Sugarbush Resort Magazine

DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19

800.53.SUGAR

PHOTO: JEB WALLACE-BRODEUR

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Adventure Awaits There’s something more to the Sugarbush experience than the legendary terrain variety, the meticulous snowmaking and grooming, the fabled history, and the authentic Vermont mountain setting.

Come discover what makes Sugarbush different.

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

FEATURES 28 Sugarbush’s

Sweet Beginnings The history of a mountain, and the glamorous crowd that flocked there

38 Team Players

BY CANDICE WHITE

The story of ski patrol from its earliest days

Plus: The origins of classic trails

BY KELLY AULT

48 The Valley of

the Architects Over the past half century, a large number of unusually talented architects have settled down to work in the Mad River Valley.

BY PETER OLIVER

The former gondola at Sugarbush ran from the Valley House to the top of Organgrinder. (Image from the cover of Vermont Life magazine, Winter 1960–61.)

DEPARTMENTS JA

Inside Lines 4 One on one with Win Smith, majority owner and

EDITOR Candice White

president of Sugarbush Resort

MANAGING EDITOR

Mountain Life 6 THE WONDERFUL WÜNDERBAR

Katie Bacon

The place to see and be seen—tales from Sugarbush’s first après-ski hangout 6

Valley Life 10 EATING & SLEEPING—THEN & NOW

Local-lore 14 FAMILY TIES

Four families and their symbiotic connections with Sugarbush and the Valley

Crazy Days 20 LET THE GOOD TIMES ROLL

From cowbell champagne parties to broomstick wars on one ski—a look at Valley events, past and present

Fun facts about snowfall from the ’60s to today

Valley Exposure 26 MOUNTAIN MEMORIES

Sixty years of adventure and camaraderie

56 Sugar-Kids Discover Sugarbush with a word search, dad jokes, and a coloring page.

60 Dining Directory 62 Lodging Directory 64 Timeline A quick history of Sugarbush 66 Sugarbush Close-Up Facts and figures about the mountain and the latest

Amy Stackhouse Audrey Huffman

ADVERTISING MANAGER Jen Schonder

CONTRIBUTORS Kelly Ault Cory Ayotte John Bleh Julia Goss Samantha Loesch Peter Oliver

STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER John Atkinson

CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS

Environment 24 SNOW DEEP IN HISTORY

14

PRODUCTION EDITOR ART DIRECTOR

12

A hog barn becomes a pizza place, a clapboard mill becomes a cozy inn—the stories behind some iconic Valley favorites

10

PRESIDENT Winthrop Smith Jr.

developments here

72 Events Calendar 2018 19 73 Closing Shot

Barrie Fisher Jeb Wallace-Brodeur Joe Foster Alan Hurwitz

SPECIAL THANKS TO: Charlie Brown, Rosie Fortna, Jane Hobart, Jessie Lenz, Holly Meystre, Sparky Potter, Cherri Sherman, Kelly Murphy Wood, American Flatbread, the Bundy Modern, GMVS, the Hyde Away, Mad River Glen, the Pitcher Inn, the Valley Reporter, Vermont Life, and the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum

SUGARBUSH RESORT 1840 Sugarbush Access Road Warren, VT 05674 800.53.SUGAR sugarbush.com

Cover art by Gary Hovland DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19

John Egan

Stein Eriksen Peter Estin Damon Gadd (L) Sara Gadd Jack Murphy (R)

Al Hobart & GMVS racer Sigi Grottendorfer Denise McCluggage

Walt Elliott Win Smith & Rumble

Lixi Fortna

Henri Borel

2 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE cover.indd 1

9/7/18 1:15 PM

For comments or suggestions about Sugarbush Magazine, contact us at communications@sugarbush.com.

Sugarbush is operated under special use permit with the Green Mountain National Forest and is an equal opportunity provider.

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INSIDE LINES

Several years ago, as I was about to turn sixty,

an Asian woman said to me, “We Chinese believe that life begins again at sixty.” I did not think much of it at the time.

Several weeks later, I arrived at the Burlington airport early one morning to set off on a wilderness rafting adventure in British Columbia. Right ahead of me in line was an attractive blond woman.

I was commiserating with her about how I was likely to miss my connection in Chicago when she asked, “Are you Win Smith?” When I replied in the affirmative, she responded, “I am Lili Ruane.” This was the same Lili Ruane I had known forty-four years before in Connecticut, where our families owned farms only five miles apart.

We rode horses at the same stable. Ten years separated us, so my interest in her then was quite different than it turned out to be on Win and Lili, spring 2018 this day (a day that would lead to our wedding two years later).

While I was rafting down Class IV rapids on the Chilko River a few days later, the boat I was in hit a hole and flipped. I ended up underneath the raft. Managing to claw my way to the stern, I emerged in a rush of white water, with plenty of rapids left to traverse. All ended well, but under the full moon that night I recalled the words of the Chinese woman. Those days approaching my sixtieth had been an interesting time for me. It had been less than a year since Merrill Lynch, the company that my father had helped to create, and that I had worked at for twenty-eight years, had its own near-death experience, brought on by the greed of a few and the board of directors’ lack of oversight. In many ways, I was still mourning what had happened. It struck me that evening, after I’d dried off from my encounter with the river, that it was time to begin life all over again. I recalled many great things about my years at Merrill Lynch, and about the values that had created an organization whose success had endured for so many years. But I knew it was time to focus on the future.

This year we celebrate Sugarbush’s sixtieth anniversary—our Diamond Jubilee. The mountain has a glorious history that we plan to honor throughout the year with a series of special events. But we will also focus on the future, knowing that Sugarbush’s life, too, begins again this year. Our goal at Sugarbush is to be better each year, by creating a culture of being and belonging, and by delivering on our mission to cultivate a spirit of lifelong adventure and camaraderie among our guests, our staff, and our community.

On December 25, 1958, Damon and Sara Gadd—along with Jack Murphy and Lixi Fortna—opened Sugarbush for business.

The mountain soon gained a reputation for its legendary terrain and for the many celebrities from New York and elsewhere who came here to enjoy skiing and the après-ski scene. It was an elegant era ushered in by the likes of Peter and Hans Estin, Igor and Oleg Cassini, H. J. Heinz, Armando Orsini, and Stein Eriksen. “Mascara Mountain” was the place to see and be seen. Our magazine this year tells many stories of those early years and personalities. While Sugarbush has evolved and changed over these past six decades, there are a number of themes that have been constant, and will, we hope, continue: Sugarbush began as an independently owned and operated resort, and remains so today.

The legendary terrain, with its abundant woods skiing, is largely untouched.

The independent spirit of the Mad River Valley is as present today as it was in 1958.

The beauty and untouched nature of the Valley remain intact.

The strong and committed sense of community is as evident as ever.

Adventure and camaraderie are alive and well.

A sixtieth birthday is special indeed. We are excited to celebrate this occasion, not only by reflecting on the first sixty years, but also by preparing for the next sixty. I hope that you enjoy this issue of the magazine as much as I have. Lili and I look forward to seeing you this year.

Cheers,

Win Smith President, Sugarbush Resort

4 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

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MOUNTAIN LIFE

The

F

or those of us who choose the skiing lifestyle, there may be something that’s even better than soaring down the slopes—après-ski, when you brag about the day’s exploits, numb the pain from that fall you took, and meet other like-minded snow enthusiasts. There’s a sense of family in the après scene, of camaraderie.

And nowhere is that more apparent than at the Wünderbar, one of skiing’s oldest après hangouts, and Sugarbush’s first. Warren resident Cherri Sherman worked there in the early years. (She still has the dirndl uniform she wore as a waitress; with its traditional navy bodice and patterned skirt, it comes in handy at costume parties.) “The Wünderbar was a place to see and be seen, to meet people,” she says. Chan Weller, who worked for Sugarbush Ski Patrol and in the resort’s PR department for over two decades, remembers, “There were a lot of

6 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

Wünderbar

The place to see and be seen—tales from Sugarbush’s first après-ski hangout

BY JOHN BLEH great bars in the Valley, but you definitely wanted to be seen at the Wünderbar aprèsski, especially if you were single.” Damon and Sara Gadd, Sugarbush’s owners in the Wünderbar’s early years, would grab lunch and drinks there every day in the same booth against the windows. “Sara and Damon were always first in line to get in, and they’d always order martinis and then a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé,” says Holly Meystre, aka “Shortwheels,” who was a waitress there in the late 1960s and early ’70s. Since this was during the “Mascara Mountain” days, when celebrities regularly flocked to Sugarbush, it wasn’t unusual to see someone like Paul Newman or Kim Novak dining there. “People would be pounding on the door to get in for lunch and start drinking,” reminisces Ed “Detts” Dettor, who was the bar manager during that same period. The bar was so busy, it even had a bouncer.

Initially, the Wünderbar was located on the main floor of Valley House Lodge, in what is now the Blazer Room, a short walk up the hill from the base area. It was split into a larger room and a smaller room, each with its own bar. (Today the Wünderbar is on the top floor, and is one big room.) When things got really busy—as they often did— the staff opened up the second room. In the main room, booths lined the windows, tables stood in the middle, and the bar was set against the wall.

It was busy but manageable on weekdays.

Weekends, however, were absolutely jammed.

Today, the Wünderbar still gets crowded on weekends and holidays, but is typically closed midweek. (Ski demographics have shifted, with more skiers coming in for weekend visits rather than staying all week.)

The drinking scene was different then too.

In the early years, Wünderbar staff typically

Wünderbar waitress Holly Meystre, aka “Shortwheels”

prepped fourteen gallons of Bloody Mary mix for busy days—and they’d fly right through it.

On those days, it was often so crowded that the staff had trouble maneuvering around the floor. “One time I spilled a whole tray of drinks on this woman,” laughs Meystre. “We had them send a bill to Damon.” Hot buttered rum was a popular option, with a special house-made mix. Toward the end of the day, the ski instructors, many of whom were Austrian, would come in to drink Aquavit and scope out the social scene. “But there was still plenty of beer—Molson was the popular choice,” says Walter Hensen, who worked the smaller back bar for a few years in the late 1960s. The Wünderbar certainly still goes through plenty of alcohol, but leans toward the modern craft beer trend.

And the food? Today the bar serves quick and light fare: sandwiches, soups, salads, and nachos. But back then? “Most importantly, there was fondue,” says Sarah

Former Wünderbar bartenders Tommy Gamble (L) and Walter Hensen (R) 8 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

“Sally Roses” Mehegan. (She too spilled drinks on a customer, thanks to the crowds— in one case, she dropped a tray of Bloody Marys all over a woman in a completely white ski suit.) Also on the menu, she recalls, were steak tips, burgers, and a club sandwich.

Mehegan specifically remembers the head cook, Henry Perkins, who ran a tight ship.

“Back then the kitchen was on a separate floor, so everything moved via dumbwaiter.

Every day Henry would yell at us, ‘Keep the dumbwaiter moving!’”

Even though it was a tough job—and for most staff, it was only one of several jobs— they all have fond memories. “There was a real sense of belonging and contributing,” remembers Mehegan. “It was a fun and loose environment, not too corporate, and that’s what people wanted,” says Dettor.

Sherman recalls, “It was really happening here; I couldn’t believe it when I first showed up to the Valley”—comparing the Sugarbush scene to urban nightlife. And that sense of community hasn’t faded with time. “Everyone still keeps in touch, which is incredible fifty years later,” Meystre says.

Interestingly, the Wünderbar was a name that almost wasn’t. As Weller explains, “Back when Sugarbush was creating the bar, the state wouldn’t let you use the word ‘bar’ in a name. You couldn’t call something ‘John’s Bar.’ Sara had to convince the state that Wünderbar was one word—a German word—and it wasn’t something like “the Wonder Bar.” (Wünderbar is German for “wonderful”—a fitting name,

both then and now.)

After the glory days, the Wünderbar went through some dark years, falling out of favor with the ski crowd. But in 2011, when new staff came in—including the current manager, Emily Etesse—the Wünderbar once again became a place to see and be seen after a day on the mountain. Now you’ll find some of the most dedicated Sugarbush faithful up there: parents of children in the seasonal programs, weekenders looking to avoid the crowds of Castlerock Pub, and those not ready to take their ski boots off for the day. Even John Egan and his Bush Pilot coaches regularly frequent it as their favorite post-ski haunt.

It may not be crowded enough now to need a bouncer, but the Wünderbar still offers that sense of belonging and celebration. You’ll find great après music up there on busy weekends, and perched up above Lincoln Peak Village with great views over the Valley, it’s the best spot to enjoy fireworks and pond skimming. The staff members no longer wear dirndls, but they find other ways to have fun, with zany outfits and color-themed weekends. And you can bet that this year will bring plenty of chances to commemorate Sugarbush’s sixtieth anniversary at the Wünderbar, building new memories at one of the oldest ski bars around—maybe with a Bloody Mary or two.

John Bleh has been a member of the Sugarbush communications team since 2011.

The original Valley House with the Wünderbar on the main floor

backcountry

1726 Sugarbush Access Road Warren, Vermont 05674 802.583.1763

www.alpineoptions.com

telemark

photo: Darin Lambeth

ski

Alpine Options

VALLEY LIFE

Celebrating at Chez Henri with proprietor Henri Borel

Eating & Sleeping

Then & Now

A hog barn becomes a pizza place, a clapboard mill becomes a cozy inn—the stories behind some iconic Valley favorites

BY CORY AYOTTE

T

he quaint and rustic inns and restaurants of the Mad River Valley have provided guests with an authentic Vermont experience for decades. Some of the inns and restaurants have changed owners and names, while others have remained in the same hands since opening. All have contributed to the rich history of the area. Here’s a look at some of the most storied establishments.

CHEZ HENRI No article about dining in the Mad River Valley would be complete without 10 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

including Chez Henri, the Parisian bistrot tucked away in historic Sugarbush Village.

Proprietor Henri Borel, now ninety-one, has been serving authentic French cuisine for over fifty years. In 1964, Sugarbush founders Damon and Sara Gadd, close friends of Borel’s, asked him to open a restaurant at the mountain. Borel intended to call the restaurant “L’Escargot,” but the Gadds envisioned “Henri’s Place.” So Chez Henri it was. After half a century, patrons still gather around the bar during the winter season, socializing over fondue and red wine.

MAD RIVER BARN The Mad River Barn, just five minutes down the road from Mt. Ellen, has been in operation since the 1930s. Located on Route 17, the Barn started as a bunkhouse for the Civilian Conservation Corps, a public relief program founded by President Franklin D. Roosevelt. After the disbandment of the CCC in 1942, the bunkhouse was converted into an inn by Les and Alice Billings. In the late 1970s, Truxton and Betsy Pratt, owners of Mad River Glen, acquired the inn. Betsy ran it until 2012, when it was sold to the current owners, Andrew and Heather Lynds.

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Enjoy the new cuisine of Chef Adam Longworth and the welcome of our new GM Lorien Wroten.

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The Ulla Lodge (now the Hyde Away Inn), pictured in the 1950s

After extensive renovations, the inn ushered in a new era, hosting weddings and serving daily dinner in a family-friendly atmosphere.

Upstairs in the more casual dining space a crackling fireplace is situated next to the bar and game area, which includes air hockey, shuffleboard, and foosball, keeping kids and adults entertained. Downstairs, with cheery orange chairs and long wooden farm tables, the atmosphere is a little more traditional.

RUMBLE’S KITCHEN You can find Rumble’s Kitchen just steps from Sugarbush’s Super Bravo lift. Originally known as Timbers, this post-and-beam restaurant was built in 2006 in the Vermont vernacular style of a round barn. The restaurant is now named in honor of Sugarbush majority owner Win Smith’s late Bernese mountain dog, Rumble (who was in turn named after the famed Castlerock run). Rumble spent nearly nine years as the mascot of Sugarbush, and the restaurant’s decor includes images of Rumble and his doggy friends. Once the lifts stop turning for the day, kick off après-ski with a cold Rumble’s Ale (special to Sugarbush) and one of the many farm-to-table menu items while reminiscing about your day with friends and family.

HYDE AWAY INN The Hyde Away is a farmstead that dates back to 1824. Long before the Hyde Away became an inn, the C. D. Billings & Son clapboard mill operated on the property.

C. D. Billings started his business in 1884, and by 1889, the mill was producing 12 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

700,000 feet of clapboards per year. Skip ahead a few decades to 1949, when the property was transformed into the Ulla Lodge, named after Ullr, the Norse god of snow. For the next few decades, the Ulla Lodge was a retreat for skiers (and at one time was owned by Sugarbush founders Damon and Sara Gadd). In the early 1970s, new owners came in and changed the name to the Snuggery Inn with Zach’s Tavern. It quickly became well known for wild après activities and its legendary hot tub in the silo.

In 1987, the inn was renovated and rebranded as the Hyde Away Inn. The Hyde Away is now owned and operated by Ana Dan and Paul Weber. Today, the inviting environment allows guests to have a cozy dining experience in the main dining room or a casual gathering in the tavern, where seating extends into the silo (the hot tub now sits outside as a decorative piece).

THE PITCHER INN The Pitcher Inn, situated in Warren Village, has been catering to the needs of travelers since the Civil War era. Before a fire destroyed most of the complex in 1993, the cute town inn was known as an amazing breakfast spot with several lodging rooms.

Loggers, day travelers, and Valley guests would stop to rest up when passing through town. (True to its name, the Pitcher Inn featured a unique collection of pitchers, collected and donated by guests from their world travels.)

