Cream Truffles and their Candy Cane Bark.

4. MIDDLEBURY SWEETS With 1,300 different candies and 100 homemade chocolates, Middlebury Sweets claims the title of the largest candy store in Vermont.

The shop on Route 7, just 15 minutes from Rikert Nordic Center and the Middlebury Snow Bowl, first started out as a scrapbooking store which had three cases of candies at the counter.

The candy sold extremely well and owner Blanca Jenne began to make her own chocolates. In 2012, they made the change to full-on candy store and haven’t looked back since. Some of the things they make in house now include chocolate peanut butter cups, turtles and truffles.

Part of what makes Middlebury Sweets so special are the candy buffets—beautiful displays of every imaginable confection in many colors and flavors. They carry everything from house-made peanut butter cups to jaw breakers to Gummies. If you’re looking to make an event stand out or can’t decide between all of their treats, the shop will even help create a candy buffet you can set up at home.

As the pandemic hit, Middlebury Sweets had the ingenious idea to make Quarantine Survival Kits : a combination of candies and chocolates to send to a loved one. But, if you can, stop in to see the dazzling displays of candies and meet the shop’s four colorful live parrots: two macaws, an African gray, and a blue crown conure.

Courtesy Village Peddler

Barn, a staple of Shaftsbury and the surrounding area. It has become a stop for anyone headed up the western side of the state to ski Stratton, Bromley or Magic.

Today, the barn’s aged wood walls serve as a backdrop for displays of fudge and chocolate and it’s a place to sample some of the homemade ice creams with flavors such as maple and Scotch (yes, you read that right) Tom Huncharek and Sue Balutis honeymooned in southern Vermont over 25 years ago and fell in love with the area. Huncharek had worked as a chemist. Balutis had experience in making chocolate at Premise in Trexlertown, Pa. The couple bought The Chocolate Barn from Lucinda Gregory in 2010. With it, they inherited her chocolate recipes and over 2,000 molds for various chocolates and fudge.

Many of the ingredients used today come from local producers, like the blueberries for the Blueberry Butter Creams. The maple syrup commonly added to the chocolates and ice cream is from trees tapped just up the road.

Strawberries and many of the ingredients for the ice cream come from the farm across the street, Clearbrook Farms, or other nearby producers.

COME EXPLORE

MIDDLEBURY’S

Winter Magic

THINGS TO DO IN MIDD-WINTER As a ski destination Middlebury offers an authentic experience that’s a welcome contrast to Vermont’s more developed ski resorts. Home of the Middlebury College ski team, the Middlebury College Snow Bowl is just 15 minutes from the downtown and is the perfect mountain for beginner, intermediate and advanced skiers with ample off-trail skiing and no crowds. Just a mile down the road is world-class Nordic skiing at Rikert Nordic Center, complete with a 5K race loop with 100 percent snowmaking around the loop. For snowshoers, backcountry skiers and hikers, go to the Robert Frost National Recreation Trail, the Trail Around Middlebury, and enjoy 16,000 acres of the Moosalamoo National Recreation Area (MNRA) that’s ideal for backcountry skiing and snowshoeing.

Fat-tire biking is a growing sport at Rikert Nordic Center and in the MNRA, and snowshoeing is featured at the Blueberry Hill Outdoor Center. Catch lake trout, a northern pike and salmon ice-fishing in nearby Lake Dunmore, stay at one of the area’s cozy Vermont Inns or B&Bs and explore the Lemon Fair Sculpture Park, then enjoy locally produced craft beer, cider and spirits.

DAILY CHOCOLATE, VERGENNES If you are headed north or south on Route 7, Daily Chocolate is tucked into a basement in a classic Vergennes building like a speakeasy. These days, the shop is curbside pick-up only but it is absolutely worth it to call ahead for their famous small-batch specialty bark bars such as White Chocolate Lemon Lavender or Pistachio Green Chili. Throw in a cannister of their Dark Hot Chocolate mix and you can settle in for the evening.

While the shop has been around since 2006, in December 2020 it was taken over by Dawn Wagner. Wagner had worked at Lake Champlain Chocolates in the 1990s but then moved to New York to pursue an acting career on Broadway. There, she met her husband, actor Jeremy Holm (best known for playing Agent Nathan Green on the Netflix series, House of Cards.) While in New York, Wagner continued to make chocolate at El Eden in the East Village and under her own brand cocoSnap!

The couple returned to Vermont in 2016 and Wagner is now busy bringing her own touch to Daily Chocolate creations which are soyfree and made without corn syrup or white sugar. Instead, they are sweetened with local maple syrup, use milk and honey from Addison County, and ingredients from other local producers.

Vt Ski+Ride 2021.qxp_Layout 1 1/20/21 2:04 PM Page 1

MAKE THE TIME FOR WINTER ADVENTURES! With three mountains to explore in Woodstock, taking the time for a winter escape will be worth it. Nordic ski on Mt. Peg and Mt. Tom or hit the downhill slopes of Suicide 6 Ski Area.

The Woodstock Inn & Resort invites you to celebrate winter with luxurious accommodations, fine dining, a full service spa & all of our amazing winter recreational activities.

Plan Your Winter Getaway Today! www.woodstockinn.com | 888.504.4213 | www.suicide6.com

22 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

LAKE CHAMPLAIN CHOCOLATES, WATERBURY CENTER AND BURLINGTON With a shop and café in Waterbury Center and one on Burlington’s Church Street Marketplace, and chocolates that get shipped around New England, Lake Champlain Chocolates is the corporate giant of Vermont’s chocolate scene.

But this being Vermont, that corporate “giant” is a Certified B Corporation (meaning it has legally committed to balancing purpose with profit) that uses non-GMO ingredients, has organic and Kosher lines and guarantees their chocolate is Fair Trade Certified.

That takes nothing away from the taste of its many hand-crafted specialties. While truffles, peanut butter cups and almond clusters are the crowd-pleasers, for something really unique try the delicate vegan Dark Chocolate or Red Raspberry truffles. Their dark chocolate

Cocoa Nibs use unsweetened chocolate and, with a lower sugar content and lower carbs, are billed as “Keto-friendly.”

The Waterbury Center store and café is a great place to stop for a hot cocoa on the way to or from Stowe. But it’s worth a visit to the flagship store on Pine Street in Burlington where you can see chocolates being made, watch a video about the process and take a self-guided tour.

LAUGHING MOON CHOCOLATES, STOWE “All of my decision-making has come back to keeping it small and keeping it quaint and just doing what we’re doing because the people that find us love the product. It’s very fresh. It’s delicious. It’s all homemade,” says Leigh Williams, owner of Laughing Moon Chocolates.

When you walk into the small,Victorian cottage right in the heart of Stowe village, you’ll find hand-packaged truffles stuffed with ingredients such as Bayley Hazen Blue cheese, honey-glazed dried fruits, and salted caramels. Behind a window you can see into the kitchen where a vat of smooth, velvety chocolate is stirred and you can hear the rhythmic machine churning out more chocolate and caramel. Williams got started in the business when she was living on Cape Cod and working at a second-generation chocolate shop, which she did for a half-dozen years before moving to Stowe. She started Laughing Moon 19 years ago. What sets Laughing Moon apart from other chocolate boutiques?

Leigh Williams of Laughing Moon Chocolates and her salted caramel truffles.

“I think the freshness. The freshness and the centers. Technically, we are confectioners. So that just means we make the center. A lot of places don’t actually make the center that they dip.”

Her truffle centers are often made with ingredients such as herbs from Zach Woods

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 23

Voted “Best Cross-Country Ski Area in Vermont” 2019 Seven Daysies Awards Season Passes Available 10/1

60 Miles of Scenic Mountain Trails Cross-Country Skiing & Snowshoeing Rentals Home to von Trapp Brewing & Bierhall Austrian-Inspired Rooms & Restaurants 700 Trapp Hill Road, Stowe, VT | www.TrappFamily.com | 800.826.7000

24 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

Herb Farm for the basil and black pepper truffles, Jasper Hill’s Bayley Hazen blue cheese and even local liquors like the Green Mountain Sunshine Vodka.

Laughing Moon has adapted to the pandemic by limiting the number of staff and customers in the shop and renting out space in the one building across from it. This has given them room to sell their popular coffee and other drinks and space to get deliveries ready.

SNOWFLAKE CHOCOLATES, JERICHO If you’re skiing Smuggler’s Notch or Bolton Valley and you’ve never had one of the chocolate turtles from Snowflake Chocolates in Jericho, you have to stop by for a visit.

“It’s a softer caramel dropped on a bed of nuts. Pecan is the traditional one. And then you take those and then run them through a covering of chocolate.We make those with sea salt. And then we also do a version of maple caramel and those go on walnut,” says Sharon Pollack.