In January 1998 the inn reopened, after being resurrected by Maggie and Heather Smith, and Heather’s father, Win Smith.

With its luxurious, one-of-a-kind rooms, the inn is a Relais & Châteaux member, now under the stewardship of recently named chef Adam Longworth and general manager Lorien Wroten. It is celebrating its twentieth anniversary under the current ownership.

The Pitcher Inn, pictured in the early 1900s. (The inn was rebuilt after a fire in 1993.)

TUCKER HILL INN Originally known as the Tucker Hill Lodge & Restaurant, the Tucker Hill Inn opened its doors in 1948. In its early years, owners Ann and Francis Martin operated a 600-footlong rope tow behind the lodge. George Schenk, founder of American Flatbread, set up his first ten-ton oven on the outdoor patio of the inn in 1987, and three-time James Beard Foundation Award recipient Gary Danko cut his teeth here in the 1980s.

Patti and Kevin Begin purchased the inn from Alison and Phillip Truckle in 2015, and today, the friendly bed-and-breakfast offers a quintessential Vermont lodging experience with a cozy pub and a warm, firelit dining room.

George Schenk working the oven during American Flatbread’s early years

AMERICAN FLATBREAD at LAREAU FARM INN After three years cooking outside at Tucker Hill using a backyard oven he’d created, George Schenk moved his bakery to Lareau Farm to accommodate the crowds.

Lareau Farm was settled in 1794 by Simeon and Abiah Stoddard. One of Waitsfield’s first settlers, Simeon ran a medical practice and hog barn on-site. After Simeon’s death in

1841, Robert J. McAllister purchased the property and operated a dairy farm until his passing in 1930, when the farm was passed to Phillipe and Fleurette Lareau.

Today, Lareau Farm is a vibrant part of the Mad River Valley community, serving as a bed-and-breakfast, event space, farm, and restaurant. Tables are situated around the wood-fired pizza oven, creating a mesmerizing show as you wait for your

Clay Brook A T

food. Outside, the large lawn allows children to play, and a fire pit serves as a gathering place for waiting diners.

For a complete listing of local dining and lodging establishments, see pages 60 and 62.

Cory Ayotte, a snowboarder and new father, works in the marketing department at Sugarbush Resort.

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S U G A R B U S H

CLAY BROOK HOTEL & RESIDENCES Modern luxury meets slopeside convenience with studio to five-bedroom suites, concierge services, ski and boot valet, heated outdoor pool and hot tubs, and onsite dining.

For a more casual stay, explore the classic country charm of Sugarbush Inn or our selection of over 100 privately-owned, resortmanaged condos. Complimentary access to Sugarbush Health & Recreation Center and Valley-wide shuttle service included.

DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 13

LOCAL- LORE

Mike, Kelly, and Chris Murphy ready for a day on the slopes

Family

Ties

Four families and their symbiotic connections with Sugarbush and the Valley

BY SAMANTHA LOESCH

T

he following accounts serve as testimonials of the strong community at Sugarbush and in the Mad River Valley. I set out to interview families who had historical connections with the mountain, hoping to learn about their habits and rituals. I ended up with more than that: unique stories from folks who call the mountain a family member, credit time on the chairlift with teaching their kids essential life lessons, and started lifelong careers working for or inspired by their time at Sugarbush. Working in artisan shops, liquor stores, schools, and the resort itself, they remain enthusiastic about and engaged in the community.

The ski industry here and the economy 14 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

built around it have allowed the people I spoke with to live and thrive in an exceptionally beautiful place. Meanwhile, the resort has evolved from the main attraction of the Valley to being an integral part of the larger community. As Sparky Potter puts it, “We don’t have a town hall; we have the Gate House Lodge.”

Sparky and Peggy Potter Waitsfield “The best ride of my life,” Peggy Potter says of a Friday-afternoon trip in the late 1960s from St. Lawrence University to Sugarbush during her freshman year, with the senior who would become her husband.

From $7-a-week food budgets to becoming

a Mad River Valley family of five, Sparky and Peggy Potter’s story is one of love, art, skiing, and, most of all, community.

The Potters take very little credit for their rewarding life here; instead, they give it to the Valley, Sugarbush, and the intersecting relationship among the ski bums, visitors, farmers, and local residents. As Sparky explains it, “People lose their old soul and gain a new one when they come here.”

Sparky recalls his strong connection with the mountain as a ski patroller in the late ’60s. He began his professional life here with 6 a.m. pink-sky mornings, long days of skiing, and nights spent replicating favorite album covers by painting and burning designs onto old

Sparky Potter enjoying some spring skiing (1960s)

barnboard. These nocturnal doodlings were the precursor to Wood & Wood Signs, founded in 1972. Peggy worked in area restaurants and, she says, “rode a wave” of good food, interesting people, and good times. She says that working in the bustling restaurant industry in the Valley and experiencing the changes in American cuisine resulted in some of the best experiences of her life. (Before Sugarbush, Peggy thought the only way to earn money was to work a nine-to-five job; she was happy to find out she was wrong.)

During those years of carefree ski-bum culture, one of the most anticipated events was the annual Valley Academy Awards night at the Blue Tooth, run by Charlie Brown, one of the bar’s owners. Brown enlisted the help of the Potters, which gave them the chance to chase after other passions: music and photography. Dream On Productions, including Charlie, Sparky, Peggy, and Irving “Rush” Rushworth, grew into a business producing expedition documentaries and commercial marketing, along with work for New York ad agencies and the 1980 Winter Olympics in Lake Placid.

The Potters built their house in Waitsfield in 1974 and created a slide-show room in the basement. Sparky and Peggy would host parties with far-reaching mixes of guests—musicians, expeditionists, clients, family, and friends. (All three of Peggy’s siblings followed in their sister’s footsteps and became residents of the Valley.) Guests would eat and drink upstairs, and then be 16 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

guided by the Potters through the “Tolkieninspired,” intricately detailed hallways and spherical hobbit-house-like doors to the downstairs theater, to see slide shows of mountain and valley photos. “I love saving moments, recalling something forty years ago that comes back and I can remember in awe,” Sparky says of his love of photography. Sparky and Peggy’s daughter Charlotte says that even in this technological age of endless multimedia feeds and exposure, turning the lights off, putting music on, and watching slide shows today is just as enthralling as it was when she was a little girl.

Raising three kids brought Sparky’s attention fully back to Wood & Wood, and he has created signage for ski areas all over the country. “All my first clients came from Sugarbush,” Sparky says. “And I am forever grateful for that beginning.”

Peggy is a partner at Artisans’ Gallery in Waitsfield Village, a store that was born from a handful of early exhibitors at the Waitsfield Farmers Market (where her colorful “Peggy Potter Bowls” had a twenty-year run). The market has grown to become one of the best in the state, attracting farmers, craftsmen, and food purveyors from all over Vermont.

Meanwhile, the gallery, now in its twentythird year, features local artisan jewelry, home décor, fine art, clothing, and more.

One of the Potters’ milestone memories of the Mad River Valley and the community that thrives here is the response to

Tropical Storm Irene. They recall what seemed like the entire community putting their lives on hold for weeks on end with no hesitation, to help repair the badly damaged area (including the Artisans’ Gallery). For the Potters, the Irene benefit concert and brunch at Gate House Lodge was not only a special community event, it was also a very special moment in their lives: their younger daughter, the singersongwriter Grace Potter, performed a show for a small audience of people who were dedicated to helping the Valley recover from the storm.

Sparky still skis around seventy days a year. Peggy doesn’t ski anymore, but she still loves the mountain culture and the après-ski scene, especially at Chez Henri in Sugarbush Village. All of the Potter children—Charlotte, Grace, and Lee—grew up skiing Sugarbush, Mad River, and the woods. Now the newest member of the family is developing a love for the mountain energy. One afternoon last spring, oneyear-old Bowden could be found grasping a ski pole in the lodge while her parents, Patrik and Charlotte, traded off making turns on the slopes outside.

I met with Sparky and Peggy after seeing Sparky bid the 2017–18 ski season farewell on the Spring Fling trail with Patrik, Charlotte, and Bowden. He told me that one winter day last season, he was skiing and suddenly felt overwhelmed with gratitude for the people who not only keep the trails in pristine skiing shape but also have cultivated a community that he and his family are very much part of. He turned to the edge of the trail, approached a seasoned groomer, hugged him, and said, “Thank you.”

The Potter family on a recent visit to the Waitsfield Farmers Market

The Sherman family (1984)

Cherri Sherman Warren Cherri Sherman remembers well the New Year’s Eve in 1967 when she took a Greyhound bus from Syracuse, New York, to the Green Mountain State. She had a weekend’s worth of clothes and a pair of new skis, purchased with her first paycheck. For as long as Cherri can remember, she just wanted to ski.

When Cherri arrived in Vermont that snowy Friday night, she rented a car and drove straight to the Blue Tooth on the Sugarbush Access Road, which was, as she says, “bumping . . . singles galore!” The locals were amused when Cherri started to inquire about a place to stay that night, one of the busiest on the mountain. After passing numerous no-vacancy signs and worrying that she might have to resort to sleeping in her ski suit in her rental car, Cherri drove into Warren Village and knocked on the door of what is now the Pitcher Inn. The innkeeper rented the wide-eyed, petite New Yorker a room that weekend for the going rate of $5 a night—and then most every weekend after that until Cherri moved to a house in Warren and became a full-time resident of the area.

“The Valley was a little bit different back then,” Cherri says. There were not, for example, as many condominiums and hotels as there are today. Instead, there were communal ski homes, filled by a steady base of people who all knew each other.

Cherri worked at the Wünderbar, where she and the other waitresses swooned over the

Austrian ski instructors and the elegance of their accents. But one day on the Valley House Double, Cherri shared a chair with a “down-country” man who would become her husband and life partner.

Bill Sherman moved into Cherri’s Warren home, which they kept when they moved to Stamford, Connecticut, in 1972. For twentynine years they lived in Stamford and traveled to Sugarbush on the weekends, with a family that grew to include five daughters. Cherri credits Sugarbush with teaching her daughters independence, social skills (“chair chat”), and, of course, the importance of powder sick days. Cherri jokes that her kids’ teachers questioned the family’s weekend activities, since the girls were star students except on Monday mornings, when they fell asleep at their desks. (Cherri kept those conversations from her husband, for fear that he would reconsider their weekend warrioring.)

When Cherri’s husband died sixteen years ago, she left Stamford and “came home.” Today, Cherri lives in the same Warren house she and her family shared, and manages to ski more than seventy days a season while also volunteering at the Warren Elementary School. She has written essays about her experiences at Sugarbush and also her love for the antiquated (and recently replaced) Valley House Double (a chair from it sits in her back yard). In the Castlerock Pub, Cherri

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802.496.6256 Cherri Sherman in 2017 at a party celebrating her fifty years in the Mad River Valley, wearing her original waitressing uniform from the Wünderbar

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Jack Murphy and family on the top of Lincoln Mountain, looking south

introduced her daughter Katie to her future partner; another daughter, Liza, was married at the Sugarbush Inn; and this winter, three generations of her family commemorated Cherri’s fiftieth anniversary at Sugarbush by skiing North Lynx at sunrise via the cabin cat.

Cherri says that her trip to Sugarbush that New Year’s Eve decades ago was the “pivotal decision” of her life. Sitting on the Warren Store porch on a spring morning, in tortoiseshell sunglasses, salmon-colored pants, and pearl earrings, her beautiful silver hair glowing in the sun, Cherri joked about the fact that these days, Sugarbush employees offer to carry her skis from the parking lot—and said she hopes that the day when she can no longer carry her own skis to the lift is still very far away.

Ed Dettor Warren Ed Dettor came to the Valley in 1964, also from Syracuse, New York, with his best friend from high school, and rented a house on Main Street in Warren that hangs over the Mad River. Their days were spent skiing, and their nights were alive with the buzzing energy at the local bars. Ed was accustomed to smaller mountain chains in upstate New York, and remembers driving up Route 100 for the first time looking in awe at the Green Mountains—“Now these are mountains!”— unaware that he would call the Valley 18 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

nestled between them home for most of the rest of his life.

Throughout his many decades here, Ed worked at most of the best local bars, tending at the famous Blue Tooth for nine years and the on-mountain Wünderbar for more. While Ed was bartending at the Blue Tooth, the restaurant was named one of the top twelve ski bars in the country. It was extremely busy, “and extremely loud,” Ed remembers. Other years were spent at the Phoenix, the Den, and Old Tymes.

Ed lived in Aspen, Colorado, and Maine, but was always drawn back to the Valley (in part, he says, because there were “too many trust-funders in Aspen”). He raised his son and daughter in the same house in Warren that he bought in 1982, and both of his children attended Harwood Union High School. Ed no longer skis, but before his son left for the New School in Manhattan, Ed would hike up the trails and photograph him skiing off jumps at Sugarbush.

What keeps Ed in the Valley? He says it is the same friendly and exciting place it was forty years ago. When asked whether he prefers mud season (spring) or stick season (fall), he says stick, as it is the exciting waiting period before the next influx of people arrives in the Valley. These days, Ed still enjoys his riverside Warren home and works in Mehuron's liquor store in Waitsfield—in a way, he is still tending bar and serving happy guests.

Kelly (Murphy) Wood Warren Kelly Wood was here almost before Sugarbush was Sugarbush. Kelly’s father, Jack Murphy, founded the resort with the Gadd family in 1958. Kelly and her three siblings all worked on the mountain: grooming the trails, making snow, selling tickets, and working the switchboard. All of the Murphy kids skied, and on the days they weren’t in school, they were skiing or working. The Murphy family was able to seamlessly blend employment, community engagement, and family, and the remaining members still do.

Today, Kelly and her brother Mike are still at Sugarbush. Kelly works in the accounting office, and, until recently, Mike drove the cabin cat for on-mountain adventures. They both fondly recall the late 1970s, when green down jackets were the standard attire for employees—what was known as the “Green Jacket Era.” Kelly’s memories of the mountain are colorful: the green jackets, and the red gondolas. A few of those iconic gondolas now serve as yard ornaments throughout the Valley, and when she drives past them she remembers the bulbous chain of them transporting eager skiers to the top of the hill. Now, Sugarbush visitors ride the highspeed quad chairlift Super Bravo up to one of the most popular trails on the mountain, Murphy’s Glade, named after Jack.

Kelly left Vermont for ten years and worked at Snowbird in Utah, where she met her husband. She returned with him to Vermont in 1989, drawn back by the state’s perfect mix of seasons—intense green in the summer, and pure white in the winter.

“Sugarbush is like a family member; it’s one of my siblings,” Kelly says. Even with all the changes to the mountain—“for the better,” in her mind—in the important ways it is still the same place it was decades ago.

Kelly has been off skis for a number of years but is planning on returning to the slopes this season. She is looking forward to a “Murphys on the Mountain” day with her brothers and extended family. “It would be great to go skiing and riding again with Mike and Casey and my brother Chris’s family too,” she says. Kelly has never tired of this small-town, big-time mountain, and although it is no longer owned by the Murphys, the family-owned nature of Sugarbush remains the same.

Samantha Loesch worked in hospitality at Sugarbush for several years and is now a high school English teacher. She makes her way back to the Valley for mountain biking in the summer and skiing in the winter.

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CRAZY DAYS

The Gelandesprung Championship, pictured in the 1980s. This long-jump tradition started at Glen Ellen in the 1960s and was resurrected for the area’s fiftieth anniversary.

Let the

From cowbell champagne parties to broomstick wars on one ski—a look at Valley events, past and present

BY JULIA GOSS

D

riving down Route 100, you’ll pass unconcerned cows leisurely grazing on green hillsides, and small towns with general stores and tidy clapboard houses. Impression: a quiet, rural life. But there’s more going on in the Mad River Valley than the cows let on.

Dotting the calendar, in and among New Year’s celebrations, the summer equinox, and leaf-peeping season, are events and traditions that have endured for decades and are celebrated by generations of Vermont natives and visitors alike. Here’s a nostalgic look at events past and present.

The Gelandesprung Championship is a long-jump tradition dating back to the 1960s, when Mt. Ellen was Glen Ellen and you could ski for the season for just $150.

20 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

A massive jump is built in the same place each year—on the hill facing the base lodge, making the deck the perfect spot to watch costumed and courageous competitors fly into the air, leaping for long-distance glory.

Every March, as the winter winds down, we find an excuse to drink champagne.

The Cowbell Champagne Party originated in 1963, when Glen Ellen’s founder, Walt Elliott, invited guests behind the bar on the second floor of the base lodge (then known as the Golden Thistle) to test their corkshooting prowess. If they hit the cowbell (a gift from Städeli Lifts) that was hanging from the rafters, drinks were on the house.

Sugarbush resurrected the tradition when Mt. Ellen turned half a century old. Today’s bell was a gift to Win Smith from Walt’s

daughter, Tracie, but the contest remains the same. If you’re old enough to buy a bottle and your aim is true, a prize and Champagne Party glory are yours.

The Chez Henri Cup, an annual wineand-cheese-fueled ski race held at Lincoln Peak, made its debut back in 1986 when longtime Valley restaurant owner Henri Borel combined his love of skiing with his love of wine. These days, skiers of all ages compete for the best time on the Racer’s Edge NASTAR course. (Now ninety-one, Borel himself is still a regular competitor.) Winners get medals and affirmation at the after-party held at Chez Henri, along with fondue and wine (of course), and the chance to win raffle items donated by area businesses. It’s a true community event, and proceeds are given to

DESEB BU BE CK

Waiter’s Slalom

Casino Night

SPENCER LEONARD

local nonprofit organizations.

Men in bikini tops, women dressed as chickens, kids in superhero costumes, and resort owners in Aloha shirts race down the slope toward a 120-foot-long, ice-cold pond with the intention of not getting wet. Since 1969, Sugarbush has attracted spirited skiers of all shapes and sizes to participate in Pond Skimming, an annual rite of passage from winter to spring. According to former Sugarbush marketing director Chan Weller, the Pond Skimming competition is the second longest running in the country.

Selling out annually with 110 participants, it’s still going strong, with second and third generations of the same families dressing up to brave the icy waters.

Recognizing that no lone run can justly

The Triple Crown Competition at Mad River Glen 22 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

measure a skier’s talent, Mad River Glen hosts the annual Triple Crown Competition, challenging skiers to three competitions in Mad River’s “Ski It if You Can” style. How gracefully can you make it down Lift Line’s challenging terrain under the single chair?

How many vertical feet can you track in a day? (The record is a whopping 60,000!)

Can you make it through the mogul field with finesse? Every year, one man and one woman are coronated (crown and all).

Three days, three events—and 365 days of bragging rights.

Nothing says summer like sunshine, cold brews, and bluegrass music. 2018 marked the eighth annual Brew-Grass Fest hosted at Sugarbush’s Lincoln Peak. About thirty local brewers from across the state pour some of their favorite brews (some traditional, some funky, some limited edition, like last year’s Maple Barrel-Aged Czernobog by Harpoon or Orange Dream from Otter Creek—think creamsicle). Food vendors set up shop with items ranging from traditional BBQ to woodfired pizza to tater tot nachos. Jammin’ bluegrass musicians keep the vibe feeling good all day long. There’s no better way to taste the finest liquid Vermont has to offer than with your friends, a sample cup, and a pretzel necklace around your neck.

The Warren Parade, which took its seventieth trip down Main Street in July 2018, is a beloved Independence Day celebration that rejoices in patriotism and the right to free speech in the form of subtle (and sometimes not-so-subtle) political satire. The parade has evolved over the years: At its start, it was a post– World War Two victory march, with kids and their cows meandering their way down the street. The event gained popularity and

took on a Mardi Gras–style atmosphere when Vermont’s open-container laws were relaxed in the 2000s. Hundreds of bottles of champagne were sold during the parade, and local businesses took snow shovels to the streets to clean up debris. These days, even though open-container laws are back in place, there’s still fun to be had for the thousands of spectators. You might see Bernie Sanders (in real life or as a giant papier-mâché float), you might get soaked by snow guns, and you will definitely hear live music coming from the balcony of the Warren Store.

From the early 1970s until the late 1990s, music festivals brought the talents of Bonnie Raitt, Taj Mahal, Doc Watson, and Phish to the Sugarbush mountainside.

Every year, with local anxiety running high and crowds reaching into the thousands, festival organizers would plan for the worst.

One former Sugarbush employee recalls taking the microphone at an event and announcing, “If you want to do this again, you need to leave this place cleaner than when you arrived.” The crowd complied. Decades later, the Frendly Gathering has brought that “leave no trace” festival sensibility back to Sugarbush. For the past two summers, Frendly festival-goers from the age of three on have set up camp and hula-hooped, practiced yoga among the butterflies, eaten tempura-fried broccoli, and danced to the tunes of Twiddle, Turkuaz, Madaila, and other favorite bands.

These days, the month of March means a series of events that are becoming new traditions, including the Island Weekend and Sugaring Time Festival. Yet the March Madness of yesteryear takes the cake for bringing crazy fun to the mountain almost

Tube Off

Sloshwicking

every day of the month. The Tube Off sent folks in inner tubes down a sculpted mountain run. Sometimes they made it the whole way; other times they flew off the berms, to the delight of the crowd. The Waiter’s Slalom featured ski-boot-clad waitstaff from Valley restaurants competing to see who could balance a tray carrying a filled glass and bottle from one end of an obstacle course to the other. There was Disco Ice Skating, Casino Night at the Sugarbush Inn, the Mini Superstars Olympic-style games, and the Valley House Dance Contest. The

Tomato Wars, an innovation likely born over a nightcap at a local bar, brought hundreds of tomato warriors from Boston and New York to Bragg Hill for a day of well-planned and well-intended debauchery. Armbanded teams competed with bags of tomatoes— like paintball, but with donated fruit—to win a giant game of Capture the Flag. If you were hit? Your only hope for aid was back at headquarters, where a draught of beer would put you back on your feet.

And then there was Sloshwicking. Racers clad in one snowshoe (to get up the hill)

and one ski (to get down) raced in the name of “Slosh”—a made-up town fighting a made-up war … with broomsticks. (You’d be hard pressed to find a more useful tool for tripping your competitors facefirst into the snow than a broomstick.) The sixtieth anniversary sounds like a good time to bring this one back.

Julia Goss works in the food and beverage department at Sugarbush. She is also a personal trainer and writes a health and fitness blog at JuliaHaleFitness.com.

DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 23

ENVIRONMENT

Snow Deep Fun facts about snowfall from the ’60s to the present.

BY JOHN BLEH 1966-67 1967-68 1968-69 1969-70 1970-71 1971-72 1972-73 1973-74 1974-75 1975-76 1976-77 1977-78 1978-79 1979-80 1980-81 1981-82 1982-83 1983-84 1984-85 1985-86 1986-87 1987-88 1988-89 1989-90 1990-91 1991-92 1992-93 1993-94 1994-95 1995-96 1996-97 1997-98 1998-99 1999-00 2000-01 2001-02 2002-03 2003-04 2004-05 2005-06 2006-07 2007-08 2008-09 2009-10 2010-11 2011-12 2012-13 2013-14 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 100”

Ski patroller Hoover Austin recalls a 30-inch storm sometime in the mid-1960s, when Middle Earth had just been cut but never skied. His boss directed ski patrol to boot-pack Organgrinder. But Hoover and his fellow patrollers decided that, “rather than bother with that, we’d just go finally try Middle Earth.”

Sugarbush skier Dick Frost recalls that there was so much accumulation he could toss his toddler son up in the air and let him land in the soft piles of snow.

According to Austin, 4 feet of snow fell at Christmas, closing Interstate 89. Damon Gadd and Jack Murphy “were furious,” Austin says, “because it meant nobody would come skiing.” He himself skied more than a dozen runs in a row down Stein’s Run and the Mall, getting fresh tracks every time.

Snowiest March—117 inches Jack Murphy’s daughter Kelly and son Mike both remember so much snowfall that they were able to do hike-to runs with John Egan on Rumble even after the Castlerock lift had closed for the season. This year also had the snowiest January, with 127 inches.

Snowiest May—16 inches An April snowstorm contributed to a record month of 67 inches of snow.

Sugarbush was open for a record 201 days.

SEASON AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 250" SPRINGTIME AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 65” (from March 1) Snowiest season—363.5 inches, beating the 2016–17 season by half an inch Snowiest November—57 inches

10-YEAR AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 242” 25-YEAR AVERAGE SNOWFALL: 248” More than 4 feet of snow fell on Valentine’s Day, and Win Smith remembers having to stay over at Clay Brook. Several local kids didn’t return after skiing and were rescued by ski patrol and groomers, who located them trapped in Slide Brook Basin.

That Saturday was a bluebird powder day with a record crowd, but the power in the Valley went out, shutting down all the lifts. “We made the quick decision to give everyone a complimentary ticket so they could return another day,” Smith says.

Snowiest February—84 inches The Season of the Moose: Local moose, challenged by the deep snowpack in the woods, came out onto ski trails near North Lynx. A skier’s video of the loose moose went viral and aired on Jay Leno’s Tonight Show.

SNOWIEST MONTHS: DECEMBER & JANUARY, AVERAGE 53” EACH Snowiest December—116 inches Snow-laden spring allows Castlerock to be open and groomed in mid-April.

150”

200”

250”

300”

350”

400”

Sugarbush has never had two seasons in a row of fewer than 200 inches of snow.

24 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

Always Good Times

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VALLEY EXPOSURE

Mountain Sixty years of adventure and camaraderie

Looking west from the top of the gondola

Sigi Grottendorfer with the mini superstars

Sugarbush's famed three-person gondola 26 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

Paradise is still paradise.

Spring slopeside picnic

Sara and Damon Gadd

Sugarbush Ski Patrol, circa 1970s

Opening day at Glen Ellen

Modeling the latest ski fashion

A young John Egan

Sugarbush Resort Golf Club, circa 1970s

Summer concert at the Valley House

DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 27

Sugarbush’s Sweet Beginnings The history of a mountain, and the glamorous crowd that flocked there

BY CANDICE WHITE

T

here was a dash of genteel sophistication at Sugarbush from the very beginning. Take, for example, Peter Estin, a Czechoslovakian-born Bostonian with an impeccable resumé.

Estin was educated at Phillips Academy in Andover, went on to Dartmouth College, and then completed his master’s work at Harvard. After school, Estin served as a second lieutenant in the Air Force Reserves, and spent several years as a financial analyst in Boston. While Estin was fulfilling his civic and professional duties, he was also pursuing his art, publishing cartoons in notable magazines like the New Yorker and the Saturday Evening Post. Peter Estin was going places.

But where he really wanted to go was skiing.

While in college, Estin was a leading member of the Dartmouth Ski Team. He took his wife to Friends taking a break on the slope during the early years. (Image from Vermont Life magazine, Winter 1960–61.)

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Aspen on their honeymoon in the early 1950s, and they returned several times after that so he could compete in the FIS Alpine World Ski Championships. Estin had recently won Sun Valley’s Harriman Cup, regarded in the industry as the precursor to the World Cup. The charming and worldly Estin had a knack for making friends, and while in Aspen, he encountered a threesome from the East who shared his passion for skiing. Damon Gadd, a Yale graduate and the son of a New York City developer, had moved from New York City to the tiny town of Fayston, Vermont, in 1954, along with his wife, Sara.

Damon and Sara had become skiing regulars at Mad River Glen, which opened in 1948, and were living in and running the nearby Ulla Lodge. Accompanying Damon and Sara in Aspen was Jack Murphy, whom they had met while skiing at Mad River Glen, where Murphy served as general manager. Murphy had moved to Vermont with his wife, Audrey, in 1952, after years spent in the Army’s 10th Mountain Division, as a ski instructor in Sun Valley, and as general manager of Mont du Lac in Duluth, Minnesota.

The Gadds had experienced skiing in Europe, and had a hunch that the ski business in the U.S. was on the rise. Damon Gadd had been flying with Murphy over much of New England in a small borrowed

Shortly thereafter, he met Gadd and Murphy at the train station in Bregenz, Austria, and accompanied them to their first stop: the Doppelmayr lift factory in Wolfurt. Ruetzler then helped Gadd and Murphy plan a visit to a second ski lift manufacturer, in Italy.

There, Gadd and Murphy would find the linchpin of their new ski resort: a Carlevaro-Savio gondola.

After examining more than fifty potential locations, Gadd and Murphy concluded that Lincoln Mountain was the most promising choice: a northeast-facing, wind-protected bowl in a mass of high mountains within the northern Vermont snowbelt. plane, scrutinizing the landscape and shooting aerial photos to find the ideal location for a ski resort. As a trained pilot, and with his experience in the 10th Mountain Division, Murphy was intimately familiar with weather patterns and how they affect the mountains.

The pair searched for an area with a good microclimate and terrainenhanced snowfall. After examining more than fifty potential locations, they concluded that Lincoln Mountain, practically in their own backyard, was the most promising choice: a northeast-facing, wind-protected bowl with near ledgeless terrain located in a mass of high mountains that would receive greater snow than isolated peaks, all within the northern Vermont snowbelt. Murphy began to sketch out the ski trails, drawing fat white lines on his aerial photos. And the two men agreed that they’d already found their ski school director: Peter Estin.

Top-ranked Austrian ski racer Paul Ruetzler recalls first meeting Estin at a ski camp in Zurich, Switzerland, in the late 1950s, where Estin was scoping out potential instructors for a new resort back in the United States. Several days into the camp, Estin invited Ruetzler to lunch. Soon after the lunch meeting, Ruetzler received a letter from Damon Gadd and Jack Murphy, who would soon be coming to Europe to research ski lifts. They inquired if Ruetzler would be able to help them. Estin had a way of making his friends become friends themselves, so Ruetzler complied.

30 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

Jack Murphy (L) and Damon Gadd (R)

The Valley Prior to the opening of Sugarbush, the Mad River Valley was mainly a farming community with lumber mills. “This valley was poor, really poor,” recalls Gussie Graves, a Valley native who began working for Jack Murphy at Mad River Glen when she was thirteen years old. Graves’s original family home is now the arts building at the Green Mountain Valley School (GMVS), the nationally recognized ski academy started in 1973 by Al Hobart. She recalls walking to and from school each day along a rambling path to the end of Moulton Road, through the woods, and down to school at the corner of Route 17 and Number Nine Hill. “You could ride the bus if you had money—it cost twenty-five cents each way,” she says. When Graves graduated from eighth grade at the Fayston Elementary School, there were just three children in her class, including herself.

Henry Perkins and his wife came to the Valley in 1948 and opened the Perkins Lodge on Route 17. As Perkins recalled it in an article in the Valley Reporter, “During the first few years, Route 17 was mud except for the first mile from the junction with Route 100. Since the town couldn’t afford to pave the road, the businesspeople on

Route 17 collected money, which the state and federal governments matched. Back then it cost us $20,000 to pave one mile of road.

Every year we would pave a mile. It came to be known as ‘Perkins Partial Parkway.’” Route 17 ended at Mad River Glen, leaving a dirt trail to continue to the top of the Appalachian Gap. The First Years Czechoslovakian-born lawyer Felicitatem “Lixi” Redlich came to the United States in 1939 and never returned home. She met her husband, Trodd Fortna, while modeling in a photo shoot at California’s Strawberry Mountain, and within several years, they had adopted two children and moved to a farm in Moretown, Vermont, where Lixi raised chickens and turkeys. In the summer of 1957, Damon and Jack stopped in to see her at the farm. They shared their plans for the new ski area, and offered her a job as office manager. Lixi was reportedly elated by their offer, but confessed to them that she was “awful with figures,” couldn’t type very well, and didn’t like to talk on the phone “because of my funny accent.” According to her daughter Rosie, they promised Lixi she “wouldn’t have to talk much, and didn’t have to do the books.” Soon, Lixi found herself reporting for work for a dollar an hour in a trailer located in what is now the Gate House courtyard at Lincoln Peak.

Fortna later recalled the original plans for the Carlevaro-Savio gondola, written in Italian and detailed in metric measurements. Neither she nor Gadd nor Murphy spoke fluent Italian, so she persevered through discussions of “bull wheels” and “stanchions” with the manufacturer using a combination of French, German, and English. The metric system measurements were left for Murphy to decipher.

Jack Murphy was the jack-of-all-trades at Sugarbush. If Gadd was the visionary, Murphy was the one who made that vision happen. Murphy designed and cut the original trails, enlisting the assistance of local residents—both farmers and horses. He created the resort’s original master plan, and oversaw the lift installations.

Murphy became so knowledgeable regarding the intricate gondola that he would become the company’s United States representative for a time. And everything Murphy accomplished, he did with

Lixi and Trodd Fortna in the Golden Horse Lodge

Peter Estin (R) giving tips on riding the T-bar

kindness and respect. “To me, he was a first-class gentleman,” recalls Graves.

Friends of Sara and Damon, including Arthur Williams and Harlow Carpenter, helped them pool together the initial $550,000 to open the resort. This cash, along with a ninety-nine-year land lease from the National Forest Service, allowed Sugarbush to open on December 25, 1958, with the gondola, a T-bar, and the Valley House base lodge. The first in the U.S., the gondola, at a length of 9,300 feet, was at the time the longest lift in North America, and served the highest vertical drop (2,400 feet) in the East. Each cabin sat three skiers. Guests could choose between a handful of ski trails: Jester, Organgrinder, Paradise, Sugarbush Glade, Moonshine, Cat’s Meow, Gondolier, Gigolo, Downspout, and Tranquilizer. Day lift tickets cost $5.50.

Mad River Glen’s opening in 1948 had put the Valley on the map as a bona-fide place to ski, but Sugarbush’s arrival ushered in a new class of visitor, from outside New England and beyond, including talented Austrian instructors recruited to the Peter Estin Ski School of Sugarbush Valley. “All the ski instructors were gorgeous,” recalls Dick Frost, at the time a Harvard undergraduate who shared a rented A-frame ski house on Route 17 with a group of college friends that first winter.

Estin’s influence on Sugarbush reached beyond the ski school.

Along with his brother Hans, a former Harvard varsity lacrosse captain, Peter founded the high-octane Ski Club 10. The private social club was named for its ten founding members, who included (according to Hans’s daughter Alex) fashion director Oleg Cassini and his brother Igor (a syndicated gossip columnist with the pen name Cholly Knickerbocker); Tonight Show conductor Skitch Henderson; New York restaurateur Armando Orsini and his brother Elio; society doyenne Nan Kempner; Madison Avenue advertising executive Harry Thompson; and Greek shipping magnate Harry Theodoracopulos.