Sharon’s parents, Bob and Martha Pollak started the store in 1986 when they realized that their homemade chocolates were becoming increasingly popular. Today, their family—including Bob, now 90— still works in the store, which is made up of multiple expansions attached to the original house where the chocolates were made. Bob and Martha’s grandchildren have all worked there from time to time and his daughters

Life is like a box of chocolates at Snowflake Chocolates in Jericho where two generations of the Pollack family—including Bob Pollack, age 90—are creating confections.

currently run and operate it.

As the name suggests, Snowflake Chocolates strives to make each chocolate as unique as snowflakes, with no two exactly alike. This methodical, painstaking effort is obvious in their delicious buttercrunch, chocolate turtles, and truffles.

One of the tricks that they suggest experimenting with is softening their maple fudge in a microwave and spreading it on toast to make a delicious treat.You can also put their chocolate peppermint meltaway in your coffee or hot chocolate to make a minty and refreshing

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 25

hot drink after skiing.

Before the pandemic, Snowflake Chocolates also offered a unique “Chocolate Experience,” an event where small groups are given a brief history of how chocolate is cultivated, produced, and shaped.

Burke Mountain Confectionery’s uses Eden Ice Cider and other local ingredients in their truffles.

BURKE MOUNTAIN CONFECTIONERY, BURKE If you have seen chocolate bars with the classic, Vermont landscape on the packaging—a rustic, quintessential red barn on the left, green hills dotted with trees and a cute mountain town nestled into the valley on the right—they are from Burke Mountain Confectionery, run by Nancy and Tom Taylor.

Credit for the image goes to noted artist Sabra Field. The Vermont printmaker captured the essence of the chocolatier’s pastoral roots in the Green Mountain state.

“What people have told me before is they just want to jump into the packaging, they want to be in that scene,” Tom says. What’s inside is just as appealing: you can taste the made-in-Vermont local ingredients in their chocolates such as Eden Ice Cider truffles or the Fat Toad Farm Caramel used in the Dark Chocolate Salted Maple Caramel Truffles.

The Taylors and their four kids had been coming up from Nashville, Tenn., to ski at Burke Mountain Resort for years and were looking for a way to move to Vermont. Nancy had been making chocolate

as a hobby and eventually started to make delicious peppermint bark, giving it as gifts around the holidays. One thing led to another and in 2013, they started the business here.

Though the retail shop is closed now to visitors due to Covid-19, their chocolates are available at shops around the state. n

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Purchase tickets online at picomountain.com/vtnh.

Present your order confirmation and VT or NH Driver’s License or similar proof of VT or NH residency (like a passport or state-issued identification) at any ticket window to activate your purchase.

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26 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

KILLINGTON, VT

vtskiandride.com September 2015 00

Cross CouNtry centers of vermont spoNsored CoNteNt

Rikert Nordic Center, Ripton

NortherN Ski Area

Total Terrain

Machine Tracked

Skating Terrain

Blueberry Lake

31 km

31 km

Bolton Valley XC

100 km

Burke (Dashney) Nordic Center

Fat Biking

Town

Phone

Website

31 km

Warren

802-496-6687

blueberrylakeskivt.com

15 km

15 km

Bolton Valley

802-434-3444

boltonvalley.com

14 km

14Km

14 km

East Burke

802-626-1466

skiburke.com

Catamount Outdoor Family Center

35 km

35 km

35 km

Williston

802-879-6001

catamountoutdoorfamilycenter.org

Edson Hill

10 km

10 km

10 km

Stowe

802-253-7371

edsonhill.com

Hazen’s Notch

65 km

60 km

60 km

Montgomery Center

802-326-4799

hazensnotch.org

Kingdom Trails

45 km

20 km

20 km

East Burke

802-626-0737

kingdomtrails.org

Memphremagog Trails

35 km

35 km

35 km

Derby

802-334-1357

mstf.net

Ole’s Cross Country Center

48 km

50 km

45 km

Warren

802-496-3430

olesxc.com

Sleepy Hollow Inn & Bike Center

35 km

30 km

25 km

Huntington

802-434-2283

skisleepyhollow.com

Stowe XC Ski Center

75 km

35 km

35 km

Stowe

802-253-3688

stowe.com

Smugglers’Notch Nordic Center

30 km

--

--

Smugglers Notch

800-457-8752

smuggs.com

Strafford Nordic Center

30 km

20 km

30 km

Strafford

802-765-0016

straffordnordicskiing.com

Trapp Family Lodge XC Center

70 km

70 km

70 km

Stowe

802-253-8511

trappfamily.com

The Nordic Center is the gateway to Bolton Valley’s legendary backcountry terrain. It offers guided tours, lessons and rental equipment to get you out to enjoy some of the best Nordic skiing and snowshoeing in New England. Bolton has a 100 km Nordic trail system with 15 kilometers of groomed trails.

Trapp’s XC Center is celebrating 51 years!

Come experience one of the premier Nordic centers in the East, featuring 160 km, with 55 km of tracked and skating terrain. Plus a full retail shop and rentals, and professional instruction. Don't miss Slayton Pasture Cabin for a warm lunch and a roaring fire in the hearth.

boltonvalley.com • 802-434-3444

trappfamily.com • 802-253-8511

rikertnordic.com • 802-443-2744

4302 Bolton Valley Access Rd • Bolton, VT

700 Trapp Hill Rd • Stowe, VT 05672

106 College Cross Road • Ripton VT

Rikert's 55 km of trails wind through old forests, farm fields and past Robert Frost's summer cabin. The Center offers a full service rental shop and ski school, plus fat biking! Jump on early season skiing with 5 km of snowmaking.

Open 7 days a week and home to the Middlebury College Panthers.

Wood Wood

dstock dstock Inn, Inn, Woodstock Woodstock

Bolton Valley, Bolton

Blueberry Hill, Goshen

Trapp Family Lodge, Stowe

Edson Hill, Stowe

Southern

Snowmaking

Ski Area

Total Terrain

Machine Tracked

Skating Terrain

Blueberry Hill Outdoor Center

45 km

--

Brattleboro Outing Club

33 km

Grafton Trails & Outdoor Center

Fat Biking

Town

Phone

Website

--

Goshen

802-247-6735

blueberryhilltrails.com

25 km

20 km

Brattleboro

802-254-8906

brattleborooutingclub.org

30 km

30 km

30 km

Grafton

802-843-2400

graftontrails.com

Hildene, The Lincoln Family Home

20 km

14 km

--

Manchester

802-362-1788

hildene.org

Landgrove Inn

15 km

15 km

15 km

Landgrove

802-824-6673

landgroveinn.com

Mountain Top Resort

60 km

40 km

40 km

Chittenden

802-483-2311

mountaintopresort.com

Okemo Valley Nordic Center

22 km

22 km

8 km

Ludlow

802-228-1396

okemo.com

Prospect Mountain XC

30 km

30 km

30 km

Woodford

802-442-2575

prospectmountain.com

Quechee Club

25 km

25 km

12 km

Quechee

802-295-9356

skiquechee.com

Rikert Nordic Center

55 km

50 km

40 km

Ripton

802-443-2744

rikertnordic.com

Stratton Mountain Nordic Center

12 km

12 km

12 km

Stratton Mountain

800-787-2886

stratton.com

Timber Creek XC

14 km

14 km

14 km

West Dover

802-464-0999

timbercreekxc.com

Viking Nordic Center

39 km

35 km

35 km

Londonderry

802-824-3933

vikingnordic.com

Wild Wing’s Ski Touring Center

25 km

25 km

10 km

Peru

802-824-6793

wildwingsski.com

Woodstock Inn Nordic Center

50 km

50 km

50 km

Woodstock

802-457-6674

woodstockinn.com

Our Nordic Center has been enriched with professional grooming equipment, great additions to our rental fleet, private instruction and a retail offering with some essential gear and Edson Hill logo-wear available. After a day on the hill, relax in elegant comfort in one of our rooms, and enjoy a meal by Chef Jason Bissell.

With an extensive network of winter trails throughout Mt. Peg and Mt. Tom, the Nordic Center offers more than 45 km of groomed trails for skate and classic crosscountry skiing. Snowshoers & fat bike riders may utilize the groomed ski trail areas in addition to a series of ungroomed trails for a more invigorating hike.

The BHOC trail system offers over 45km of well-marked and maintained ungroomed trails within the Moosalamoo Recreation Area for year-round outdoor adventures.