Ruetzler, who had come to the Valley in 1962 at Estin’s invitation, had the task of greeting the ski school guests, lining them up according to their ability, and pairing them with an instructor. Often, he would assign himself to a private client for the week. At the time, DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 31

STORIED LINES

The design and creation of some of Sugarbush’s classic trails If you want to understand the original vision of Sugarbush’s trails, go to the Sugarbush Golf Club: before the golf course was there, this area was farm fields, and Jack Murphy, the first general manager of Sugarbush, settled on many of the trails from this spot, looking up at Lincoln Mountain. According to his son Mike, Jack “sat in the fields and drew a map of where he wanted the trails to go.” Based on his experience skiing in the larger mountains of the U.S. West, Jack looked to recreate a similar feeling on Lincoln Peak, with widely gladed runs, expansive views, and lots of challenging terrain. He also placed a premium on north-facing terrain for its snow-preserving quality.

Nearly all the trails were built when permitting was a much simpler process, before the passage of Vermont’s development law Act 250. Permission was required from the U.S. Forest Service for most of the Lincoln Peak trails, but Mt. Ellen was privately owned, so almost no permission was needed to start cutting.

The original owner, Walt Elliott, designed the trails at Mt. Ellen (then known as Glen Ellen) largely using the same criteria that Jack Murphy used at Lincoln Peak—one of the reasons the two mountains have similar personalities. Bravo feels like Lift Line. Brambles and Semi-Tough are semiSleeperish. Elbow and Spring Fling are close relatives.

Trailbuilding techniques haven’t changed much over time, either. We’re still using handsaws, chainsaws, bulldozers, and, in some cases, dynamite (though no longer horses, which were used on some trails early on). The trees are either harvested, burned, buried, or pushed into the woods. The work was hard then, and it’s still hard now.

The first trail at Sugarbush, JESTER, followed the path of an old logging road.

Beyond the end of the road, they pushed Jester to the summit of Lincoln Peak, which became the way up to install the original gondola and to cut the other trails. When it first opened, Jester was narrower and the 32 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

Jack Murphy drew the proposed ski trails at Lincoln Mountain on an aerial photograph.

turns were sharper than they are now.

Mike relates, “I remember skiing with my brother Chris off the gondola when I was seven or eight, doing nonstop topto-bottom runs, with bumps everywhere because there was no grooming.” Mike’s sister, Kelly, also has fond memories of Jester: “I spent the most time on Jester; it was where we really learned to ski.”

RUMBLE was one of the original trails; at only ten feet wide to start, it was essentially one line. As Mike remembers, “It wasn’t really cut much, all hand work through the toughest, best terrain on the mountain. It always needed a lot of snow, but I have vivid memories of hiking over to Castlerock with John Egan in April 1978, after the lift closed for the season and we got a big late-season storm.” (Kelly, too, has a similar memory of skiing Rumble with Egan and her little brother Casey that same April.)

GLADE—renamed Murphy's Glade after Jack Murphy died—was one of the runs where Jack wanted to mimic the western feel of open runs with trees. Once snowmaking and grooming entered the ski world, however, his feelings about trees on trails changed a bit. Running snowcats around the trees was difficult, and early snowmaking efforts tended to overload the trees, pulling them down. (Because snowmaking and trees aren’t a good mix, the only gladed trails with snowmaking are Murphy’s, Birch Run, and Sleeper; all of them are wide enough and have lost enough trees that snowblowing and grooming the blown snow can work.)

PARADISE was cut like Glade, with widely spaced trees, and remains a favorite for many expert skiers. Many of the most memorable Sugarbush images over the

last sixty years have been shot on or near this trail, a true testament to Jack’s vision and work. Paradise also predates Mad River Glen’s trail of the same name, which has a similar feel.

SLEEPER ROAD was the first Gate House trail, allowing the lift and other trails in that area to be built—including Sleeper.

Designed in the early 1960s as an easier gladed trail—significantly easier than Paradise—Sleeper is now one of the most popular trails for all ages.

The original BIRDLAND trail was close to where STEIN’S RUN is now, but was allowed to grow in, as it was exposed and constantly stripped of snow by wind. Stein Eriksen missed the old Birdland, which was the widest fall-line trail on the mountain, and convinced Jack to build Stein’s Run to replace it.

Glen Ellen opened in 1963, and FIS and LOWER FIS were completed two years later, designed by Walt Elliott to meet FIS (International Ski Federation) standards for a downhill course. Lower FIS had a little extension below the traverse back to the base area, complete with its own rope tow, to meet the minimum vertical requirements.

Many of the world’s best tested their mettle on the course, including local U.S. Ski Team member Marilyn Cochran.

Speaking of racing, INVERNESS was built as an original trail/lift area at Glen Ellen, and is now a designated U.S. Ski Team Development Site. Inverness is home to the Green Mountain Valley School’s training center, where future U.S. Ski Team members build their skills and strength under the tutelage of world-class coaches.

RIEMERGASSE (originally known as Bagpiper, but renamed for Win Smith’s original Sugarbush partner, Joe Riemer, who died in 2001) helped many people learn how to ski as part of Mt. Ellen’s learning area. The Sunshine Double (“Sunny D”) lift served the trails and was replaced last year with the Sunny Quad. These days, it’s the resort’s main freestyle terrain park—a prime training ground for some of today’s hottest skiers and snowboarders, including Sugarbush’s illustrious Diamond Dog freestyle team.

—John Atkinson

Stein Eriksen poster

the client list was a who’s who of East Coast society, including Ethel and Joan Kennedy; the actress and singer Rosemary Clooney; and wealthy New Yorkers like Vera Swift (of Swift & Company meatpacking). Ruetzler recalls one such client, during a cold snap at the mountain: “Darling,” his client said.

“It is just too cold to ski. Let’s go to New York.” The next thing Ruetzler knew, he was on a plane to New York City, and then in a taxi to his client’s Manhattan apartment, “which took up the entire floor.” The night went on to include a Broadway show and dinner at Sardi’s, the restaurant owned by another Sugarbush skier, Vincent Sardi.

Estin served as director of the ski school until 1963, right through his final months nursing a broken leg that led, tragically, to his premature death at age thirty-five.

The Norwegian Olympic gold medalist Stein Eriksen followed Estin, continuing a legacy in the ski school of international panache. Eriksen was known to perform aerial forward somersaults in his signature Bogner outfits on Sunday afternoons at the top of Lift Six (now the Village Quad). Three years into his five-year contract, Eriksen was hired away by Snowmass, a Colorado resort poised to open in the winter of 1967. Though Gadd initially refused to allow Eriksen to break his contract, he eventually relented.

Eriksen’s shoes were filled by Austrian Sigi Grottendorfer, who ran the ski school for thirty years. Grottendorfer’s arrival coincided with the reversal of a several-year

period of low snowfall, which he jokingly attributed to Eriksen. Grottendorfer had many accomplishments at the resort, among them working with the prolific sportswriter Denise McCluggage in the 1970s to launch Centered Skiing workshops, which injected ski instruction with Zen and tai chi philosophies. (Veteran ski instructors M. A. Raymond and Paté Weston continue to use some of these techniques today.)

Perhaps because of the European influence there, Sugarbush was the first American ski resort to have a bar in the base lodge. “They knew how to party, and they knew how to ski,” recalls Michael Ware, a longtime fixture of the local restaurant industry. On Saturdays, Damon and Sara could be found having lunch in the Wünderbar, beginning with martinis and moving on to meals accompanied by Pouilly-Fuissé. Administrative offices for Gadd, Murphy, and Fortna were just across the hall. Fortna would count the cash each night by hand, and since there was no bank in town, they traded off taking the money home in a brown paper bag.

“The crowd had class, money, and friendship,” adds Chan Weller, who came to Sugarbush in 1962 as a part-time ski patroller while a student at nearby Norwich University. “And they partied until the doors dropped off the hinges.”

The Sugarbush crowd was fashionable and fun. Dick Frost recalls that the clientele at the time, himself included, “made an attempt to match the skis with the parka with the hat.” (Today’s helmets have somewhat dampened ski fashion.) Metal Head skis were so popular that “you would get your name engraved on your pair to tell them apart from everyone else’s.”

Longtime Sugarbush skiers recall with fondness the plethora of fine restaurants and bars that were available to them for aprésski drinks, dinner, and nightlife. In 1959, the famed New York restaurateur Armando Orsini opened the eponymous Orsini’s, the area’s first gourmet restaurant. Henri Borel was convinced by close friends Damon and Sara to open a bistrot, Chez Henri, in 1964 in Sugarbush Village, where he hosted the likes of Paul Newman and Yoko Ono, providing both authentic French cuisine and wild parties in the Back Room. Ski Club 10 earned fame for its Sunday brunch of caviar,

“The crowd had class, money, and friendship … and they partied until the doors dropped off the hinges.” pâté, and champagne. The Sugarbush Inn—a lodging complex with ice skating, Nordic skiing, a pool, and tennis courts, offered dining at the Beef and Bottle. The Blue Tooth was another popular après-ski spot on the Sugarbush Access Road. Valley resident and eventual Blue Tooth co-owner Charlie Brown recalls, “If you had food, you could drink on Sundays, so we rented out tuna and ham sandwiches wrapped in plastic for fifty cents a piece. [Patrons] wouldn’t even take the plastic off, so we’d use the same sandwiches every Sunday.”

The restaurant staff and owners took part in the fun alongside the guests. “There was not a lot happening midweek, so we created parties,” Ware recalls. One of his creations at Orsini’s (later the Common Man) was the “Waiter's Slalom,” which involved participants from the local restaurant wait staff wearing ski boots and balancing a glass of water and a bottle on a tray, trying to race through the restaurant. The waiter challenge eventually moved from the Common Man to the snow outside Valley House Lodge, alongside a host of other wacky adventures: Sloshwicking, involving a broom, a snowshoe, and a ski; a downhill tube race; on-snow dance contests; and Pond Skimming (see more details in “Let the Good Times Roll,” page 20). “The goofier the stuff, the better,” remembers Weller, who would shoot film of the events and rush it out to regional television stations to run on the evening news broadcasts.

The crowd was not just fun, but beautiful to boot. Swanky architects and editorial assistants arrived from New York City on the cocktail-laden Sugarbus Express each weekend. During the era when she was starring in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo and in Strangers When We Meet, Kim Novak was a regular at the resort. Vogue magazine published an article in 1960 that began, “Sugarbush Valley, known on weekends as

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Armando Orsini and friends enjoying après at the Castlerock warming hut

Mascara Mountain”; the nickname, which referred to the attractive crowd flocking to the mountain, stuck. Dick Frost recalls the swimming pool in the middle of Sugarbush Village, behind Chez Henri, where swim lessons were given by none other than Miss Vermont. Even the gondolas were pretty. The mountain’s New York ad agency, Robinson, Donino, & West, masterminded a “Paint-AGondola” contest in 1968, launching the idea in the November issues of both Skiing and Ski magazines (see “Parting Shot” on the last page). Ten contestants won boots, skis, and a Sugarbush season pass for their whimsical car designs—think polka dots and stars and stripes—unveiled later that season.

Stardom often follows a trajectory of burning bright and then fading, and so it was at Sugarbush. Roy Cohen, the head of a Washington, D.C.–based company that supplied laundry equipment services, approached the Gadds in 1977 with an offer to buy the mountain. They accepted, and moved aside. Cohen proved to be a much different owner. Though not nearly as revered as the Gadds, he followed their lead and invested significantly in the resort. He also had the wherewithal to hold on to Jack Murphy and Lixi Fortna. Within two years, Cohen purchased the nearby Glen Ellen ski area, and merged the two mountains into one resort. Cohen gave then marketing director Weller the task of renaming Glen Ellen’s trails, thus moving away from original owner Walt Elliott’s Scottish theme 34 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

for the mountain.

Lixi Fortna left Sugarbush in 1982 to join the Vermont House of Representatives.

Jack Murphy’s accomplished tenure as vice president and general manager came to an end that same year when he died from cancer. Murphy had invested twenty-five years of his life in Sugarbush and the ski industry, creating the original master plan for the resort, installing lifts, designing and constructing trails, and ushering in revolutionary snowmaking, grooming, and safety procedures. Murphy had worked with Harold Head on developing the first fiberglass ski, and was a founding member of the National Ski Areas Association. His commitment to the industry cannot be overstated. Cohen relied on him heavily, and with Murphy’s passing, Cohen was done.

He sold the resort to ARA Services of Philadelphia, at the time the largest food services company in the U.S. The new ownership, which was responsible for removing the famed gondola, did not last long, and the resort was sold again the following year, to Claneil Enterprises.

Claneil, a family trust from Philadelphia, owned the resort for the next decade, and during that time also purchased the Sugarbush Inn, a Robert Trent Jones Sr.– designed golf course, a tennis center, a Nordic skiing center, and land intended for future development. Claneil was unable to accomplish other priorities—including upgrading the snowmaking system at Lincoln Peak and completing their master plan—and lost a significant amount of

money during their decade of ownership.

Les Otten, the then owner of Sunday River in Maine, purchased the resort from Claneil in 1994 for approximately $9 million, and launched a $20 million capital improvement plan. Within six months, Otten had added seven new lifts, expanded snowmaking by 300 percent, and connected the two mountains with the Slide Brook Express Quad, as part of a deal that permanently gave up rights to expansion in the Slide Brook Basin. Otten liked to do things on a grand scale, and formed the American Skiing Company in a 1996 merger (funded largely with high-yield junk bonds) that added numerous eastern and western ski resorts to his collection. He also liked to “stoke up controversy,” recalls Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame member John Egan, who came to Sugarbush during the Gadd era. In 1999, Otten planned a publicity stunt at the Boston Ski Show, pitting Egan against another American Ski Company athlete, Olympian Jonny Moseley, in a boxing match. Moseley lost. Citing Egan’s home-court advantage—Egan grew up in the Boston area and had a supportive crowd—Moseley demanded a rematch.

Shortly thereafter, they competed again.

This time, the duel took the shape of a ski race, on Stein’s Run at Sugarbush.

Practically straight-lining Stein’s with giant slalom turns to the bottom, Egan clinched his second victory against Moseley.

Otten lost local support when rumors suggested that he wanted to replace the Castlerock Double chair with a quad, instigating a grassroots campaign to fight it. “More Rock, Less Otten” T-shirts appeared, along with a sit-in campaign on the Castlerock chair’s bull wheel. The locals won, preserving their beloved and uncrowded Castlerock the way it was.

Local dissenters also successfully thwarted Otten’s plans for a Grand Summit Hotel at Sugarbush—and with that, Otten’s days were numbered.

By 2000, Otten had moved on, leaving the American Skiing Company saddled with debt and under the control of Oak Hill Capital Partners. While Sugarbush was not officially for sale, a group was forming—Summit Ventures—that would soon make a purchase offer. Merrill Lynch International chairman Win Smith had been skiing at the resort

REVOLUTION RYE MANHATTAN MAD RIVER BOURBON OLD FASHIONED

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Win and his children during his years at Merrill Lynch

with his family since 1984, and had already committed to the area through his purchase of the Warren Store and the Pitcher Inn. Smith teamed up with Joe Riemer—a friend, Wall Street colleague, and GMVS parent—and made an offer. The closing, on September 10, 2001, wound up being unfortunately timed given the next day’s tragic events. The timing was also symbolic of the following few years, which were plagued by the sudden death of Smith’s partner in November of that year, a drought that prevented snowmaking during that first holiday season, and a litany of deferred maintenance needs. The following year, Smith took on a minority partner, Adam Greshin, along with four other minority investing families. In 2004, the resort was still losing money, prompting Smith to move from his home in Greenwich, Connecticut, to Warren and assume day-today management.

Armed with a new master plan to upgrade the ailing resort, and a savvy financial road map, Smith slowly began to bring Sugarbush back to the celebrated place it once had been. Smith’s family and Summit Ventures invested more than $69 million, adding, among other improvements, a slopeside hotel, necessary skier services buildings, seven new lifts, and essential snowmaking infrastructure. Smith also brought back a personal commitment to the resort and the Valley that hadn’t been there since the Gadd era, and that only comes when owners truly live and breathe the experience.

Those who were here at the beginning see 36 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

parallels between the mountain’s founders and the person who leads it today. “Win and Damon were similar ... approachable,” Chan Weller commented. Weller worked for Gadd for many years, and now sees the resort from the guest side, as a frequent golfer and skier. “Win kind of reminds me of my dad,” Kelly (Murphy) Wood said recently when recollecting memories of her childhood spent at Sugarbush. “He manages by wandering around,” she added, reflecting on Smith’s routine of dropping in on different aspects of the resort, from attending mountain operations meetings and dining frequently at the restaurants, to stopping by for unannounced office visits.

“Win Smith saved this mountain. Without him, there would be no Sugarbush,” says Paul Ruetzler. But Smith himself deflects the credit, noting instead the dedication of his 155 full-time employees and his 850 or so seasonal employees, many of whom have made Sugarbush a way of life.

Smith’s continuous drive to ski as many days as possible—he skied 132 during the 2017–18 season—allows him to have an almost constant presence at the resort.

In addition, his family—his wife, Lili, his four children, his four stepchildren, his six grandchildren, and, until recently, his beloved Bernese mountain dog, Rumble—is often there with him. The resort has begun to regain some of its former allure, as well as a respectable amount of glamour.

Over time, the resort has grown into its own, settling on an identity that blends

the fame of the past with the authentic and independent values of the present.

While the ski school may be less European than it once was, it is still studded with celebrity instructors. The models and actresses may be less prolific, but you can still spot beautiful people hidden under the helmets. The partying may have subsided somewhat, but the Saturday après-ski scene might make you think otherwise. Two years ago, Bill Pennington, who covers skiing for the New York Times, called the Mad River Valley “one of my favorite destinations.” In 2017, Ski magazine named Sugarbush the secondbest resort in the East. And in 2018, USA Today named it the best.