No trail fees, BHOC operates on a donation basis and is a non-profit 501(c)3 company dedicated to recreational access.

edsonhill.com • 802-253-7371

woodstockinn.com • 802-457-6674

blueberryhilltrails.com • 802-247-6735

1500 Edson Hill Rd • Stowe, VT

14 The Green • Woodstock, VT

1245 Goshen Ripton Rd • Goshen, VT

Photo by Brian Nevins/Red Bull

30 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

Zeb Powell hits a log at Killington’s Burton Stash Terrain Park (a set of 65 features) during the Red Bull East Coast Slide-In Tour in 2019.

THIS KID FROM NORTH CAROLINA, NOW TRANSPLANTED TO VERMONT, IS SETTING THE SNOWBOARD WORLD ON FIRE.

BY WILSON VICKERS | PHOTOS BY BRIAN NEVINS

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 31

O

ne morning in early March 2020, Zeb Powell, then a 20-yearold from Waynesville, N.C., woke up on his buddy’s couch in Burlington, Vermont. Zeb was fresh off the Red Bull Slide-In Tour featuring stops at Stratton, Killington and Jay Peak in Vermont.

A few months earlier, Powell, a 2019 graduate of Stratton Mountain School, had suddenly launched into fame with crowd-pleasing goldmedal performances at his very first X Games.

Suddenly, everyone recognized this wildly talented Black kid with spiky dreads who rode with rose-colored sunglasses and a huge grin.

“It was crazy there,” Powell remembers of the Killington Red Bull stop. “I’d start signing autographs and think we were done and then there’d be this whole slew of other kids who’d want me to sign too.”

But that day last March no one in Burlington paid much attention as Powell, Jonathan Twombly (or LJ as his buddies call him), Joey Leon and a few others from the skate and snowboard crew, Spotheads, unpacked their snowboards and camera equipment at Main Street Landing. There, overlooking Lake Champlain, they came face to face with Big Green; a handrail that rims a walkway two stories off the ground.

Until then, Big Green was fairly untouched trick-wise, says LJ. “I remember, Zeb was just like, ‘Yo, I want to get a clip on Big Green.’ …

A lot of pros have come and gone through Burlington, but I’m pretty sure at that point the only tricks that had gone down on it were front board drop off, boardslide, and half cab.”

Next thing they knew, Powell was up on the walkway strapping into his bright pink Nitro 203-cm swallowtail powder board and testing the speed of the drop-in. On his first try, he got caught up on the rail and fell two stories to the snow below. On the next attempt, he stomped a front-board pretzel, rotating midway through. He then

32 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

switched to another board and landed a front three out, then a back three out—both first try. After a few attempts, he nailed a front lip four out, popping the tail of his board up and onto the feature and sliding forward; then rotating out 450 degrees clockwise. Powell’s friends went nuts as he casually rode off the landing and onto the cement, rushing him with hugs. The footage is part of Spotheads’ self-titled film. (See a link to it and other footage at vtskiandride/zeb-powell/.)

To understand the difficulty of what Powell accomplished on Big Green, understand that this isn’t your local mountain’s terrain park.

This rail was 20 feet up in a concrete environment.To build the landing, the group had shoveled snow from the surrounding area to form a large hip, but either way you look at it, falling had consequences.

Powell goes big, but sometimes that means falling big, too.

That same week at a spot in Alburgh, VT, he was going for a 50 hop 50 on a down gap down rail. He clipped on the transfer, catapulting him to the bottom of the stairs and straight onto his back. “He just laid down on his back, curled up into a ball, didn’t say anything for 10 seconds,” LJ recalled. “He was just completely silent. Then he got up and just went, ‘Yeah, I’m fine. I’m gonna try it again.’” Sure enough, he landed it next try.

A few months later, Powell moved to Burlington.

Z

ebulon Powell’s path to snowboard stardom is not a typical one. He grew up in rural North Carolina where his father operated a chip mill. Neither of his parents were skiers or snowboarders. Though he was a natural athlete, Powell didn’t take to team sports. “My dad loves baseball, so he really wanted me to play and I guess my stats on the first game were crazy,” Powell said in a Zoom

Anyone watching Powell at Killington (far left), or launching big and finessing a rail at the Red Bull Slide-In Tour 2020 stops at Jay Peak (top and bottom right) had a glimpse of the talent that landed the Stratton Mountain School grad X Games gold. This season, he moved to Burlington where he’s perfecting riding street but you might see him riding Killington,

All photos by Brian Nevins/Red Bull Conten t Pool

Sugarbush, Mount Snow’s Carinthia Parks or Stratton if you’re lucky.

call. “My dad was so proud, but like a third of the way through the game I was just sitting in the grass picking flowers.”

Skateboarding was more his speed. “Someone handed me a skateboard and I just had fun on it,” he said. But after the local skatepark shut down one winter, Powell found himself bored.

Zeb is the youngest of five kids. His parents, Carl and Valerie, are both white.They had one daughter, and then adopted Zeb and his three other siblings, two of whom are Black and one is Asian. “Everyone in our town knew us. I guess I have never felt like I’m seen as a Black person, but just a part of my family,” Powell says.

Carl and Valerie have always supported whatever their children have a passion for. “My dad wasn’t even into skateboarding or anything,” Powell says. “He learned how to build a skateboard so I could build a skateboard. He taught me all that stuff.”

Seeing how he took to skateboarding, his family signed him up for a snowboard lesson at the local mountain. “I actually hated it,” Powell remembers. “My instructor was mean and set me up regular instead of goofy so that didn’t help and yeah, I just didn’t have fun at all.”

Luckily, that one bad day didn’t turn 7-year-old Zeb away from snowboarding forever. The next time, Powell’s dad, Carl, sent young Zeb up to Cataloochee with a family friend who knew the sport. After

vtskiandride.com Winter 2021 00

Powell’s explosive power served him well in competition. “He’s one of two individuals to touch the ceiling of the building off the super trampoline at SMS...and that’s maybe 20 feet [high].” Powers notes.

But what Powell loved most was improvising. LJ, his roommate at SMS, got used to being amazed by Powell. “Pretty much, when you ride with him anywhere, at any time, he will just bust out the craziest tricks that you’ve never seen him do before, or he’ll try things that you think are just not possible at all. Like we’re standing at the top of a rail or a jump, I’ll just be like ‘Yo, Zeb, you should try this.’ And I’ll name a crazy wild trick that none of us wants to try or anything and he’ll just kind of look at you and go ‘Yeah, sure.’ And hop in and try it.”

F

or anyone who has watched Powell’s 2020 X Games knucklehuck performance, one trick likely stands out. Flashback to just another day riding Carinthia Parks at Mount Snow with LJ. On the way up the chairlift Powell saw someone slide out on the knuckle of one of Carinthia’s towering jumps. “I don’t think he really knew what he was doing. But he just kind of slid out to his butt,” Powell said in an interview with The Summit Daily. “Immediately I was like, ‘Oh my gosh. I want to do that...We (Powell and LJ) like to go really fast and go on our butts or our back like that. So, I guess I saw that and I saw the guy flip out and I connected to that.”

That sliding trick evolved into the coffin slide that Powell perfected and was part of the repertoire that won him the X Games.

“One of the hardest things about coaching Zeb,” Powers says, “is “Zeb just has this explosive power,” says his former SMS coach, Olympic medalist Ross Powers. One of only two athtletes who could ever tap the ceiling off SMS’s indoor training trampoline, Powell had no problem launching into the treetops at Killington.

credit

setting up the board goofy (left foot forward), it only took a couple of runs for Powell to get the hang of it. “That first night I hit a box and was just so stoked on snowboarding,” Powell recalled.

Soon Powell was spending all his time at the mountain, transferring the tricks he knew from skateboarding onto the snow.

As he began competing, Powell started noticing flyers for the High Cascade snowboard camp in Oregon. Powell asked his mom if he could attend. His parents were not ready to send their son all the way across the country, but he had an aunt in Denver, only an hour and a half from Copper Mountain and another summer camp; Woodward.

After attending summer camps at Woodward Copper for four years, Powell’s camp coach, pro snowboarder Chad Otterstrom, recognized his talent. “I guess he went up to my mom and told her like, ‘you need to get him to a snowboard school.’ And he recommended Stratton Mountain School.”

Powell admits that at the time, the thought of leaving his close friends in North Carolina was hard, but he knew that if he wanted to pursue snowboarding this was the next step.

“I remember walking into Stratton Mountain School and there was this guy in front of us; a tall guy with a super thick Southern accent, Zeb’s dad Carl. And right away he introduced me to Zeb,” LJ remembers. “Zeb was just a really quiet, humble kid.”

At Stratton, Powell had the opportunity to learn from Director of Snowboarding, Ross Powers, the two-time Olympic medalist in Men’s Halfpipe and five-time X Games medalist.

“I knew from the beginning that Zeb just had a lot of passion for snowboarding,” says Powers, who grew up in Londonderry.

During his time at SMS, Powell competed in everything from slopestyle to halfpipe and even boardercross, doing the local USASA competitions, then nationals and the Rev Tour.

00 Winter 2021 vtskiandride.com

credit

vtskiandride.com Winter 2021 00

you can come up with a plan but he’s just going to do what he feels like doing out there.You know if something happens and say, he doesn’t get a full rotation and lands going backwards instead of forward, he’s still going to charge fully into that next jump or rail and go for it.”

That improvisation and creativity was showcased to the world when Powell rode in the 2020 X Games.

In 2019, the X Games introduced a new competition; the knucklehuck. Instead of hitting a jump, riders do tricks off the slope next to it, a knoll, or onto the flat deck and into the landing. The event is held in the same location as the Big Air event.Though riders are not hitting the daunting 80-foot jump, many, like Powell, are still going big.

After hearing of the contest in 2019, Powell knew it was something he wanted to do. Through connections with Stratton Mountain School alumn and X Games announcer, Jack Mitrani, Powell’s coaches tried getting him in, but it didn’t work out that year.

That didn’t stop Powell from perfecting his extensive bag of tricks.

The day after the 2019 X Games knuckle-huck, on January 27, he posted a video clip on Instagram showing his attempt at a back one onto the knuckle and into a cab double underflip. His caption was simply “Yeet.”

He didn’t land it, but the fans didn’t care. Comment after comment tagged the X Games, mentioned he should have been in the competition that year and some even predicted he would win in 2020.

Among the commenters were pro snowboarders Sage Kotsenburg, Sven Thorgren, and Denis Leontyev. The post got more than 84,500 views. In the minds of many, Powell had just cemented his spot in next year’s competition.

Just under a year later, an invite appeared to go to Aspen for X Games 2020. What came next rocketed Powell into the snowboarding stratosphere.

He took off for Colorado with his family there for support. “I was

36 Winter/Spring vtskiandride.com

nervous up until I looked down in the snow and saw these heart-shaped glasses. When those showed up at my feet I was like, ‘Ah perfect!’” Powell remembers. “It was funny, too, ‘cause I think they were my sister’s shades that she had bought that morning and she thought she had lost them.” Zeb picked them up and put them on. “When I compete in any competition I like to approach it from a lighthearted, you know, goofy side, making it not so serious, I guess, even when it is X-Games. I think that’s what I really connect with in snowboarding.”

Powell with his rose-tinted, heart-shaped, glasses and perpetual grin stole the show.

On his first run, he made it clear to everyone why he got the invite that year. “He and I were talking,” remembers Powers, “And I’m like, you know, the coffin slide...do you think you could do a backflip out of that? He’s like, ‘Oh, I don’t know, maybe.’”

Back in Vermont, Powers watched the competition on TV. “Sure enough I’m watching and he goes for it first run and does his coffin slide. He goes upside down, starts doing the backflip, but then he adds the coolest inverted method to it...you know it was just mind blowing.” For Powers it was a special moment: the method was what helped him win Olympic gold in 2002.

T

his season, Powell was the only East Coast rider to get an invite to the X Games. But due to a torn meniscus sustained while skateboarding last fall, he was not able to compete.

Instead, he’s been rehabbing at home in North Carolina, hanging out in Burlington, riding the parks at Carinthia, Killington, and Sugarbush when he can, and scouting more places to ride street. Now that he has recovered from his surgery, Powell hopes to focus on filming with

“When I compete, I approach it from a light-hearted goofy side.”

Powell with Sean Neary and Jesse Ausgustinus at the Peak Lodge in Killington during the 2019 Red Bull Slide-in Tour (left). Showing off his method at Stratton and sporting the lucky rose colored glasses he wore during his winning run in the X Games.

Spotheads and his current sponsors: Red Bull, ThirtyTwo, Etnies, Recess Skate and Snow, Nitro. Rumor has it there is a major new one, coming.

“This year I want to focus on street, because I think there’s just a lot I could do there. I don’t even know my boundaries yet for street. That’s kind of what I want to stick with for the next probably year or so,” he says.

As for the Olympics or other competitions? As Powers says, “I don’t see Zeb going that path right now. Street riding is a big part of our sport right now and that’s what Zeb wants to do—it’s right up his alley. He’s a pretty good all-around snowboarder and can do anything you know?

That’s exciting and bringing his riding to the streets is going to be fun to watch.”

Having fun and being fun to watch is what Powell excels at.

Ross Powers will always remember the scene at Powell’s 2019 Stratton Mountain School graduation: “He gets his diploma, and everyone’s clapping, and then someone in the crowd says backflip and he just backflips off the stage without even thinking about it. In his jacket and tie and everything else.”

The only thing missing? A pair of bright, goofy shades.

—Additional reporting by Lisa Lynn

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Dream Home

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Credit Here

Details such as the curved soffits, the signature red and green window frames and the use of stone and wood make this a signature Shope Reno Wharton design. Photo by Kate Carter

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uestion David Malm about why he bought a lot at Spruce Peak in Stowe in 2006 and a long silence follows. “Do you remember when ‘Spruce Peak’ was just a slope that spilled down to a something of a ramshackle base lodge?” he asks. Malm, a snowboarder from Boston had heard about the planned development and that year bought a half an acre off the Adventure Triple. Stowe was, at the time, owned by American International Group, but plans were in place to develop the area.

That was before the Lodge at Spruce Peak was built with its pool and spa, and restaurants such as the Hourglass—now owned by Hyatt.

It was before the Adventure Center was completed, with a climbing wall and a hub for kids’ ski school and other activities. It was before you could glide across the central outdoor skating rink, roast marshmallows over the firepits or retire for a hot mulled wine in the rinkside pavilion with its giant fireplace where, on weekend afternoons, wheels of raclette cheese get toasted until they bubble and crisp.

It was before the Spruce Peak Performing Arts Center, the 18hole private Mountain golf course and a slopeside private Alpine Clubhouse—reserved for members. It was before villas began to dot the hillside, each meeting the strict architectural standards set in place for the development: classic shingle-style with stone veneer. It was before Vail Resorts bought the mountain operations for Stowe Mountain Resort and took over the lifts and on-mountain facilities.

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“It’s really hard to remember what it looked like back then, but I bought into the vision they had for the place,” Malm says. Malm later bought a unit at the Lodge at Spruce Peak and began coming up to Stowe on weekends with his young family. “After the crash in 2008 it took a while until I was ready to build,” he said.

In 2018, he was ready.

“I came up to look at Stowe and I fell in love with it. It’s very lowkey place, a community unto itself. Stowe village is a real town, not just a mountain town. As for Spruce Peak I’m thrilled with how it’s come out; if they wanted to create a Beaver Creek of the East, they did it,” he says.

Malm, who had been studying different home designs, came across

an ad for the architecture firm Shope Reno Wharton. “I saw this photo of an ocean home they did in Watch Hill, R.I., that I just adored. Then I saw that they had done a lot of mountain homes.”

The firm, based in Norwalk, Ct., is known for its shingle-style manor homes, and use of natural materials such as massive wood beams and stone facades. “They have a classic style, inspired by the Adirondack Great Camps and often use darker shingles and green and red trim,” Malm says. Shope Reno Wharton (which has designed homes in Jackson Hole, Aspen and elsewhere) had created another mountain home in Stowe, a private residence that appears on the cover of their book, House, Home, Heart. “I fell in love with the photos of that Stowe house and the home I built at Spruce Peak uses many of the same elements,” says Malm.

John Gassett, one of the firms’ five principal architects called on Sisler Builders in Stowe to create Malm’s home. “There was not even a bid process, they just came right to us,” Sisler recalls. Sisler dreamed of being a builder ever since he was a boy and began making things with his grandfather, a master carpenter. After graduating from Union College, Sisler moved to Stowe in the early 1980s. A strong telemark skier, he skied Stowe in the winter and windsurfed on Design firm Tracker Home & Decor used local touches throughout. The “Vermont” wall covering in the kids room is from a painting by local artist Kevin Ruelle and the chandelier in the enclosed porch by Mad River Antler. The master bedroom has a curved balcony that opens onto the mountain.

The stairway and hallways blend a variety of woods in seamless

All photos by Erica Allen, except stairway middle right, by Kate Carter

craftsmanship. A barrel serves as a washroom vanity.

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The 5-bedroom house sits high above Spruce Peak’s village with its skating rink and plaza.

In the kitchen, reclaimed barnboard panels the refrigerator doors (left) and sides of the granite-capped island. The centerpiece of the master bath with his-and-her custom vanities is a Waterworks “Emile” freestanding tub. From the kitchen, a paneled hall leads to the great room

credit

and the adjoining study, with its own fireplace.

Lake Champlain other seasons. He began building more and more custom homes, using local talent and materials. Now, the firm has 36 employees and relationships with many master craftsmen in the area.