Smith likes to quote the Chinese zodiac calendar, which claims that “following the sixtieth birthday, life begins again.” This is significant to Smith, whose sixtieth birthday in 2009 presented both a chance meeting with a childhood friend and a final release from his first career. While Smith had left Merrill Lynch eight years before—the company that his father had helped found, and to which he himself had devoted almost three decades of his life—it had since been on the brink of collapse and then purchased by the Bank of America in a fire sale. Smith dealt with the loss in part by writing a book about the company’s success and failure and speaking publicly at the final board meeting, as well as by devoting himself to his second career, whose office was mere steps from the Super Bravo lift. In 2011, he married that childhood friend, Lili Ruane, in a mountaintop ceremony at Lincoln Peak, surrounded by friends and family, and committed himself to a new life chapter whose roots were firmly planted at Sugarbush. Smith had embarked on a new path, as steward of a mountain known for its legendary terrain, its thoughtful development, and its true sense of community. This season, the resort he adopted celebrates its own sixtieth birthday.

For the many who consider themselves part of the Sugarbush community, it may be that the mountain’s best days are still to come.

Candice White is a freelance public relations consultant and writer who served as Sugarbush’s vice president of communications for ten years. She lives in Vermont with her two children and two large dogs.

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DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 37

TEAM

PLAYERS

T H E S TO R Y O F S K I PAT R O L F R O M I T S E A R L I E S T D AY S

BY KELLY AULT

I

t was the day of Sugarbush Resort’s spring Pond Skimming contest. Win Smith, the resort’s majority owner, and assistant ski patroller Chad Borofsky were riding the Super Bravo chairlift and talking about the wacky costumes of skiers when their radios crackled to life. As details of an accident were reported, Borofsky looked over to a passing forest glade and picked up his radio mic.

“I see it right below the Heaven’s Gate traverse.” As he hung up, he immediately turned to Smith: “I know where I am going next.” They reviewed the mogul conditions at the accident location and the decisionmaking that had led patrollers to mark it with caution signage earlier that morning.

Patrollers Chad Borofsky and Barb Mason, and the author (in a toboggan), during a ski patrol practice run

rescue drills, lift evacuation drills, and first aid scenarios,” he says. “We hold our team to very high standards, so should the need arise, we will be prepared and ready to respond.”

Borofsky was lucky to find this tribe early on. After his father died in a jet ski accident when he was sixteen, his interest in helping people led him to start pursuing a career as a physician’s assistant.

But when his job as a Sugarbush lift operator in 1991 led to a ski patrol position, Borofsky realized that he could continue to work in health care by patrolling. “As the first line of defense, I had the ability to prevent people from entering the health care system through hazard mitigation as well as helping them if they became injured,” he says.

10th Mountain Division soldier

The seamless shift in conversation from personal to professional was consistent with what I had already observed of Sugarbush’s patrol culture that morning. Whether gathered in the patrol hut at Allyn’s Lodge or practicing routine sled drills on Murphy’s Glade, patrollers exhibited a sense of light camaraderie while staying attentive to the task at hand.

Colin Cascadden, the patrol director, affirmed that it takes a unique personality and skill set to meet the versatile responsibilities of the job. “A patroller may be skiing the mountain”—interacting with guests—“one moment and be pressed into service the next,” he explained.

“Service” could mean mountain rescue, chairlift evacuation, or search and rescue, as outlined in the mission of the Sugarbush Ski Patrol. More often, Cascadden explained, patrollers spend their time assisting other departments. “There is much more to our job than skiing and doing first aid. We are always there to drop everything to help somebody else.” The patrollers at Sugarbush come from diverse professional backgrounds—they’re doctors, lawyers, and engineers; even a city mayor has served—but Cascadden says they are all “the kind of people that when something happens, there are fifty of them at your door, all asking how they can help.”

They are also highly motivated to learn, adds Borofsky. “Our training regimen includes top-to-bottom toboggan runs, low-angle 40 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

NATIONAL SKI PATROL The underpinnings of camaraderie and professionalism are not unique to the Sugarbush Ski Patrol. These traits are rooted in the origins of the National Ski Patrol (NSP), founded by New Englander Charles “Minnie” Minot Dole in the 1930s.

In widely accepted lore, Dole was skiing the Toll Road in Stowe when he fell and broke a bone. His companions set off for help, but it was hours before they returned with volunteers and tin roofing to serve as a toboggan. This experience, combined with the fatal skiing accident of a friend just weeks later, is credited with spurring Dole’s interest in improving response time to injuries. Others shared his heightened awareness for skier safety, acknowledging the growing popularity of skiing.

Dole and local skiers formed the Mount Mansfield Ski Club (MMSC) in 1934, embedding a purpose to “promote good health” into its incorporation charter. Shortly thereafter, the MMSC established the Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol (MMSP) and recruited volunteers to wear distinctive ski patrol patches. Although they initially acted as hosts, advising skiers on equipment maintenance and the skill levels required for various trails, they quickly gained attention for their emergency response system. It was the “super patrol” that the MMSP set up for the national downhill and slalom races at Stowe that attracted the notice of the National Ski Association (NSA)—the country’s skiing governing body, established back in 1905, now the United States Ski and Snowboard Association.

In 1938, Dole extended his vision and established the National Ski Patrol as a committee of the NSA. As the NSP’s first director, Dole helped shape the organization it is today: a professional education association with a creed of “Service and Safety.” He also ensured an organizational culture described as “esprit de corps,” based on the bonds of pride, friendship, and loyalty, which still remain core to the NSP’s reputation.

As the NSP was gaining momentum across the United States, World War II was raging across Europe. Dole took an interest in the Finnish army’s highly skilled mountain division after their notable defeat of a segment of the Russian army. As the U.S. entered the war, interest from the War Department in establishing a mountain division led to a contract in 1941 with the NSP to recruit soldiers.

Minnie Dole was put in charge of designing a process to screen volunteers. By the time the 10th Mountain Division was organized in 1944, more than 7,000 men had been approved to join.

10th MOUNTAIN DIVISION Similar to the MMSP and the NSP, the 10th Mountain Division attracted men who had an affinity for the mountains and were proficient in the outdoors—notably skiers, mountaineers, hikers, farmers, and ranchers. Enduring snow, cold, and harsh conditions was second nature. Morale was said to be high during the division’s training years at Camp Hale in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains because the soldiers wanted to be there. “They were inspired by the mountains around them,” describes 10th Mountain Division member Earl Clark in the Warren Miller film Climb to Glory. “They came together around a common purpose to win the war, but they enjoyed the same love of skiing.”

In 1944, the 10th Mountain Division was deployed to the war front in the northern Apennine Mountains of Italy. Historical accounts describe the division’s role in interrupting German army supply routes and capturing locations. In February 1945, the ski troops made a victorious assault on Mount Belvedere, the highest mountain in the Apennines, which included a daring nighttime operation on the snow- and ice-covered Riva Ridge.

The division was pivotal to the outcome of the war in favor of the Allied forces, but their involvement came at a cost. Over 114 days of action, 1,000 10th Mountain Division soldiers lost their lives.

It is estimated that 8,000 of the 14,000 10th Mountain Division veterans were responsible for establishing the nation’s ski infrastructure—from ski resorts, patrols, clubs, and schools to equipment and retail businesses.

SKIING INDUSTRY The 10th Mountain Division was deactivated in October 1945, and the soldiers returned home. “They were outdoorsy types that loved the mountains and were well educated,” says Mac Jackson, a member of the 10th Mountain Division Descendants Organization and a veteran ski instructor at Sugarbush. It is estimated that 8,000 of the 14,000 10th Mountain Division veterans were responsible for establishing the nation’s ski infrastructure—from ski resorts, patrols, clubs, and schools to equipment and retail businesses.

For middle-class Americans experiencing a booming economy and increased leisure time, this access allowed skiing to evolve into a mainstream pastime.

“Sixty-eight ski resorts across the country were formed by 10th Mountain Division veterans,” says Jackson, whose father was in the division. “My grandfather turned my dad down for a loan after the war, because he thought he was going to build a ski area.” Although Jackson’s father settled on a farm in Maryland, he continued to ski.

“Whenever a buddy opened a ski area in New England, my father went.” That included Sugarbush in Vermont.

(Clockwise from top right) Dana Ham, Mike Gourlay, Jeff Gilbert, Kurt Pettinga, and Blaise Carrig, Sugarbush ski patrollers in 1978

SUGARBUSH PATROL ROOTS As a ski instructor at Camp Hale, Jack Murphy became friends with many of the 10th Mountain Division soldiers, and it was only natural for him to join them in the ski industry after the war. “His experience with the 10th Mountain Division provided the channel for him to develop his talents,” says Jack’s son, Mike Murphy, formerly Sugarbush’s cabin cat operator. “He was gregarious, athletic, and loved the outdoors—perfect character traits for the jobs he ended up doing.”

In 1948, Jack Murphy was recruited to be the general manager of Mad River Glen and later given the job of building and operating Sugarbush Resort, which opened on December 25, 1958 (see “Sugarbush’s Sweet Beginnings,” page 28). Joining Murphy at Sugarbush was another 10th Mountain Division veteran, George Wesson. Wesson brought influences from training in Colorado and fighting in Italy as well as having been an original member of the National Ski Patrol and the Mount Mansfield Ski Patrol. As patrol director, he established the Sugarbush Ski Patrol and the resort’s service and safety systems.

As skier visits increased, resorts across the East saw the need to extend patrol shifts beyond the weekends to weekdays as well.

Wesson was involved in the growing recognition that paid patrollers DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 41

Sugarbush ski patroller Leah LaRobardiere at the top of Heaven’s Gate lift

were necessary to cover the demand, and he helped form the Professional Ski Patrol Association (PSPA). Although Wesson had founded a certification program with the NSP, it was largely volunteer based, and the PSPA filled a niche of recognizing and supporting the growing number of paid professionals in the industry.

WOMEN IN THE SKI PATROL Another key difference between the NSP and the PSPA was the latter’s men-only bylaw. From the NSP’s formation, women who did not have ski and toboggan skills could still be part of the patrol through its first aid auxiliary unit, which was available at resort bases for walk-in patients or injured skiers brought off the mountain.

Women under eighteen could also serve in the NSP as junior patrollers. Mary Bozack started as a junior patroller at Glen Ellen in 1969 (which opened as a separate resort from Sugarbush in 1963 but was acquired and renamed Sugarbush North in 1978) and served as a patroller until 1983. She recalls the early challenges for women: “[We] had to work harder and be tougher at doing the same things the guys were doing.”

Opportunities changed in the spring of 1973. “I passed the necessary ski and toboggan tests to be NSP certified, which qualified me to be a member of the PSPA,” recalls Bozack. “I had to leave the room 42 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

while the PSPA voted to revise their bylaws to include women.” She became the first female in the PSPA, paving the way for other women to become recognized as professionals.

Like Borofsky and so many others, Bozack has made a lifelong path out of her experiences in the mountains. “When I was at UVM earning my degree in education, I told my professor that I wasn’t sure about teaching in the classroom, that I might want to keep working as a patroller,” she recalls.

“He told me that I shouldn’t choose, so I combined the two. As a working patroller and risk manager, I educated and trained many people, just like Sugarbush patrollers do today.”

Since that time, women have been a constant presence in the Sugarbush Ski Patrol; twenty female professionals and volunteers are currently serving, some of them for decades. One of those is Barb Masser, who has been at Sugarbush for twenty years. “Patrollers come back year after year because of the team and the rewarding work,” says Masser. “The culture is a major draw—the patrol feels like a family.”

SKI TECHNOLOGY INNOVATIONS While gender makeup in the ski patrol has steadily evolved over the decades, innovations in equipment and communications have transformed the

responsibilities and functions of the job of mountain safety and rescue.

Ski equipment had already been redesigned specifically for the needs of the 10th Mountain Division in the 1940s and went through rigorous testing during mountain military operations. Cable bindings provided stability. Skins allowed for uphill travel. Boots were versatile enough for skiing, mountaineering, and snowshoeing.

Waterproof canvas packs and wool clothing maintained dryness and warmth.

However, it was the postwar era when quantum leaps were made in ski technology. A surge of research and development in the 1950s was driven by a new breed of leisure skiers who sought better equipment. They were attracted to the improving conditions of resort slopes, which were made more accessible by modernized lifts and snowmaking.

As an early adopter of snowmaking, Sugarbush was at the forefront of this shift. Jack Murphy was a key influence on the fast-changing technology by constantly testing equipment and giving feedback to manufacturers—from weighing in on the design of snow guns to helping his friend Howard Head develop the first integrated metal-edged ski with a plastic base.

“The industry was small and tight back then,” recalls Mike Murphy. “Everyone knew everyone, and although they were competitors, they were collaborators.”

With faster skis, groomed runs, and better lift access, the number of skiers at Sugarbush boomed in the 1970s. The patrol ramped up their presence and operations.

The first aid equipment that Wesson had initially brought from Stowe, such as a basic backboard and splints, became commercially available and improved the patrol’s ability to stabilize injured skiers on the mountain. The production of the lightweight Cascade toboggan in 1962 made it easier to navigate a patient off the mountain for medical care.

The medical and engineering community increasingly took an interest in skier injuries, most illustrated by the clinic set up by Dr. Robert Johnson and Carl Ettlinger at Glen Ellen in the early 1970s (see “The Sugarbush Study,” Sugarbush Magazine, 2016–17). Not only did their research aid technology and treatment, it enhanced

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Sugarbush ski patroller Thayer Maclay in the Allyn’s Lodge patrol station

training options for patrollers. “Having a medical clinic at the base of a ski resort changed how the patrol functioned,” remembers Bozack. “Learning about injuries, such as dislocated shoulders and broken ankles, confirmed our first aid skills and validated our instincts, because we had the medical diagnoses.”

MODERNIZING COMMUNICATIONS Improved communication methods also modernized the work of the ski patrol.

Bozack acknowledged the unavoidable delays involved in reporting an accident at Glen Ellen early on. “We were limited to having patrollers skiing to look for people in trouble,” she recalls. “Or a skier might report an accident to the lift operator at the bottom of the mountain, who would call the top operator, who told a patroller.”

Wesson was key in advancing communications systems by installing Army surplus field phones on the trails as patrol director, first at Stowe Mountain Resort and then at Sugarbush. Dave Stone, a patroller at Sugarbush, remembers that the system was in place when he joined the patrol in 1973. “These field phones were set up on the trails in red wooden call boxes with instructions and a hand crank,” Stone re44 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

calls. “Although the boxes were numbered, skiers or patrollers still needed to describe the location of an accident to the best of their ability.”

In recent decades, portable phones, radios, and, cell phones have been game changers. Neil Van Dyke, the searchand-rescue coordinator for the Vermont Department of Public Safety, says that where the cell coverage in Vermont’s mountains is better, the job of managing rescues is easier. “When we get a call, the dispatch screen identifies the latitude and longitude of the location, and we can guide out the skier or begin the rescue with greater accuracy.

“However, it cuts both ways,” continues Van Dyke. “The downside of cell phones is that they are used as a safety net.”

He is concerned that skiers and riders increasingly depend on smartphones to be prepared in the backcountry. “The map, compass, phone, and camera all work great—until the battery dies.”

In most cases, those who get lost and call for assistance have started off at one of the ski mountains. “They get adventurous and duck a rope intending to explore the woods just outside ski area boundaries,” Van Dyke explains, “and get sucked into the more remote backcountry.”

EMERGENCY SYSTEM INTERCONNECTIVITY Van Dyke’s observations match up with the experience of ski patrollers at Sugarbush, where skiers and riders are increasingly exploring areas just outside the resort boundaries, areas that often drop out to nearby roads. Cascadden attributes the increase in proficiency and confidence in abilities to the advancement of shaped skis, alpine touring gear, and split snowboards.

Arrangements with regional and state emergency management resources have led to a more sophisticated response, regardless of the emergency at hand. “We have established systems and protocols with the state police, search-and-rescue teams, GPS coordinators, and multi-city ambulance squads,” says Cascadden. “And patrol members are required to do training exercises for search and rescue.”

Sugarbush’s partnerships are the result of a state law that mandated an integrated system among state agencies, ski patrols, game wardens, search-and-rescue teams, fire departments, and emergency medical services, among others. It also led to Van Dyke’s position as a point person in state government. “It has brought groups together and created relationships that have improved

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“We spend ten hours a day together in small patrol huts in the most severe weather in the East … We become what we refer to as the ‘patrol family.’ ”

Sugarbush ski patroller giving a toboggan ride during a safety-awareness demonstration

systems for search and rescue around the state,” he says. “We are saving lives.”

THE PATROL FAMILY Though much has changed over the decades in skiing and riding, the people behind service and safety in the mountain landscape have remained much the same.

“The mountains were the magnet,” says Earl Clark in describing the allure of becoming a 10th Mountain Division soldier.

Mary Bozack would say that the same is true for those on the patrol; yet something beyond the mountains keeps patrollers working over the years. “Patrollers may start wanting to ski for free or be on the mountain every day,” she says, “but the ones that stick with the hard work, season after season, making careers of the work, stay because of the teamwork.”

Chad Borofsky emphasizes that it is the deep experiences of duty and friendship that cement the patrollers’ esprit de corps and ensure the success of their mission. “We spend ten hours a day together in small patrol huts in the most severe weather in the East. During those ten hours we become very close to our coworkers,” he explains. “We become what we refer to as the ‘patrol family.’ We rely on each other for 46 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

support and we are always there to support those who are part of the family.”

Borofsky believes that it is often the challenging circumstances that drive members of the patrol closer together.

“It’s not uncommon for a major accident or lift evacuation to act as a catalyst that in turn cements the bonds of a class of patrollers. These events force the group to set aside their differences and work as a team to solve a problem. It’s during these times of great stress and pressure that petty arguments and squabbles are forgotten and camaraderie is built.”

Borofsky recalls the intensity of a particularly serious accident, in which a skier hit a tree and sustained a head injury.

From the time Borofsky first arrived on the scene to the time he assisted loading the patient into a helicopter for transport to the trauma center, there was an intuitive interdependence between patrollers as they performed examinations and made decisions. “Within minutes there were five of the most experienced patrollers at the scene,” Borofsky recalls. “Without words—which is often the case when the most experienced at a particular discipline join together to accomplish a task—the six first responders treated and packaged the patient in minutes, had him out of the woods, loaded into the

sled, and headed to the first aid clinic at the base of the mountain, where the physicians, helicopter, and ambulance would be waiting.”

These deep experiences and the cumulative time of community service in the mountains have become a way of life for those in the profession. They are why the culture, values, and accomplishments of the 10th Mountain Division, the National Ski Patrol, and the Sugarbush Ski Patrol over the last sixty years so mirror each other, and have had such a significant impact on the country, communities, and individuals.

“The greatest [gift] that came out of the 10th Mountain Division was a common love of the mountains,” reflects Clark. “It seeped into my body, and I knew it was going to be something that I enjoyed for the rest of my life. It became the lives of most of us.”

For Borofsky, who has spent twentyfive years among the volunteers and professionals of the Sugarbush Ski Patrol, working on the mountain has become his life, too. “I can think of no other job that I’d rather be doing.”

Kelly Ault is the public engagement director of the Vermont Early Childhood Advocacy Alliance and a freelance writer. She lives in Middlesex but is usually found exploring Vermont’s woods by skis or bike with her husband and two teenage sons.

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PHOTO: JESSE LENZ

The Valley of the Architects

BY PETER OLIVER

OVER THE PAST HALF CENTURY, A LARGE NUMBER OF UNUSUALLY TALENTED ARCHITECTS HAVE SETTLED DOWN TO WORK IN THE MAD RIVER VALLEY.

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he houses of Prickly Mountain rise from the gentle, wooded hillsides of East Warren like showpieces of abstractexpressionist sculpture. With a kind of crazy-quilt look, they exude a stylistic eccentricity that flies in the face of many architectural norms. Simply put, they are unique. But they are also importantly emblematic of a phenomenon that has emerged in the Mad River Valley over the last half century: the coming together of an unusually Dave Sellers’s Tack House

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It has been widely speculated that there are more architects per capita in the Mad River Valley than anywhere else in America.

The Pavilion Hotel in Montpelier, which now houses the office of the governor, after a reconstruction overseen by Bob Burley

large number of unusually talented architects, who have applied their skills in often unusual ways.

For decades, the Valley has been a landing spot for architects, who are now disproportionately represented in an area with a yearround population of about 5,000. They have settled here for various reasons, not least being the Mad River Valley’s Arcadian beauty.

But they have also been drawn by the allure of a vitally creative community, the opportunity for collaboration with like minds on new ideas, and the opportunity to experiment with new design concepts on Vermont’s open canvas.

They have not gathered here because of some singular architectural style or theory associated with the area, like a congregation of worshippers drawn to the same religion. Stylistically and philosophically, Mad River Valley architects are all over the place: experimentalists, traditionalists, historic preservationists, apostles of sustainability and carbon neutrality, and site planners.

Sometimes, individually, they are a mix of many of those things at the same time. No unified Mad River Valley school of architectural thought or singular style has coalesced from the influx of architects who have settled here, although the concept of “design-build” has been a pervading theme. More on that later.

In looking for a living progenitor of this clustering of talent, you’d probably turn to Bob Burley, now ninety, who set up shop in the Mad River Valley in 1964. Burley was a classically trained architect, a graduate of the Columbia University School of Architecture and a colleague of Eero Saarinen, one of the godfathers of architectural modernism.

Burley came to the Valley for the reasons that have inspired so many others: he was a skier, and he was awed by the area’s natural beauty (the panoramic view from his home, across the valley of the Sugarbush basin, speaks volumes on that score). Burley says simply, “This was where I wanted to live.” Despite his background in modernism, he came to Vermont “with my own style, very much influenced by Vermont and New England.”

In fact, a project that he is particularly proud of, the faithful reconstruction of the Pavilion Hotel in Montpelier (now housing state government offices, including the office of the governor), 50 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

was primarily a work of historic preservation. The former hotel’s mansard roofs and balconies with fluted balusters evoke the architectural stylings of the Victorian era. The Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe, also a Burley design, was a somewhat modernized take on traditional alpine-chalet architecture—no Saarinen influences there. Yet he also designed a Waitsfield home on the Mad River that cantilevers from rock ledges over the river and evokes a Frank Lloyd Wright feel. In short, his is an eclectic portfolio not dictated by any rigid sense of style.

Following Burley, the sluice gates opened for the next decade or two. Like the Mad River in flood stage, architects came streaming in: Malcolm Appleton, Dave Sellers, Jim Sanford, Ellen Strauss, Bill Maclay, Mac Rood, John Connell, Jim Edgcomb, Jeff Schoellkopf, and others. Most of them brought impressive credentials from elite design schools like Yale, Penn, and MIT. They came, and most stayed; it has been widely speculated that there are more architects per capita in the Mad River Valley than anywhere else in America.

Their mission wasn’t just to apply their skills and creativity locally; their portfolios include projects both near and far. But there was something about the Valley that made it an irresistible place to practice an artistic profession. As Schoellkopf says, “I was inspired by the creative community of artists, craftspeople, writers, poets, philosophers—so many people doing interesting work.” This was a land of creative soil in which an architect could plant the seeds of an idea and see them germinate, a place to find a creative context to test innovative designs, whether applied locally or elsewhere.

Certainly a seminal moment in the evolution of the Valley’s architectural scene was the arrival of Dave Sellers and others in the late 1960s to launch a revolutionary design-build concept at Prickly Mountain in Warren. Customarily, architects create designs with detailed drawings that they turn over to building contractors to follow precisely. The client signs off on virtually every detail before ground is broken. Little is left to improvisation or chance.

Sellers and his original partner, Bill Reinecke, and soon Jim Sanford and others—all newly minted architects just getting their

The Bundy Modern gallery, designed by Harlow Carpenter in the early 1960s

feet wet in the field—decided to tear down any barriers separating the design and construction processes. Their pre-construction models and drawings were malleable imaginings, and once the building was in progress they made design changes on the fly.

Unusual circumstances allowed them to follow through on that approach on the land they bought on Prickly Mountain: they were, in effect, owners, clients, designers, and builders all at the same time. There was no need for client approvals of last-minute design changes, no need to appease contractors disgruntled by having to deviate from original plans. The land—totally undeveloped, a virtual wilderness—was cheap, and local building codes at the time were minimal. Sellers and company could pretty much do what they felt like doing whenever they felt like doing it.

The result was a decidedly different set of structures, including the Tack House and the Dimetrodon, that were a jumbled collision of building materials and shapes. And they were in sharp contrast to an architectural icon of the early ’60s in the Valley—the boxy Bundy Modern gallery, designed by Harlow Carpenter, with its Bauhausinfluenced brick, steel, and glass angularity. At Prickly, wood joined forces with plexiglass and stone; curves and twists mixed with right angles and steep slopes. The design-build process was like the organic growth of a tree; who knew where the next branch might appear, at what angle or of what size?

On the Sellers-designed Tack House, for example, a plexiglassfaced dormer shaped like a quartered ice cream cone protrudes from a steeply sloping roof. The collision of shapes and angles at first seems incongruous, but somehow all of it, the whole as the sum of its parts, works. The Dimetrodon, a group design effort

spearheaded by Sanford, looks almost more like an Olympic ski jump, with its six-story tower and long-sloping roofs, than the multi-unit housing structure that it is.

National magazines and television networks took notice, perhaps because design-build appeared to tap into the zeitgeist of the ’60s; here seemed to be an architectural expression of the free-spirited, back-to-nature iconoclasm of the time. But Sellers insists it was not so. “No drugs, no hippies, no back-to-earth guys,” he says adamantly.

Having found in the Valley affordable land and an affordable building process—they were creating structures on $20,000 budgets—they were “architects setting themselves free to try new stuff,” as Sellers puts it. Their approach may have appeared looseygoosey, but it was done with the professional and artistic integrity you would expect from architects trained at some of the country’s greatest design schools.

Prickly Mountain may have exposed the Mad River Valley to the national architectural scene, but the design-build process didn’t exactly take over as a national or global trend. After all, not many clients are willing to give architects the kind of free rein in design and implementation that Sellers and company were able to give themselves. But Prickly was an important mile marker in the collective efforts of the Valley’s burgeoning architectural community.

Architects arriving in the Valley in the 1970s and ’80s had a rich creative vein to tap into. Drawing largely on the design-build way of thinking, they could explore new ideas in increasingly important areas of sustainability, site planning, and climate resiliency.

“Holistic” could be a word that applies—architecture was, as DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 51

At Prickly Mountain, wood joined forces with plexiglass and stone ; curves and twists mixed with right angles and steep slopes.

The design-build process was like the organic growth of a tree ; PHOTO: JESSE LENZ

who knew where the

The Dimetrodon, on Prickly Mountain

Edgcomb puts it, “much bigger than just the building.” Pure design aesthetics might play a subordinate role to resource efficiency, carbon neutrality, integration with the surrounding landscape, an emphasis on using local building materials, and other factors.

The design-build concept morphing into a more holistic design approach has essentially been the modus operandi of Yestermorrow, the Mad River Valley’s unique design school. John Connell arrived in the Valley more or less by happenstance to set up a design practice and to found Yestermorrow in 1980. The school, says Connell, “was an idea I came up with in the last minute of architectural school. It was a harebrained scheme.” Harebrained, perhaps, but also unprecedented and innovative.

The original Yestermorrow vision was decidedly design-build inspired, and the school continues to fly its design-build banner proudly, providing a hands-on building education for designers. Put another way, Connell says, the idea was and is to make designers comfortable with “putting on a tool belt.”

But Yestermorrow over the years has become much more than that. More or less 52 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

next branch might appear, at what angle or of what size?

a garage project in its infancy, the school has gradually expanded to its current campus on Route 100 between Warren and Waitsfield, with a curriculum that includes courses on energy efficiency, sustainability, “green” and net-zero planning, and designs with the resiliency to withstand the structural challenges brought on by climate change. As Edgcomb, an instructor at Yestermorrow since the early days, puts it, “It’s now more like a university program.”

While Connell is no longer actively involved in the management of Yestermorrow, he remains closely linked. He continues to teach an online course in affordable prefab green design, a passion of his embodied in one of his companies, 2Morrow Studio, a natural outgrowth of Yestermorrow.

Edgcomb and Schoellkopf, both with strong Yestermorrow connections, brought a holistic approach to the design of the recent Rice Brook and Gadd Brook projects at Sugarbush.

One theme that has guided their local design work, as it has guided the designs of many other Valley architects, is an appreciation for Vermont traditions. Call it “Vermont vernacular”—clapboard farmhouses, red barns, a farm-and-forest landscape.

“We are master planners, not just architects,” Schoellkopf says proudly,

explaining a complete site design they composed for Sugarbush that is intended ultimately to include six buildings and the surrounding open spaces. (The dovetailing of architectural design with site planning is also in evidence in Edgcomb’s and Schoellkopf’s extensive work for the town of Lake Placid, New York, including its conference center, and for the Green Mountain Club, based in Waterbury.)

The idea was “to design buildings that are rooted in their place but aren’t retro,” says Schoellkopf. “We didn’t want a period piece.” The exterior might exude Vermont vernacular traditions, with pitched roofs, clapboard siding, and lots of stone, but the interior, according to Schoellkopf, was designed to be “very contemporary, with airy, light social spaces.” That was a divergence from centuries-old Vermont buildings, with their segmented interior spaces and smaller windows.

Despite the seeming overflow of architects in the Mad River Valley, a spirit of collaboration and mutual respect has generally trumped competition. These architects all know each other and have, at one time or another, worked on

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The Ski Room in the Pitcher Inn

projects together, from Prickly Mountain to Yestermorrow to Sugarbush.

Perhaps no structure in the Valley embodies that collaborative spirit more than the Pitcher Inn, rebuilt in 1997 after a fire destroyed the original. The building design, with a Vermont vernacular exterior, was the shared effort of Sellers and Rood— commissioned by Win and Maggie Smith— and the unusual approach to the inn’s interior design took collaboration a step farther. Eight designers (Connell, Sellers, Rood, Sanford, Duncan Syme, Courtney Fisher, Anne Schaller, and Art Schaller) were contracted, each given considerable latitude in the design of the inn’s eleven rooms and suites.

Each room, with its murals, wainscoting, wall hangings, furniture, lighting, and other accoutrements, has its own theme. The Ski Room, the Trout Room, the Calvin Coolidge Room, and so on—no two alike, all guided in large part by the designers’ whimsy, brought to life in such throwback decor as wood-andsinew snowshoes and memorabilia from the 10th Mountain Division in the Mountain Room and old ski racks and hurricane lamps in the Ski Room. Indeed, the results of this shared effort are the Pitcher Inn’s principal calling card, setting it apart from the many other inns of Vermont.

The design-build ethos continues to touch the work of a next generation of architects who have made the Mad River Valley their base camp. Karyn Scherer, believing that her college design courses in the 1990s were deficient in teaching the nuts and bolts of building, first came to take design-build courses at Yestermorrow, returned after 54 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

graduation as a Yestermorrow intern, and then worked for Schoellkopf, Sellers, Appleton, and Maclay before opening her own firm.

While she has not pursued the kind of experimental, improvisational work that characterized the early design-build movement, she says that her knowledge of the rudiments of building “definitely influences the way I think about design.” She adds, “It’s easier to work with builders when they know I have a sense of how to put things together.”

There are other aspects of her career

that she and her generation share with their architectural forebears in the Valley. She skipped the large urban design companies and moved directly from college design school to a rural environment. (“Some of that is balking at authority,” she says.) And she settled in the Valley not necessarily because of the career opportunities it offered but “because I fell in love with the area. It is the lifestyle that has kept me here.”

From Bob Burley, and even Harlow Carpenter before him, to next-gen designers like Scherer, the Valley has proven to be a hard habit to kick. The many architects of the Mad River Valley could be successfully practicing their profession elsewhere, but instead they have chosen to stay. They have gained something from this Arcadian place.

And because of that—because of their evident creativity embodied in buildings throughout the Valley—the community has gained something too.

Peter Oliver is the author of seven books, and his feature articles have appeared in many national publications. He is a previous winner of the International Skiing History Association’s Ullr Award and Colorado Ski Country’s Lowell Thomas Award.

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SUGARKIDS SILLY DAD JOKES

What do you call an old snowman?

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56 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

R E F J I Q T G L B M F E G S O J E M T V R P D Q G E S Q Y E C Z U B N N N B A R V K N J H J Y A K K I F U N S I F M Z A U F O R G U T S Z X M Q M J P E G R O L L R Z H R G R X A A E N I H S N O O M H N M O O H W O F P M Q H O G N X I E H A J C N D E I C D L D Y S S V D T N Y A G B A S X D W D G D I S Z A P O N E Y H O N O G D R Y T R Z I T T A G U P I A N E D E L O W A E H D I N N O I Z B N D I S O J D F N T C T L N I A R Z N A U H T B A C D R I S T H A F K E H T A W C T T D J O N M G R B E W N B U L O R U U R E O V E K Y E D M E H D V T U I I L E X A L A O O E Z R R U I R U A D A E S N V T S G O N B L F P Y O S H G L B N A R L R E D P R B R Q R L C I I F D J O T E I O J G A O J E J A A V O F H C X N C B R G I F I N G D R C G R F N G L S S T E I N E R I K S E N C N R I T S B U Q P C V A S R L J A C K M U R P H Y N O I S A E U I O F W T K Q E U L L A L O D G E C G I W R M I P U F M H U T Q J I W O E M S T A C N V L F M L E U M O J M O Q T B V L I S P N G L A D E S Z I R B T K B N K P V F I L L O M H M Y F O P S Q Z I K Q J A C M L S K F E E Q I D T B L Y B T U E Z C O S B K E L L N W J Q Y M G Y N H U R A M R E T J U O Z U N M C W A L E R J H D S O A L Q L E B Y Q T E G V D M I O N N I H S U B R A G U S A I T E Q F E Y O D L C D :

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American Flatbread Farm-to-table pizza baked in a primitive wood-fired earthen oven. $$

Big Picture Café and Theater The Valley’s unofficial cultural center and café, open seven days a week $$

from 8 a.m. to 9 p.m.

The Blue Stone A rustic pizza shop and tavern in the heart of Vermont. $$

Featuring Old World hand-tossed pizza with a New World local twist.

Canteen Creemee Company Serving fried chicken, burgers, fries, and creemees in the heart $

of the Mad River Valley.

Castlerock Pub Classic Vermont-influenced pub menu with outstanding craft beverages $$

and local beers. Open daily in winter, and on summer holidays.