The challenge with building on the lot that Malm had purchased was that it was only a half an acre, it sloped, and there was a building code limit of 7,500 square feet. “Because of the lot size, we had to go up three levels,” Malm notes.

“I think this house feels larger because of the open floor plan and the loftiness of the two-story living room,” says Sisler as we walk in.

You enter the home off the drive either through the front door, a mudroom that opens onto the slopes, or through a stunning garage with an inlaid brick floor. A pool room is opposite the front entry, with the kids’ bunk rooms off to one side. The staircase is a remarkable piece of craftsmanship, a continuous curved rail that snakes up two stories anchored intermittently by birch branch balusters.

Reclaimed wood is used for floors throughout the house with most of the walls lined with white oak. “I wanted to use a lot of natural woods and we did so for nearly every wall, ceiling and floor. I don’t think there’s a single bit of plaster in the whole place,” Malm says.

The mix of woods, expertly joined throughout the house, is stunning. In the second-floor kitchen, interior design firm Tracker Home Decor out of Martha’s Vineyard, suggested using barnboard as the face panels for two single-door refrigerators. They stand sentry on either side of a hallway where red-paneled doors hide storage cabinets and a small bathroom. Nearly all the doors and cabinets were custom-built.

The hallway leads to the great room where 11-inch x 11-inch posts rise up two stories, framing a dining table that seats 12. At the far end of the room, plush couches done in Ralph Lauren fabrics front a massive fireplace faced in a slab of granite. It was mined in nearby Barre and the drill holes in the granite are still visible.

Just behind the dining table, custom doors open onto the study, where another fireplace, done in the same stone that’s used for the exterior veneer, rises to the ceiling.

The great room has a comfy, Old World grandeur. That’s not a coincidence. “I love Ralph Lauren’s aesthetic and I wanted this to feel like someplace he might live.” But there’s another influence, too.

When I ask Malm how he came to name the house Skyfall, he reminds me: “Skyfall was James Bond’s ancestral home in Scotland, and it felt like a good name for a house in the mountains,” he says.

As Malm says, “I could not be happier with how this turned out.

Sisler is an amazing builder. With this builder, architect and interior design team I was pretty much hands off. It came out better than I possibly could have imagined.”

The home which was finished in early January 2020 is the eighth home for Malm. Could it be his permanent home, I ask?

“I have a place in Martha’s Vineyard and I spend summers there but I couldn’t see myself ever living there all the time. Stowe is different.

There’s a vibrant community here year-round. Yes, I could definitely see myself living in Stowe,” he says. n

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An Eye on the

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Summit HE HELPED MAP THE HIMALAYAS AND SOME OF THE WORLD’S MOST REMOTE MOUNTAINS. AT 84, SKINNING TO THE TOP IS STILL A BIG PART OF STRATTON PHOTOGRAPHER HUBERT SCHRIEBL’S DAY.

BY ISEULT DEVLIN | PHOTOS BY HUBERT SCHRIEBL

Opposite, Schriebl on one of his expeditions to the HImalayas, standing before Gauri Shankar which rises 23,406 ft. This page: Schriebl captures the mood of his early-morning climbs up Stratton Mountain. He’s often joined by friends, such as Roxanne Prescott, shown here braving the elements.

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T

he sun is not up yet, but Hubert Schriebl is. In the pre-dawn light he skins upYodeler, then North American, heading up Stratton Mountain. It’s his regular route these days, close to a 2,000-foot climb from the base to the top of the ski area, an altitude of 3,875 ft. Some days he has skins on his touring skis, other days he has crampons on his boots.

“I’d rather go steep than long,” says the 84-year-old mountain guide and photographer. “Sometimes it can be pretty miserable starting out,” he says, “but once on the way, it’s always worth it. The North American can be like a glacier sometimes if it is raining and very spooky on top – but it will turn out to have been a good climb and a great time.”

A loyal group of fellow mountaineers often joins Schriebl throughout the year, especially on New Year’s Day, meeting in the dark and greeting the sunrise at the top. “When I turned 70, I began to count my climbs to the top, cutting a notch in the railing at Hubert Haus after each one,” Schriebl says, referring to the lodge that was named for him on his 65th birthday.

The year he turned 70, Schriebl notched 100 climbs. In the 14 years since, he’s made nearly 700 notches. “Almost as many as Hank Aaron’s home runs,” he says with a chuckle, his Austrian accent still thick.

While skinning to the top may be one of skiing’s fastest growing sports, with dozens of skiers freeheeling it up on all-terrain gear before the lifts run, it’s nothing new for Schriebl.

Heading to the summit is in Hubert Schriebl’s blood. He grew up skiing and climbing Austria’s high Alpine peaks and, as an Austrian Ski & Mountain Guide and a member of the Austrian Alpine Club, he helped to create some of the first Western maps of the Himalayas.

In his 20s, Schriebl joined the five expeditions that set out to map the Everest region. He started as a mountain guide. But on the first of these three-month long expeditions, a cartographer fell ill to altitude sickness, and Schriebl was asked to take over his equipment.

Dr. Erwin Schneider, expedition leader–and an experienced mountaineer and surveyor-engineer–became his lifelong mentor. He taught Schriebl to produce meticulous and beautiful photographs for the cartography record, which Schriebl did from then on. “That helped me with my photography – you have to be meticulous to have a perfectly composed picture,” Schriebl says.

Schriebl still holds the high-altitude surveying record, registered at 6,710 meters (22,015 feet).

At home in the Austrian Alps, Schriebl guided and taught skiing in Lech in between his expeditions. In 1964, Schriebl was the lead guide for the Dutch Himalayan expedition that made the first ascent on Nepal’s Manaslu II, ascending to the summit at 24,000 ft.To get there, the team, plus 90 porters, hiked from Kathmandu toward Manaslu.

A report by expedition member Jan de Lint, posted by the American Alpine Club, described the journey: “The route from Syabrubensi to the Buri Gankaki was more or less unknown. Small, steep, slippery paths, leeches and heavy monsoon rains made that part of the route rather difficult. In seven days we placed four camps on the mountain: Camp I at 17,000 ft. Camp II on the Naike Col at 18,000 ft.. Camp III in the icefall at 20,000 ft. and Camp IV just above the icefall at 21,325 ft. At three difficult spots we used fixed ropes. One was first climbed by Schriebl.”

Schriebl came from that expedition to Stratton that December, at the invitation of Emo Heinrich, Stratton’s first ski school director. The two had been members of the same climbing club in Innsbruck. On his

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Mountaineering has been part of Schriebl’s DNA since he was a 20-something Austrian guide on expeditions that created the first maps of the Himalayas to now, when at age 84 he regularly skins up Stratton. The photography skills Schriebl learned while working as a cartographer he applied to capturing the beauty of the places he climbed in images such as this one of a summit in East Africa’s Ruwenzori range.

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Stratton, one of the first ski areas in the country to allow snowboarding, hosted the Burton U.S.Open from 1985 to 2012, when it moved to Vail. Here Schriebl captures Olympic medalist Ross Power’s competing at the Vermont Open, its successor. Not all of Schriebl’s subjects were famous: if you are skiing well, or just out to have a good time in some fresh snow, watch out: you may easily end up in one of his images.

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arrival, Heinrich took Schriebl out to acclimate him to a ski area that was mostly below the tree line. They bushwhacked from the Fire Tower down the Long Trail to Stratton Pond. “There were trees everywhere,” Schriebl says with a laugh “you couldn’t make a turn, you had to catch yourself from one tree to another!”

The idea was to spend “one season” in Vermont, but at the end of his first winter, he met his wife Wendy. “She was on a ski weekend with college girlfriends,” he recalls. “I didn’t expect to stay, but I met Wendy and that’s the rest of the story.” They married, had two children and two grandchildren and Schriebl became a U.S. citizen.

S

chriebl continued to go on international climbing expeditions: doing the final surveying of the Everest region (Nepal), as well as climbing Popocatepetl (Mexico), Rwenzori (Uganda), Kilimanjaro (Kenya). He also climbed on Ellesmere Island (Arctic Circle), and guided in the Alps.

All the while, Schriebl’s reputation as a photographer grew. He captured the action at four Winter Olympics and his work was published

by Ski, Skiing, Sports Illustrated and Time magazines, among others.

Over the years, Stratton hosted major events for both athletes and celebrities and Schriebl caught just about every famous person and moment. The Special Olympics were brought to the ski area by Eunice Shriver and former President Gerald Ford hosted the Stratton-Vail Ski Classic in the late 1980s. Patrick Kennedy and Diana Golden competed in the 1990 Disabled Ski Championships. In 1992, Olympian Donna Weinbrecht won the National Freestyle Championships. Olympic snowboarders Shaun White and Ross Powers got their start at Burton’s U.S. Open at Stratton.