Chez Henri Parisian bistrot in historic Sugarbush Village since 1964. Winter only. $$$ China Fun Take out or dine in. Open Mon.–Sat. 11 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.; Sun. noon to 9:30 p.m. $ East Warren Community Market The Valley’s local food co-op, providing prepared foods as well as local, organic, $$

and specialty items from cheese and eggs to beer and bakery items. Open daily.

Fit 2 Be Thai’d Restaurant Authentic Thai cuisine using home recipes, and a full bar. $

Open seven days a week, 3 p.m.–10 p.m.

General Stark’s Pub & Grill Full bar and table service for lunch and après in winter; $$

Thurs.–Sat. 4:30–8:30 p.m. in summer. In the Mad River Glen Basebox.

Hogan’s Pub Seasonal lunch menu, local burgers, well-stocked bar, and long Valley views. $$

Open daily in summer.

Hyde Away Farm-fresh local fare featuring creative entrées, sandwiches, burgers, $$$

wings, salads, craft beers, and specialty cocktails.

Lawson’s Finest Liquids Family-owned award-winning brewery, retail, and tap room featuring tasting $$

plates of local artisanal food designed to showcase our freshly brewed beer.

Local Folk Smokehouse Serving house-made BBQ Cajun burgers and more, $$

plus twenty-five local and regional drafts.

Mad Burger at Hostel Tevere Serving dinner Thurs.–Sun. and lunch Sat.–Sun. $–$$ Mad River Barn Pub with burgers, entrées, and local brews; family-friendly dining. $$$

Open seven days a week.

Mad Taco Offering some of the most authentic Mexican fare in Vermont, as well as $$

a small selection of fine craft and Mexican beers and tequila.

Mix Cupcakerie Gourmet cupcakes, wedding and special-occasion cakes, pies, $$

soups, salads, lunch options, comfort meals, and more.

Mutha Stuffers Eat-in or takeout deli serving a full line of Boar’s Head products and $$

local Vermont beers in historic Sugarbush Village.

Paradise Market Grocery store and kitchen. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner takeout. $

Located on Sugarbush Access Road.

Peasant Traditional rustic European food, open Thurs.–Mon. after 5:30 p.m.; $$$

reservations recommended.

The Pitcher Inn Farm-to-table cuisine, fine wine, local craft beers, and innovative cocktails $$$

in an updated and relaxed dining room upstairs or an intimate pub downstairs.

Pizza Soul Authentic hand-crafted, thin crust, gourmet pizza, calzones, $$

and strombolis, in historic Sugarbush Village.

Reks Year-round family-friendly restaurant with a bar and arcade, $$

in historic Sugarbush Village.

Rumble’s Kitchen Slopeside restaurant serving fresh American cuisine in a fun atmosphere. $$–$$$

Well-behaved dogs welcome on patio. Open year-round.

Shepherd’s Pub Sourcing food from local farms with eight+ local draft beers and craft cocktails $$

using local and regional spirits. Menus change seasonally. Open Wed.–Sat. Skinny Pancake Serving sweet and savory crepes with local sustainable products. $$

Located on the first floor of the Farmhouse. Winter only.

Sweet Spot Café, bakery, ice cream, and spirits. Serving breakfast and lunch $$

seven days a week.

Three Mountain Café Breakfast sandwiches, lunch to go, pastries, sweet treats, $

espresso, and coffee.

Tucker Hill Inn Restaurant Enjoy an upscale Vermont twist on comfort food and libations. $$–$$$ Waffle Cabin Outdoors next to Gate House Lodge at Lincoln Peak (just follow your nose), $

offering assorted beverages and sweet waffles.

Warren Store Sumptuous baked goods, prepared foods, artisanal beer, and plenty of $$

wine choices. Open daily for breakfast, lunch, and staples.

Worthy Burger Too Grass-fed beef burgers grilled over Vermont hardwoods, tallow fries, $$

local veggies and greens, craft beer, cocktails, and wines.

60 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

$: budget $$: affordable $$$: moderate $$$$: fine

CONTACT 802.583.6590 sugarbush.com 802.496.8856 americanflatbread.com 802.496.8994 bigpicturetheater.info 802.496.3499 bluestonevermont.com 802.496.6003 canteencreemee.com 802.583.6594 sugarbush.com 802.583.2600 802.496.7889 802.496.6758 eastwarrenmarket.org 802.496.3008 fit2bethaied.com 802.496.3551 madriverglen.com 802.583.6723 sugarbush.com 802.496.2322 hydeawayinn.com 802.496.HOPS www.lawsonsfinest.com 802.496.5623 localfolkvt.com 802.496.9222 / hosteltevere.com 802.496.3310 madriverbarn.com 802.496.3832 themadtaco.com 802.496.4944 mixcupcakerie.com 802.583.4477 muthastuffers.com 802.583.2757 802.496.6856 peasantvt.com 802.496.6350 pitcherinn.com 802.496.6202 pizzasoul.com 802.583.3232 802.583.6800 802.583.4373 shepherdspubvt.com 802.583.7444 skinnypancake.com 802.496.9199 thesweetspotvermont.com 802.496.5470 threemountaincafe.com 802.496.3983 / tuckerhill.com 802.558.5691 802.496.3864 warrenstore.com 802.496.2575 worthyvermont.com

A

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R

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• Thurs-Sun, 5:00-9:30pm • All Natural Pizza Baked in a Wood-Fired Oven • Farm to table cuisine • Local craft brews on tap • Nightly AprÈs ski bonfire

ph: (802) 496-8856 americanflatbread.com

at

L A R E A U FA R M • $100-$160/night, Hearty farmhouse breakfast incl.

• Minutes from Sugarbush & Mad River Glen • Stay 3 nights, 4th night free With magnificent views of the mountains and the Valley, Hogan’s Pub serves up a variety of salads, sandwiches, and burgers for lunch, and cold beer and cocktails for après. Open May through October.

• Families & Pets accommodated

ph: (802) 496-4949 lareaufarminn.com

Located at Sugarbush Resort Golf Club

SuGaRbuSh.Com

800.53.SuGaR DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 61

LODGING DIRECTORY INN/HOTEL

STYLE

PRICE RANGE

CONTACT

1824 House Relaxed, comfortable, and tasteful B&B on fourteen gorgeous acres in Waitsfield. $$$ 802.496.7555 1824house.com The Battlegrounds One- to four-bedroom condominiums, sleeping four to twelve. Fully equipped. $$–$$$$ 802.583.3000 sugarbushvillagecondos.com Beaver Pond Farm Inn

Distinctive and intimate B&B or full house rental five minutes $$$ from Sugarbush Resort, adjacent to Sugarbush Golf Club.

Bridges Resort & Tennis Club

Couples or family getaway, one- to three-bedroom condos with tennis, $$$ 802.583.2922 pools, and fitness classes. bridgesresort.com

Clay Brook

Luxury slopeside one- to five-bedroom residences with year-round outdoor $$$$ heated pool and hot tubs.

800.685.8285 beaverpondfarminn.com

800.53.SUGAR sugarbush.com

Eagles Resort Freestanding, Swedish-design, two-bedroom homes. $$$ 802.496.5700 eaglesresortvt.com Featherbed Inn

Charming Waitsfield B&B with fieldstone fireplace, and home-baked pies $$–$$$ on Saturdays.

802.496.7151 featherbedinn.com

Hostel Tevere

Thirty beds of European hostel-style lodging; shared bathrooms $ and common spaces.

802.496.9222 hosteltevere.com

Hyde Away Inn

Family-friendly, pet-friendly, nine-room inn with casual accommodations. $$ Farm-fresh restaurant and classic local tavern.

802.496.2322 hydeawayinn.com

Inn at Lareau Farm A classic Vermont farmhouse nestled in the Mad River Valley. $$–$$$ 802.496.4949 lareaufarminn.com Inn at Round Barn Farm Boutique country inn, twelve rooms, cozy fireplaces, farm-to-table breakfast. $$$$ 802.496.2276 theroundbarn.com Mad River Barn Family-friendly lodging with onsite restaurant, pub, and game room. $$$ 802.496.3310 madriverbarn.com Mad River Inn Relaxed atmosphere, with outdoor hot tub and BYOB lounge with pool table. $$$ 802.496.7900 madriverinn.com Mad River Lodge

Brand-new (2017), standard rooms and two-bedroom efficiencies with kitchens. $$$ Located two miles from Mad River Glen and Mt. Ellen.

802.496.6969 madriverlodge.com

Millbrook Inn

Set in a nineteenth-century farmhouse, a homey B&B $$ with views of the Green Mountains.

802.496.2405 millbrookinn.com

Mountain View Inn

Beautiful inn with cozy rooms and delicious breakfasts. $$ Minutes from skiing and town.

802.496.2426 vtmountainviewinn.com

Pitcher Inn

Relais & Châteaux luxury with eleven well-appointed, unique guest rooms $$$$ and exquisite dining.

802.496.6350 pitcherinn.com

Sugarbush Inn

Comfortable and affordable family-friendly inn minutes from the mountain. $$ Open winter only; summer for private groups.

800.53.SUGAR sugarbush.com

Sugarbush Village Condominiums

Fully equipped one- to four-bedroom condominiums close to Sugarbush $$–$$$ and Mad River Glen.

802.583.3000 sugarbushvillagecondos.com

Sugarbush Resort One- to four-bedroom privately owned condos, on or near the mountain. $$$ Condominiums

800.53.SUGAR sugarbush.com

Sugar Lodge

One-half mile from Lincoln Peak. Family-friendly, modern hotel rooms $$ with great ski packages.

800.982.3465 sugarlodge.com

Sugartree Inn

Closest inn to Lincoln Peak; nine great rooms, creative full breakfast, $$$ and outdoor hot tub.

802.583.3211 sugartree.com

Tucker Hill Inn A family-friendly inn. Warm up with après, enjoy dinner, and relax! $$–$$$ 802.496.3983 tuckerhill.com Waitsfield Inn

Historic inn within minutes of mountains, centrally located, $$$ walk to shops and dining.

802.496.3979 waitsfieldinn.com

Warren Falls Inn Five-bedroom inn with large kitchen, living room, and deck on the Mad River. $$ 802.496.2977 warrenfallsinn.com Warren Lodge (formerly Golden Lion)

Newly renovated (2016), standard efficient rooms decorated with rustic $$$ farmhouse-chic décor. Only three miles from Sugarbush.

802.496.3084 thewarrenlodge.com

Weathertop Mountain Inn Eclectic and spacious European-style inn. Private baths, hot tub, sauna, $$$

game room, and evening dining.

802.800.3625 weathertopmountaininn.com

West Hill House B&B

802.496.7162 westhillbb.com

Award-winning B&B beside Sugarbush: comfort, hospitality, and great $$$ breakfasts year-round. Complimentary shuttle.

White Horse Inn A twenty-six-room B&B at the entrance to Mt. Ellen at Sugarbush Resort. $$ 802.496.9448 whitehorseinn-vermont.com Wilder Farm Inn Beautiful rooms, delicious breakfast, and wood-burning fireplaces. $$$ 800.496.8878 wilderfarminn.com Yellow Farmhouse Inn King and queen beds, private baths with Jacuzzis, and gas stoves; on shuttle route. $$$ 802.496.4263 yellowfarmhouseinn.com 62 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

$: budget $$: affordable $$$: moderate $$$$: fine

WhiteHorseInn-SugarbushAd_Layout 1 7/22/14 11:23 A

Cozy Comfort at the Center of Vermont’s Three Finest Ski Areas

At the entrance to Sugarbush Mt. Ellen & just 5 minutes from Sugarbush Lincoln Peak & Mad River Glen, our 26-room Inn serves a full breakfast in a homey setting at affordable rates.

Serving Vermont beers & wines.

Perfect for groups.

802-496-9448 in Fayston/ Waitsfield www.WhiteHorseInn-Vermont.com

Spacious Swedish Contemporary Homes Rentals & Sales

ROUTE 100 / P.O. BOX 208 WAITSFIELD, VERMONT 05673 802-496-5700 eaglesresortvt.com DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 63

TIMELINE

1958

SUGARBUSH VALLEY Damon and Sara Gadd, along with Jack Murphy and Lixi Fortna, open Sugarbush Resort.

Thanks to its threeperson, top-to-bottom Carlevaro-Savio gondola, Sugarbush boasts the “greatest vertical rise in the East.”

1959

The resort installs a double chairlift, opening up the legendary Castlerock area. This area is immediately known for its expert ski terrain. That reputation continues today.

1963 SUGARBUSH VALLEY & GLEN ELLEN Walt Elliott opens the Glen Ellen Ski Area.

Complete with Scottish-themed trail names, Glen Ellen claims “the greatest vertical descent in the East,” with its tiered lifts to the 4,083-foot summit of Mt. Ellen. The Gate House area at Lincoln Peak (Sugarbush Valley) opens with a new double chair.

1963–66 1960

With a rebuilt access road and the addition of the Valley House chairlift, Sugarbush begins attracting throngs of New York glitterati.

Vogue dubs Sugarbush “Mascara Mountain” because of its glamorous guest list, including actress Kim Novak, the Kennedy clan, musician Skitch Henderson, and fashion designer Oleg Cassini. Sugarbush is featured in its first Warren Miller movie, Swingin' Skis.

Olympic Gold Medalist Stein Eriksen serves as director of the Sugarbush Ski School. Most afternoons he performs his signature flip on skis in the base area.

1977–79

SUGARBUSH VALLEY— SUGARBUSH SOUTH & SUGARBUSH NORTH Roy Cohen purchases Sugarbush (in 1977) and Glen Ellen (in 1979). The two areas join under the Sugarbush name. Glen Ellen is renamed Sugarbush North to reflect the union. (In 1995, it is renamed Mt. Ellen.)

1978

Sugarbush is featured in Warren Miller’s film Ski a la Carte.

1964

Chez Henri, a Parisian-style bistrot, opens in Sugarbush Village.

The Green Mountain Valley School establishes its ski race training site, now recognized as a U.S. Ski Team Development Site, at Mt. Ellen.

1983

Roy Cohen sells Sugarbush to ARA Services.

ARA removes the gondola. Super Bravo and Heaven’s Gate chairs are installed, and uphill capacity increases fourfold.

Jack Murphy is posthumously given the Sherman Adams Award by the National Ski Areas Association (NSAA), marking his significant influence on the eastern U.S. ski industry.

64 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

2008

Al Hobart, founder of the Green Mountain Valley School, is inducted into the Vermont Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.

2010

1996

Warren Miller films local legends John Egan, Doug Lewis, Jesse Murphy, Sally Knight, and Seth Miller at Sugarbush for the film Snowriders.

1984

2001

Three new chairlifts are installed at Mt. Ellen—including the Green Mountain Express, at that time the fastest quad in the world, transporting skiers at 1,100 feet per minute.

1993

Sugarbush is featured in Warren Miller’s Black Diamond Rush, starring local skiers John and Dan Egan, and Kelley and Doug Lewis.

2015

The original Valley House lift is replaced with a fixed-grip quad, more than doubling its uphill capacity.

SUGARBUSH RESORT Win Smith and Joe Riemer form Summit Ventures to purchase Sugarbush. After Riemer’s death, a handful of minority investors join Smith. He begins to lay the groundwork for a new master plan for the resort that closely reflects the values and philosophies of the original owners, as well as the character and style of the Mad River Valley and Vermont.

2016

Construction is completed on Gadd Brook Slopeside, sixteen private homes at the base of Lincoln Peak named after the resort’s founding family.

John Egan is voted into the Ski and Snowboard Hall of Fame.

2017

1994

The Village Double and Sunshine Double chairlifts are replaced with fixed-grip quad lifts, and RFID gates are installed in lift lines.

SUGARBUSH & MT. ELLEN Les Otten purchases Sugarbush and makes major infrastructure investments, including the installation of seven new lifts, three of which are detachable quads. The Slide Brook Express ferries skiers back and forth to Mt. Ellen. Snowmaking improvements include a new twenty-five-million-gallon pond and miles of pipe. Soon, Otten creates the American Skiing Company with Sugarbush as one of its several holdings.

2013 Construction is completed on Rice Brook Residences, private homes linking Lincoln Peak Village to historic Sugarbush Village.

With a plan to operate a four-season resort, Claneil Enterprises purchases the mountain, Sugarbush Inn, the racquet club, the golf course, and additional land for future development.

1990

The Schoolhouse (the base of children’s day programs) and the Farmhouse (with a season pass/ticket office, rentals and repair, and a café) open at Lincoln Peak Village.

2018 2006

Sugarbush celebrates its sixtieth anniversary.

Lincoln Peak Village opens to the public.

The new facilities include Gate House Lodge, Clay Brook Hotel & Residences, and Timbers Restaurant (now Rumble’s Kitchen). The new village is modeled on the traditional style of Vermont farmhouses, barns, and schoolhouses.

DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 65

SUGARBUSH CLOSE - UP

SUGARBUSH After years of skiing at the mountain with his family, Win Smith and a small group of investors purchased Sugarbush in September of 2001 (see “Sugarbush’s Sweet Beginnings,” page 28). They have since embarked on reshaping the Sugarbush experience to reflect the authentic nature of the Mad River Valley while honoring the resort’s rich history dating back to 1958. Incorporating traditional Vermont architecture into the village, hosting community events, and highlighting local agriculture in the resort’s culinary offerings are just some of the ways Sugarbush delivers a rich experience for its guests.

In 2006, Sugarbush completed construction of Clay Brook Hotel & Residences and Gate House Lodge. Four years later, two more skier-services buildings—the Schoolhouse and the Farmhouse—were added to Lincoln Peak Village. Rice Brook Residences— fifteen new homes in three buildings—were completed in 2013, connecting Lincoln Peak Village and historic Sugarbush Village. And in 2016, construction was completed on Gadd Brook Slopeside—sixteen private homes named after the resort’s founding family.