Off the slopes, Schriebl covered other sports celebrities especially during Stratton’s high-growth years in the ‘70s. Golf star Arnold Palmer and famous tennis players John Newcombe, Rod Laver, Ken Rosewall and Andre Agassi grace the pages of Schriebl’s book, Stratton - The First 50 Years.

Stratton’s World Cup in 1978 had many of the world’s most competitive skiers such as Ingemar Stenmark, Phil and Steve Mahre, Perrine Pelen and Cindy Nelson—all captured in Schriebl’s brilliant shots. The photos had to be published somewhere, first appearing in a Stratton newsletter, which became the start of Stratton Magazine.

But many of Schriebl’s most memorable photos are not of celebrities but of the skiers and riders who carve Stratton’s slopes every weekend.

He has his pick of good skiers and he can be strict with his models. “I was sometimes a little bit too rough,” he says. “But the moment doesn’t come back – you really have to listen and follow the line to get the best action photo,” he explains.

To stay in shape these days, Schriebl continues to do what he loves the best – climbing uphill with his camera. Despite a bad injury a couple of years ago when he was hit by a flying ice chunk, most days he still climbs up Stratton or skins the trails around his house in South Londonderry. Steady and sure, it’s what he loves and keeps him in better physical condition than many half his age. n Left top: Many snowboarders got their start at Stratton. Left, below, Olympians training at Stratton in 1973 included Barbara Ann Cochran, Cindy Nelson, Marilyn Cochran, Susie Corrock, Rick Chaffee, Tom Kelly and others. This page: Former SKI magazine editor Dick Needham took this shot of Schriebl at the Lake Placid Olympics. Schriebl and his long lens have captured great moments such as tandem skiers Scott Howe and Vince Clark. Bottom: Schriebl’s 70th birthday at Hubert Haus.

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 51

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COACH

By Lisa Lynn

THE LEARNING CURVE It’s not easy to learn to ski as an adult.

Here’s what some resorts are doing to change that.

M Sugarbush Ski School direcPhotos by Lisa Lynn

tor Terry Barbour has been teaching for more then 40 years. For Mirna Valerio, aka The Mirnavator, this was her third time on skis.

irna Valerio’s car pulls up and I laugh: We have identical Jeep Cherokees. Hers is packed with outdoor gear: a fatbike, a pair of cross-country skis, snowshoes and a new pair of Coalition Snow women’s alpine skis (she just got them and they have no bindings) and this being Covid, a 6-pack of paper towels.

Valerio belongs to that elite subset of athletes who are pros. An endurance athlete with more than 25 marathons and ultramarathons to her name, she has a long list of sponsors – L.L. Bean, Leki, Lululemon, Merrell— and an Instagram following of 120,000.

But since she injured her knee last spring, Valerio has been switching it up with other sports: biking, hiking, and

cross-country skiing.

After doing the Catamount Ultra trail marathon at the Trapp Family Lodge, Valerio fell in love with Vermont and moved to Montpelier in 2019 from New York. As we talked for an article last summer on how she went from growing up in New York City with little exposure to outdoor sports to becoming The Mirnavator —a social media influencer and a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year, she let this drop: she isn’t an alpine skier.

“This winter you and I will go ski,” I promised.

It’s early January when we gear up in the parking lot at Sugarbush Resort. Valerio admits she has skied once or twice before. “But it wasn’t a good experience. I had to be rescued and taken down on a sled. But I am soooo excited to try again,” she says, flashing her trademark grin. She is positive and enthusiastic. And at age 45, a beginner.

For those of us who grew up skiing, it is hard to imagine what it is like to learn to ski as an adult. About a week before the lesson, the reality hits me. “Need to borrow any gear?”

I texted.

I think about the challenges so many women have in simply finding a pair of jeans that fit, much less finding ski pants, an apparel category defined either by glamorous, skinny Europeans or hard-charging American mountaineers.

Valerio, who became famous as the author of the blog Fat Girl Running and the book, A Beautiful Work in Progress, is big, with powerful thighs. Fortunately, L.L. Bean has her covered for ski pants and a jacket. She picked up a helmet and goggles at Onion River Outfitters near her home in Montpelier. She’s committed.

In my mind, I start calculating what it costs to simply get kitted up. Second-hand or on sale, you might get away with the basics (helmet, goggles, ski pants, jacket, mittens) for under $500. For new gear, double that. For premium name brands, triple that. Add in the cost of rental skis, lessons and a day ticket – which is running triple digits at many of the larger resorts, and the barriers to entry start to sink in.

Fortunately, this is where learn-to-ski packages come in.

F

or years, the ski industry has puzzled over how to get more people into the sport. Everyone cheered in 2019 when annual figures released by the National Ski Area Association showed a record 10.3 million skier visits.

But that was only up marginally from the 10 million recorded in 2010/11. And it dropped back down to 9.2 million in 2019/20.

The solutions that get repeated every year at ski area association meetings sound like a broken record. We need more women, we need more minorities, we need more beginners. At the same time, the average lift ticket price rose from $59 in 2005, to $105 in 2015/16 and inched up to over $110 by 2018/19. In the Northeast, women accounted for 44% of

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 53

COACH LESSON DEALS FOR ADULTS With the pandemic restrictions in place, many ski schools around Vermont have had to adjust or curtail their usual programs. Ski Vermont’s popular Take 3 Beginner Package (3 lessons, rentals and tickets at any of 17 participating resorts for $129) is not offered this year but should be back next year. However, these programs are still welcoming beginners: Bolton Valley: Bolton is offering a new three-week Adult Learn to Ski/ Ride program that includes lessons on three consecutive Saturdays or Sundays in February for $145, lift ticket (but no rental gear) included.

Bolton Valley’s Adventure Center also offers lessons in uphill skiing and backcountry touring as well as AT rental gear.

Jay Peak: You can book a Vennedag (Norwegian for “friends day” ) day of private lessons for a minimum of 3 people for $290 and Vermonters get 50% off all lessons.

Middlebury Snow Bowl: A package of five lessons costs $280 and you can add on a household member for $40 per lesson. The Snow Bowl also offers ski, snowboard, telemark and alpine touring (uphill skiing) lessons.

Stratton: The max4 Adult program ($189) gets you a three-hour lesson with rental equipment, lift ticket and a Learning Zone guarantee that you’ll be able to ski that area by yourself after one lesson or you can return for a complimentary one after.

Sugarbush: The First Timers to Lifers program includes four private lessons, rentals, a season pass and a free pair of skis and a snowboard for $725, and you can add on a second person for $415.

Suicide Six: A special “Teach Your Honey How to Ski” package at Suicide Six bundles in a night at the luxurious Woodstock Inn and Resort, lift tickets and lessons for two (alpine, snowboard or uphill), and two apresski cocktails. The package starts at $477.

Valerio, still smiling, slightly sore but ready for the next lesson. “Learning to ski is about abandon: you have to think like a child again,” she says.

skier/rider visits—the highest in the country in 2019. But less than 11% were from non-whites – the lowest in the country. And only 13.3% of the skier rider visits were from beginners.

“At Sugarbush we wanted to find a way to not only make it easy to learn to ski but to keep people skiing so we came up with the ‘First Timers to Life Timers’ program,” says Terry Barbour, the head of Sugarbush’s ski school. He meets us as Valerio is buckling her boots at the Farmhouse Rental Shop at Lincoln Peak.

Introduced in 2009/10, the program initially bundled three lessons with equipment and lift ticket and rewarded those who finished the third lesson with a free season pass.

Ten years ago, Elan Skis and Rome Snowboards stepped in

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as partners and Sugarbush upgraded the package so that anyone who took a fourth lesson also received a free pair of skis or a snowboard. Since then, Sugarbush has given away 261 pairs of skis or a snowboard.

In 2019/20, 306 people graduated from the program.

One of the program’s graduates, Brooke Stafford, passed her Professional Ski Instructors of America (PSIA) Level 1 instructors’ exam. After just three years on snow she is now an instructor at Sugarbush.

This season, with Covid-19 guidelines in place, the resort was offering the First Timer package only as a private lesson for $725 for the first participant and $415 for each additional household member, up to 6.

B

arbour helps Valerio get fitted in her boots, grabs her 130-cm Elan skis and we head for the snow. “Here we go!” says Valerio.

“First, you need a basic athletic stance,” says Barbour after showing her how to click in. Valerio watches him, then bends her knees, puts her hands forward and squares her shoulders. She’s got that down.We then glide across the snow, traversing slowly. I can sense her nervousness as we move toward the chairlift. “We’re not going up on that, are we?” she asks. “You do know that the last time I had to be rescued…” she adds, raising an eyebrow.

Instead, Barbour steers her toward the Welcome Mat, an extra-long Magic Carpet. He works with her on the traverse, patiently guiding her down what to me feels like a perfectly flat area but to someone who is not used to having the ground slide under them, can be terrifying. Valerio tenses up on the second run and then, as if to calm herself, begins to sing.

Valerio is a Juilliard-trained opera singer and her voice is beautiful. Barbour’s eyes light up and he starts singing too. I join in. The pizza wedge turns begin to link. “What do you want to listen to?” Barbour asks and syncs his phone to the speaker on his walkie talkie. As “Girls Just Want to Have

WHO’S SKIING? WHO’S NOT? In the Northeast: 67.5% of skiers/riders have

household incomes of $100,000 or more. Just

13.3% of skier/riders are beginners. 44%of all

skiers/riders in the Northeast are women—the

highest percentage of any region in the U.S. But just 10.9% of skiers/riders in the Northeast are

non-white, the lowest in nation. Nationwide, only

19% of beginner skiers continue skiing. However, the good news: This is up from 15% in 2000.

Source: National Ski Areas Association, 2019 data

Fun,” begins to blare across the slope, Valerio starts to pick up speed, she goes for a turn, falls down, laughs and picks herself up. “I do have to be careful of my knee,” she says.

Meanwhile three-year-olds, harnessed up and leashed to a parent, go zinging by. Mini Gumbies, they fall, roll over and pick themselves up. Gradually, Valerio begins to make turns, linked pizza wedges, with controlled speed.

“Kids are fearless and they don’t overthink it. They don’t worry about hurting themselves and not being able to go to work the next day,” says Barbour. Barbour has been teaching skiing for over 40 years, is a PSIA Eastern Division Examiner (meaning he trains and tests other instructors) and is a former member of the national PSIA Demo Team. He spent 15 years teaching at Greek Peek, N.Y. “It was a feeder mountain, we’d get busloads of beginners coming up each weekend, and teach like 700 beginners on a Saturday/Sunday. We were a beginner factory.”

He also spent 15 year at Mad River Glen. “We didn’t get as many adults learning to ski there but kids learned to ski at Mad River because they were immediately in the trees or bumps and forced to turn.” At Mad River Glen, Barbour also taught his oldest student.

“I think she was 84 and wore an ankle-length skirt and she loved it.

She was a Vermonter and said, ‘I’ve had this on my bucket list and I want to learn how to do this before I die.’You are never too old to learn.”

Back home, Valerio posts a picture of herself on skis to Instagram with the caption. “I think I’m in love again...” She already had a season pass at Bolton Valley and a ten-lesson pack there. She’ll keep skiing, she says.

You can be sure of it. n

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Ryan Cochran-Siegle, training in November, 2020 at Copper Mountain for what would start out as his best season ever.

RYAN COCHRAN-SIEGLE SENDS IT With big wins and big crashes, Vermonter Ryan Cochran-Siegle has been the World Cup Racer to watch this season.

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COMPETITION

By Marina Knight

Photo courtesy U.S. Ski and Snowboard

S

ometimes when you watch sports, maybe a sport you have been watching for years, suddenly there’s a moment that strikes at something inside you. After the fact, you might replay what you just saw in your head. It sticks with you because the seemingly undoable was just done.

One of these moments happened as I was watching the Alpine World Cup on December 30, 2020. It was on an icy downhill race track circuit in Bormio, Italy known as the Stelvio. Ryan CochranSiegle, who was having his best season ever with two World Cup podiums, was in full send mode. He was skiing with a freedom and abandon he had recently rediscovered and he was skiing fast.

As he came into a slight compression before a jump on the downhill course, going an estimated 85 mph according to commentators, the 28-year-old native of Starksboro,Vt. was ever so slightly back on his skis. The knoll sent him soaring through the air.

When his skis slapped the snow, slightly off kilter, the forces tossed him nearly onto his back. It was a moment that makes you hold your breath. On TV, the camera flashed to racers in the finish area who were putting their hands on their heads, aghast.

But Cochran-Siegle somehow pulled out of it, using immense strength to essentially do a sit-up, straining against the G-forces to pull his body forward. He regained his balance – then momentarily lost it again. But then he pulled it back together. His skis kept tracking cleanly and he stayed fast enough for 7th place in the downhill race that day. It was the save of the day, if not the year.

“I was just getting a little bit rattled and backseat and a little beyond my comfort zone. I think I was lucky I was able to carry through there,” Cochran-Siegle said after.

Ryan Cochran Siegle, or RCS as many know him, had come into that day’s race as the favorite, an anomaly for any male member of the U.S. Alpine Ski Team.

That race run on the Stelvio (and his winning Super G run the day before) displayed a type of skiing that Cochran-Siegle has recently started to feel again. “I think where I’m at right now as far as my skiing and my capability goes, is that I just have a lot of trust that I don’t have to plan for everything,” he said.

The day before Cochran-Siegle had stood at the top of the podium after winning his first World Cup race, the Bormio Super G on Dec. 29. Not only did Cochran-Siegle win that race, he put 0.79 of a second between him and the second-place finisher Vincent Kriechmayr of Austria. It was the largest margin any man has won by since 2016. And no American man had won a Super G since Bode Miller in 2007.

His win was a much-needed pick-me-up for the US team. It also brought into high relief the payoff of Cochran-Siegle’s hard work and perseverance.

R

yan Cochran-Siegle had been poised for greatness early in his career. He won double gold World Junior Championships medals in 2012. Then a crash in February of 2013 at World Championships in Schladming, Austria destroyed his knee, requiring

vtskiandride.com Winter/Spring 2021 57

COMPETITION

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the course at the Wengen World Cup in January 2020 where he finished 14th in the downhill.

multiple surgeries. That took him out of competition for nearly four years.

Not many athletes can come back after being out with an injury like that for so long, but Cochran-Siegle’s attitude prevailed. “Having had prior success, I didn’t want that to be my final race. I wasn’t ready to be done,” he told Ski Racing Media at the time.

Cochran-Siegle came back from that and returned to with a top-15 finish in Super G at the World Championships in 2016. Then, in 2019, his potential shone through as he posted a 6th place World Cup finish and then a 5th in Alpine Combined in Bormio in December 2019.

Coming into this season, those flashes of brilliance shone brighter. He scored an 8th in Super G in Val Gardena, Italy on December 18 and the next day finished second in the Downhill, his first time standing on the World Cup podium.

Then came Bormio. He posted the fastest times in the first two Downhill training runs, won the Super G and was a favorite coming into the Downhill.

“I mean, it’s definitely a surprise,” the 28-year old said after winning the Super G. “I feel like I can trust myself right now, trust to just let things flow.”

58 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

F

lash back 20 years to the top of Cochran’s Ski Area in Richmond. It was the 40th Anniversary of the ski area and a big party was going on down below. In typical Vermont fashion it had just rained and then turned freezing cold, so the whole hill was one big sheet of ice.

A group of skiers gathered for the last run of the day, the daily “Bombing Run.” At Cochran’s, the lodge is situated at the top of a small hill adjacent to the ski run, so the most efficient way to get back to it is to simply point your skis straight and send it to see how close you can get before you have to take your skis off and walk.

“You just tuck from the top,” Cochran-Siegle explained. “One by one each person just straight lines to the lodge.” Cochran-Siegle, being one of the youngest, was among the first to go.

“I was going way faster than I had ever gone before. At

Max Hall/US Ski Team

Cochran-Siegle, visualizing

et things flow… Inside that simple statement is the story of an athlete who has come full circle, from a kid lapping the T bar at Cochran’s tiny ski area in Richmond, Vt., to a hard-working junior athlete, to the 2012 World Junior Champion to a World Cup race winner. Along the way, he has been constantly learning: becoming aware of his own skiing and what his strengths and weaknesses were.

No one knows Ryan better than his mother, Barbara Ann Cochran, the 1972 Olympic Gold Medalist in slalom.

She sees his coming of age as kind of a predetermined destiny: if you are a Cochran, you reach the highest echelons of ski racing. Ryan, she says was basically born to ski.

“When he was little he was so passionate, he had such a natural feel for skiing,” she said in a recent interview.

She cites the example of when her son, then 5, sat in on a sports psychology workshop she was running at a summer camp. All the athletes were asked to share what they think about when they’re standing in the starting gate.

“Ryan said, ‘I can’t wait to go,’” she remembers.

What was different this season, a season punctuated with his first two World Cup podiums, is that he is redefining how he thinks about perfection and learning to let go.