66 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

THE MOUNTAINS Each year, Win Smith and his entire resort team work hard to make good on the Sugarbush promise: Be Better Here.

Since 2001, Smith’s team has invested more than $69 million in mountain improvements. Snowmaking upgrades at both mountains, in the form of new, energy-efficient compressors and snow guns, account for almost $7 million of that investment. More than $8 million has been spent on new lifts. Recently, the resort replaced the original Valley House lift (in 2015), and the original Village and Sunshine Double lifts (in 2017)—all with fixed-grip quads. The Village and Sunshine lift replacements provide a more seamless experience for beginners at both mountains. To improve guest service, the resort upgraded its ticket-checking technology to RFID gates in 2017.

Linking Sugarbush’s rich history, the uniqueness of the Mad River Valley, and the modernity of new amenities, Sugarbush is committed to offering the best in customer service, four seasons of outdoor recreation, and an unrivaled and quintessential Vermont experience.

With expansive terrain covering 2,600 feet of vertical, Sugarbush brings some of the flavor of western skiing to the East, and boasts one of the largest uphill capacities in the northeast region. The resort offers 111 trails for beginners, intermediates, and experts, spread across two mountains—Lincoln Peak and Mt. Ellen—with a chairlift and a shuttle bus that connect the two. Lincoln Peak Village offers many lodging and dining options, and also serves as home base for the Ski & Ride School and Rentals and Repair. Lincoln Peak offers extensive beginner terrain and lifts, and a First Timer program that may reward participants with a free season pass and a pair of Elan skis or a Rome snowboard (supplies are limited).

The legendary terrain of Castlerock Peak, with its narrow, steep, and winding trails, offers seasoned experts a challenge and an oldtime New England ski experience. Snowcat adventures? Get up early for First Tracks on the Lincoln Limo, take the family on a Sunset Groomer Ride, book the limo for remote Fireside Dining at Allyn’s Lodge, or plan Private Spring Skiing at Mt. Ellen.

Connected by the Slide Brook Express to Lincoln Peak, Mt. Ellen is the thirdhighest peak in Vermont (serviced by the

802.583.6725

sugarbush.com

We’re more than

SKIING

A sampling of our

PREMIUM GOLF PASSES

(unlimited golf, cart & range balls included)

Family Gold Pass

$3198 FALL $3498 EARLY $3798 REGULAR

Includes spouse and dependent children

Gold Pass

$1599 FALL $1749 EARLY $1899 REGULAR

Ages 40 and up

Fore30s Pass

Fore20s Pass

Ages 30 – 39

Ages 19 – 29

$899 FALL $949 EARLY $999 REGULAR

$419 FALL $499 EARLY $549 REGULAR

FALL RATES THRU 11/1/18 | EARLY RATES THRU 3/31/19 | REGULAR RATES BEGIN 4/1/19

DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 67

SUGARBUSH CLOSE - UP highest chairlift in the state). Mt. Ellen has steeps, wide-open cruisers, and some great intermediate terrain. Mt. Ellen is an understated experience, with a rustic base lodge that’s home to the convivial Green Mountain Lounge, and with Walt’s at the Glen House, a mid-mountain lodge turned hotspot thanks to gourmet grilled-cheese sandwich selections and local beers on tap. Mt. Ellen is also where you’ll find the Riemergasse Terrain Park, designed with rails, tables, and jumps for all levels, and home to a series of events and competitions. The Green Mountain Valley School, a private ski academy with Olympian and U.S. Ski Team alumni, trains here. (Sugarbush and GMVS are both U.S. Ski Team Development Sites.) Vermont Adaptive Ski & Sports bases their adaptive programs here, as well.

Whether at Mt. Ellen or Lincoln Peak, skiing in the trees is often the best way to find great snow. Twenty-eight marked areas provide beginner to advanced tree skiing. The 2,000acre Slide Brook Basin, tucked in between Lincoln Peak and Mt. Ellen, is an adventurer’s paradise. Guided trips are available with Ski & Snowboard Hall of Famer John Egan and the staff of the Adventure Learning Center’s Ski & Ride School.

Both guided and self-guided snowshoeing adventures are available throughout the winter, and vary in length and difficulty.

Sugarbush also offers a free uphill travel pass to those guests who choose to skin up the mountain before or after the lifts are in operation. (See our Winter Trail Use policy, at sugarbush.com/resort-policies, for details.)

Sugarbush isn’t the only draw in the Mad River Valley. Mad River Glen, just a few miles to the north of Sugarbush, boasts some of the most challenging terrain in the East.

The Valley is also home to two Nordic skiing centers, Blueberry Lake and Ole’s Cross Country Center, as well as the Catamount Trail. In Waitsfield, the Skatium Ice Rink provides a unique outdoor skating experience.

68 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

HANS JONATHAN VON BRIESEN

SUMMER

LODGING

Many locals will claim that the Mad River Valley is more beautiful in summer than at any other time of year. Sugarbush hosts an eighteen-hole Robert Trent Jones Sr.– designed golf course, and summer mountain activities that include lift-served mountain biking, a bungee trampoline, disc golf courses at the base and the peak, and a zip line.

Weddings take place on scenic mountaintops, on the golf course, and in classic barns at the mountain and in the Valley. Themed summer camps for kids offer mountain biking instruction and farm education, as well as traditional activities like hiking, golf, and swimming. The internationally acclaimed New England Tennis Holidays offers multiday tennis camps and instruction at the Sugarbush Health & Recreation Center.

The Mad River, which gives the Valley its name, offers recreational opportunities from kayaking and canoeing to tubing and swimming-hole hopping. Cross-country mountain biking and hiking trails are abundant for all levels. And outdoor dining on the mountain and along the river is a summer pleasure, particularly when coupled with an art or music festival.

From slopeside luxury to quaint country living, the Sugarbush Vacation Team can assist in finding accommodations to suit a variety of needs and budgets (for reservations, call 800-53-SUGAR or visit sugarbush.com).

The slopeside Clay Brook Hotel & Residences offers sixty-one suites, ranging from king rooms to five-bedroom suites, and features ski-in/ski-out access, full valet service, a yearround outdoor heated pool, a fitness center, and Rumble’s Kitchen restaurant. Down the road is the forty-two-room Sugarbush Inn, open all winter and for private groups in the summer. The inn—with nooks for reading and a parlor with an adjoining fireplace room— has the cozy charm of a Vermont country cottage. Sugarbush also offers a mix of resort-managed condominiums surrounding Lincoln Peak. All Sugarbush lodging comes with complimentary access to the Sugarbush Health & Recreation Center, which offers indoor and outdoor pools, hot tubs, steam rooms, the Adventure Zone for kids, rock climbing, tennis, and massage. (For additional lodging recommendations, please call the Mad River Valley Chamber of Commerce at 802-496-3409.)

CONFERENCES, MEETINGS & RETREATS TEAM BUILDING ACTIVITIES OUTDOOR ADVENTURES including cat-skiing adventures, backcountry skills, snowshoeing, hiking, golf, and climbing wall DINING from casual to elegant, indoors and out

LIKE US ON FACEBOOK.COM/FERRO.JEWELERS

A wedding to remember in a setting you’ll never forget.

LU XURY ACCOMODATIONS on-site at Clay Brook Hotel & Residences

Photos courtesy of BethanyDan.com

IDE A L FOR INTIM ATE GATHERINGS UP TO 450

802.583.6370 groups@sugarbush.com

For information, please contact our experienced wedding planner at weddings@sugarbush.com or call 802.583.6370.

DIAMOND JUBILEE ISSUE 2018/19 69

SUGARBUSH CLOSE - UP TRANSPORTATION The Burlington International Airport is just fifty minutes from Sugarbush, with direct flights arriving from New York City, Boston, Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and Atlanta, and seasonal direct flights from Toronto. Morrisville-Stowe State Airport is just under an hour away and offers direct flights from White Plains, New York. Amtrak runs trains from major eastern cities into Rutland (one hour south of Sugarbush) and Waterbury (thirty minutes north). And once you’ve arrived, Green Mountain Transit offers free public transportation services in the winter season within the Mad River Valley region.

DISTANCE FROM: Burlington: 46 miles

Boston: 180 miles

New York City: 300 miles

Montreal: 139 miles (224 KM)

FIRST-TIME VISITORS can find information on where to go for lift tickets, rentals/demos, Ski & Ride School, and dining options at www.sugarbush.com/discover/first-time-visitor.

MOUNTAIN OPERATION HOURS

MOUNTAIN STATISTICS

4,083

581

1,4 83 BASE

SKIABLE ACRES

SUMMIT ELEVATION

53 2,600 2 28 ELEVATION

MILES OF TRAILS

WOODED AREAS

250

VERTICAL DROP

INCHES

average annual

TERRAIN PARKS

SNOWFALL

LIFTS (16 TOTAL) 10 quads (5 high speed)

Winter: mid-Nov.–Apr. Weekdays: 8 AM–4 PM at Mt. Ellen; 9 AM–4 PM at Lincoln Peak

2 triples

Weekends/holidays: 8 AM–4 PM

1 double

Spring: Apr.–May

3 surface lifts

Call for spring-adjusted hours.

Summer: mid-June–Labor Day Sun.–Thu.: 10 AM–4 PM Fri., Sat., & holidays: 10 AM–6 PM

Fall: early Sept.–Columbus Day Weekends & Columbus Day: 10 AM–4 PM

Times are subject to change.

Please call 800.53.SUGAR or visit sugarbush.com for up-to-date information.

LEGEND EASIER DIFFICULT MORE DIFFICULT MOST DIFFICULT WOODED AREA FREESTYLE TERRAIN SLOW-SKIING AREA FLAT OUT SNOWMAKING

EVENTS 2018/19

Oktoberfest

Junior Castlerock Extreme

10/6 Community Day

1/19–21 MLK Jr. Weekend

Celebrate autumn in Vermont with pumpkin carving, scenic lift rides and hikes, harvest-inspired dining, music, kids’ camps, and mountain activities.

An action-packed weekend with a kids’ cooking class, pizza and movie night, late-night music, specialty dining options at Rumble’s Kitchen and Castlerock Pub, and a torchlight parade and fireworks.

10/7 Oktoberfest Bavarian-inspired food, drink, and games, along with the Mad Bavarian Brass Band. Compete in our steinhoisting and keg-tossing contests to win prizes.

10/7 Mad Dash A 5K or 10K run, 5K walk, and kids’ race, supporting the Mad River Path Association (madriverpath.com).

11/17 The Big Kicker

1/25–27; 3/4–6 Women’s Discovery Camp An enriching two-and-a-half-day learning experience hosted by topnotch coaches. The perfect blend of fun, learning, sharing, and skiing and riding. Video analysis, group meals, après-ski parties, and optional ski demos included.

Kick off the 2018–19 winter season with Mad River Glen and Sugarbush at American Flatbread in Waitsfield.

This unmatched ski-mountain duo throws a freestyle party with rail jams, ski movies, local food and drink, and words of wisdom from the High Fives Foundation and the Flyin Ryan Hawks Foundation.

2/9 Junior Castlerock Extreme

12/15 SugarBash

2/16–24 President’s Week

It’s time to get down and get funky 1960s style at Sugarbush’s annual birthday celebration. We will kick off “60 Years of Sugarbush Music,” starring the Grift. Rock your finest retro gear and dance your heart out.

A nonstop week of fun, with an ice sculpture display, live music, local artisan market, Sugarbush PARKS Feature Garden, activities for all ages at the SHaRC, a torchlight parade and fireworks, and a sixtiethanniversary “Mascara Mountain”– themed dog parade.

12/17–21 Valley Ski & Ride Week A tradition at Sugarbush for more than fifty years. Join us for five consecutive days of ski and ride lessons led by some of Sugarbush’s finest coaches.

12/21–1/1 Holiday Week Celebrate the holidays at Sugarbush with activities for all ages, from Kids’ Pizza and Movie Night, a magic show, gingerbread house decorating, and a Kids’ Rail Jam to campfires with s’mores and après live music. Indoor activities at the SHaRC include the Adventure Zone— bounce house, basketball shootout, bungee trampoline, cornhole, and ping pong—and an indoor saltwater pool and hot tub. Ring in the New Year at the Family Buffet in Gate House Lodge or at Rumble’s Kitchen, followed by a torchlight parade and fireworks, along with the Detonators playing live at Castlerock Pub. 72 SUGARBUSH MAGAZINE

Talented young skiers (ages fourteen and under) compete in a challenging and technical run down Castlerock’s grueling Lift Line. This is a qualifying race for March’s Castlerock Extreme and part of the Ski the East Freeride Tour. Register early—this Sugarbush classic traditionally sells out.

3/1–31 March Madness Celebrate March like Sugarbush did back in the day! Fun retro events— both outdoors and indoors, for all members of the family—will be brought back in March as a tribute to Sugarbush’s sixty years.

3/3 High Fives Fat Ski-A-Thon Lap the Valley House Quad on your widest planks and give out high fives all day for a great cause. Raise money to support the High Fives Foundation, and join the after-party in Valley House Lodge.

3/9 Castlerock Extreme Expert skiers charge the cliffs and dips of Sugarbush’s toughest terrain in the twenty-second annual Castlerock Extreme.

3/16 SideSurfers Banked Slalom John Murphy (grandson of Sugarbush

High Fives Fat Ski-A-Thon founder Jack Murphy) and the PARKS team host a communal gathering and friendly snowboard competition on a custom-built racecourse through gates and over banked turns, berms, rollers, and jumps.

3/23–24 Island Weekend Have your beach and your mountain, too! Spring fever takes over Sugarbush, with reggae music, island cuisine and drink specials, a luau, volleyball, hula-hoop contests, and fun-in-the-sun beach activities.

3/30 Mt. Ellen End-of-Season Party Celebrate another great ski season at Mt. Ellen with live music, special events, and Frendly (Gathering) guests.

4/6 Pond Skimming Take the plunge across a 120-foot pond at the base of Lincoln Peak.

Whether you get wet or just spectate, be sure to participate in this annual rite of spring. Awards for best costume, style, and splash.

4/21 Easter Celebration Celebrate Easter Sunday with a morning service at Allyn’s Lodge, followed by an Easter egg hunt and brunch at Rumble’s Kitchen.

6/8 Sugarbush Brew-Grass Festival Kick off summer with Sugarbush’s ninth annual brewfest, featuring craft beers from more than twenty Vermont breweries, tasty local eats, and jammin’ bluegrass bands.

6/11–12 Boomer Scramble Championship A two-day golf event for ages 65+.

Sign up as a full team or be grouped with others.

6/22 Summer Mountain Activities Opening Day Discover all that Sugarbush has to offer during the summer months: downhill mountain biking, zipline, hiking, bungee trampoline, disc golf, and more.

7/4 Independence Day Celebration Start the day with the wacky Warren Parade, followed by mountain activities, a classic American BBQ, live music, and fireworks at Lincoln Peak.

Independence Day celebration

7/7 Mad Marathon This scenic course sends runners along beautiful country roads in the Mad River Valley, through covered bridges, past farms, and over streams. Participants can run a relay, half marathon, or whole marathon.

RECURRING EVENTS Tour de Moon A moonlit skin or snowshoe up Mt. Ellen. Whether you’re a seasoned skinner or new to the sport, this night adventure is not to be missed! There will be guided and unguided skinning and snowshoeing to Walt’s at the Glen House, where you can enjoy gourmet grilled-cheese sandwiches and beverages from local brewers. Walt’s stays open until 8 p.m.

Kids’ Pizza & Movie Night Send the kids off for a night of fun with pizza and a movie while you enjoy an evening on your own.

12/15, 1/12, 2/16, 3/2, 3/16

Castlerock Music Series Soak in the sounds of the Grift presenting “60 Years of Sugarbush Music” at the Castlerock Pub and choose from the more than twenty beers on tap. The Grift will take us on a musical journey through time in celebration of Sugarbush’s sixtieth anniversary.

Cabin Cat Adventures First Tracks brings you to untouched, early-morning trails at Lincoln Peak on powder days and by private booking; Sunset Groomer Rides provide an early-evening, hour-long adventure to the summit of Lincoln Peak; Fireside Dining at Allyn’s Lodge offers an elegant multi-course dining experience accessed by the cabin cat; and Private Spring Skiing at Mt. Ellen is available in April.

Visit sugarbush.com for dates, times, and more information on all events, including those related to our sixtieth anniversary.

PARTING SHOT In the 1968–69 season, and again in the 1972–73 season, Sugarbush held a Paint-A-Gondola contest, inviting guests to illustrate their vision of a Sugarbush gondola. Ten winners were chosen, and awarded with a set of skis and boots, along with an identifying plaque on the gondola of their design (which they rode in first). The Vermont Ski and Snowboard Museum kindly shared the contest submissions with us; here are some of our favorites.

Artists (top to bottom by row): Thomas R. Gunlock,Chevy Chase, Maryland Sung Woo Kim, New York, New York Eugene Kolomatsky, Flushing, New York

Vicki Meyer, Southboro, Massachusetts Thomas R. Gunlock,Chevy Chase, Maryland Ann T. Gross, Pennington, New Jersey

The Store, Sugarbush Village David Adams, Toronto, Ontario Karen Melich, St. Cloud, Minnesota

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May Lose Value ARXPB4CS | AD-06-18-0086 | 472089PM-0618 | 06/2018