“What I’m feeling is not trying to be perfect in the start,” he said on a call the first week in January as he and teammates were preparing for the World Cup GS races in Adelboden, Switzerland. “I mean having a plan and trying to find a style of skiing that I’m not forcing. I’m skiing with a good conservation of energy and speed and skiing fluidly through things. I don’t feel like I need to be super harsh on the ski, I can really allow the hill to take me down.”

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RCS racing a Super G course at the 2019 Land Rover U.S. Ski Team training camp at Copper Mountain.

that point, it was a really good bombing run if I made it to the lodge. That was the goal,” he continued.

You can see the scene, a small Cochran-Siegle, speeding solo down the icy face of Cochran’s in his pink, floral-camo race suit, headed straight for the lodge. He picked up so much speed that he caught air over a small knoll going up the hill on the other side.

“I actually aired out on the second knoll, landed on the bank of snow that falls off the roof of the lodge and my skis just stayed there,” he said. When that happened, CochranSiegle double ejected from his skis and supermanned, head-first through the plate glass window, landing inside the lodge. Slightly stunned, with glass lying everywhere and conversations among party-goers having full-stopped, Cochran-Siegle said he simply got up and climbed back out the window he had just crashed through.

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hat’s striking about this story is that in that moment, achieving flow state was an unconscious effort.

Now, as he steps into the start gate of some of the world’s gnarliest race courses, far mightier and menacing than the face of Cochran’s, he is tapping into the essence of that kid speeding toward the lodge.

“Initially, as you get on the World Cup, you’re so focused on being fast and getting results that you miss out on being present and just skiing. I’m confident that the way I react will be correct. You have to have the trust to not have to try your hardest or be your most perfect.

I think that’s the biggest change now compared to past seasons,” he said.

60 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

What was coming next would test this: Kitzbuhel and the famous Hahnenkamm. “People always get very excited, especially for Kitzbuhel. There’s such a hype about it,” Cochran-Siegle said of the venue where the famous downhill is held each year and where his uncle, Bobby Cochran, was the first American to win the Hahnenkamm Cup. On January 20, Cochran-Siegle plummeted down the Kitzbuhel, Austria Downhill training course in full flow.

On what is considered one of the hardest courses in the world he let go and posted the fastest time of the day. On the following day’s training run, he had trouble posting the 22nd fastest time. His finishes so far this season had put him in third for overall points in Downhill for the World Cup. He was a favorite coming into his what was just his second Hahnenkamm Downhill, afer not finishing in 2020.

At the top of the course, he flew, posting splits that would put him in the lead. Then, more than half-way down he soared over a rise, landed and was thrown off balance. This time he could not pull himself back. Skidding across the snow at 60 mph, he crashed through the safety netting.

As race personnel rushed to his side, Cochran-Siegle took off his helmet and appeared to be ok. X-rays would later show a cervical fracture in his spine, enough to take him off the race course for a few weeks, at minimum.

Later he posted the video of the crash to his Instagram account with the message: “Lucky to walk away with nothing more than a minor broken neck. Already hoping for my third attempt at conquering this beast of a course next year!” n

Max Hall/U.S. Ski & Snowboard

COMPETITION

These trails have trained national champions and generations of family skiers.

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The Vacation Rental Directory

Stowe

Middlebury

Killington

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LAKE & MOUNTAIN COTTAGE

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This picture-perfect classic Vermont 2-bedroom, 1-bath cabin sits in a quiet valley not far from the slopes and backs up to miles of trails that are great for hiking or backcountry skiing. Just 15 minutes to the Trapp Family Lodge, town and Stowe Mountain Resort. airbnb.com/h/ stowe-vt-cabin-with-hot-tub

On gorgeous Lake Dunmore, this freshly-renovated 2-bedroom, 2-bath cottage sleeps 6, comes with a kayak and is central to great skiing at Brandon Gap, Killington, Pico, Middlebury Snow Bowl and Rikert Nordic Center. Year-round, skate, ski, fish or swim right out your front door. airbnb.com/h/ lake-dunmore-cottage

This cozy retreat is just one mile from main base areas and within walking distance to over a dozen restaurants and bars. It has a wood-burning fireplace, washer/dryer, porch, t.v., and wifi. This 2-bedroom, 1-bath, sleeps 4 people and will take dogs. vrbo.com/650909 or email rent.killington@gmail.com

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DRINK VT

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

VERMONT BEER, WINE, CIDER + SPIRITS

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

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

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

Cider for the people, made by the people.

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

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

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

FIND MAPS AND MORE AT

vtskiandride.com/drink-vermont

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

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

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

- Sat. noon to 5 p.m. serving beer to go. ou an find our beer on draft in restaurants and bars across Vermont, and our cans in retailers that carry craft beers. For more information, check out www.dropinbrewing. com, or call us at (802) 989-7414.

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

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

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

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

Did you miss the

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

Don’t miss the

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

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

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

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

Come visit our bierhall and restaurant at the brewery!

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

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

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

VERMONT BEER, WINE, CIDER + SPIRITS

Find out more: 802-760-8550.

The Chairlift Q+A

A SKIER IN MONTPELIER She’s a farmer’s daughter, Div. 1 ski racer, human rights advocate and now Vermont’s Lieutenant Governor. Meet Molly Gray.

The important question first: where do you ski these days?

Oh gosh, you’re going to make me choose just one place? Every time I go back to Newbury, I try to ski up Tucker Mountain, (which has been purchased by our town). At the top, there’s a 360-degree view of the Greens and the Whites and there’s an exciting downhill as well. But it’s a real pleasure to go to small [cross-country] ski areas around the state like Sleepy Hollow, which is such a familyfriendly, well-run business; Craftsbury, which has really made skiing accessible and affordable and Rikert Nordic Ski Area, which now has the snowmaking loop.

Your best recent memory skiing?

Last winter I skied into the Chittenden Brook Cabin with a bunch of girlfriends.

We brought in food, cooked great meals at the cabin and skied Brandon Gap. You competed in Div. 1 at UVM, what race are you most proud of?

When I was at UVM I actually won the Stowe Derby in the freestyle division.

That’s such a fun race and one I’d love to go back and do again.

64 Winter/Spring 2021 vtskiandride.com

How did your parents teach you to ski?

It’s no secret that my parents raced pretty competitively, so my childhood included a lot of skiing. Winter didn’t happen without skiing and skiing didn’t happen without winter.We’d ski in the backyard on tracks my dad would set down, or we’d tow each other up the hill on a rope behind the snow machine. My dad was pretty good at building things and he made a track sled and eventually bought one of those small groomers and laid trails in the strawberry fields. We learned to alpine ski at Northeast Slopes, which is our area rope tow and I think one of the oldest rope tows still working in Vermont. We also skied on the VAST snowmobile trails and the ungroomed trails in Groton State Forest.

What was it like growing up on a working farm?

We have 35 Jersey cows and 225 acres and grow vegetables such as strawberries, tomatoes, squash and pumpkins. I think the toughest chores were planting rows and rows of strawberries. I always remember my dad’s mantra: “That which doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” There’s a stubbornness and toughness that comes with growing up on the farm that allows you to endure just about anything in life. But it also lets you truly appreciate what the land has to offer and what it means to face a lot of unpredictability that comes with changes to the weather and all the unknowns that come with being a farmer.

Your take on the Governor’s 2021 budget, which allocated $10 million to outdoor recreation?

Vermont is a place that has so much to offer —like the Lamoille Valley rail trail or our pristine swimming holes in Southern Vermont, or our world class mountain biking and skiing. If we’re going to draw people here and reverse our population decline, we need to make investments in recreation.

What drew you back to Vermont?

I don’t know whether it’s the diversity of our seasons or the harshness of our winters or the beauty of our summers.

There’s something about Vermont that gets in into the heart and marrow, of all of us. It's hard to even find words for it. n

Photo courtesy Molly Gray

M

olly Gray, 36, the former Assistant Attorney General, was sworn in at the Montpelier statehouse as Lieutenant Governor of Vermont in January. Daughter of two-time Olympic cross-country racer Bob Gray and his wife Kim (an alpine ski racer), Molly grew up on the family farm in Newbury, a small town north of White River Junction. A fourth-generation Vermonter, Gray went to Stratton Mountain School, earned an athletic scholarship to University of Vermont and then pursued her law degree at Vermont Law School. She has worked for Congressman Peter Welch and the International Red Cross where she helped champion human rights for detainees in places such as Georgia, Uganda and the Balkans. Later, she was recruited to the International Code of Conduct Association. There, she helped ensure private security contractors complied with human rights laws and lead missions in East Africa, Nigeria and Iraq.

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be here

If you ski or ride to get away from it all then you need to be here. Sugarbush is a treasure waiting to be discovered, hidden away in Vermont’s iconic Mad River Valley. Our legendary terrain and rich history beckons. Come for the adventure and camaraderie and leave the crowds behind.

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

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