Vermont Ski + Ride Summer, 2019

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SKI + RIDE

Vermont’s Mountain Sports and Life

The New

Vermont THE BEST NEW WAYS TO SAVOR SUMMER

DISC GOLF

CRAFT COCKTAILS

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MOUNTAIN BIKE CAMPS

LAKEFRONT LODGES

SWEET SWIMMING HOLES

THE NEW STOWE MUSIC FESTS

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LIVE STOWE Your best life begins with a home that inspires you.

Your best life begins with a home that inspires you.

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

Each Office is Independently Owned and Operated.

PLAYGROUND

Three high speed lifts to get you to the top. 35 trails for sending it back down, including ďŹ ve Gravity Logic designed trails to help you graduate from the Skills Garden to the Black Magic Jump Line in record time.

Our playground has MORE.

#beast365

Find your bearings!

There’s so much to do!

Check out the concert lineup and lodging packages.

CONTENTS / 04.04 FEATURES THE NEW STOWE p. 36

A new generation is reinventing the perfect summer adventure town.

REFRAMING THE FARMHOUSE p. 42

When a young couple moved from Washington D.C. back to Lincoln, they built the classic Vermont farmhouse—with a touch of Umbria.

DIVING IN p. 48

Meet the freeskiers and cliff divers who are making a splash in Vermont’s timeless swimming holes.

At Kingdom Trails in East Burke, summer is a state of mind. Here, Zeke Neubauer has a little fun on the trail.

FIRST TRACKS WHAT’S UP? | OUTDOOR & RESORT NEWS

The best of what’s new from around the state.

COLUMNS p. 11

APRÈS | VERMONT’S COCKTAIL REVOLUTION,

COACH | DIRT CAMPS,

p. 17

p. 7

p. 56

Want to up your mountainbike game? These pros can help.

These ybartenders and distillers are taking the flavors of summer from the farm to your glass.

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR |

ADVENTURES | THE NEW GOLF ,

In college, Mike Leonard visited all 251 towns in Vermont.

And here’s why he did it again last year.

p. 29

Vermont’s become an epicenter for disc golf. Here’s where you should play.

Photo by Ali Kaukas

THE START | WHO’S A REAL VERMONTER?

LODGES | SUMMER DREAMS,

p. 61

CHAIRLIFT Q/A | THE VERMONT ROAD TRIP,

p. 74

p. 23

Kick back at one of these family-run lakefront lodges.

ON THE COVER: Ali Kaukas takes the plunge into Dorset Quarry. Photo by Zeke Neubauer

vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 5

CONNECTING GUESTS TO EMPLOYERS, ENTREPRENEURS, REALTORS, AND POTENTIAL NEIGHBORS IN LOCAL COMMUNITIES AROUND VERMONT. LEARN MORE & SIGN UP @

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WHO IS A “REAL” VERMONTER? What does it take to be a real Vermonter? Some locals will tell you a real Vermonter is someone whose family has lived here for seven generations. Others just ask that you were born in the state. Recently,Vermont’s population has been more or less stagnant but many rural areas have seen a decline. That’s one of the reasons the Vermont Department of Tourism and Marketing launched the “Stay to Stay” program to encourage new people to move in by hosting weekend receptions for visitors to meet businesses, realtors and learn about life here.

In this issue we had no trouble finding Vermonters who have moved back, many of them part of a new generation that’s shaping how we live and play. Mike Leonard, 33, whose family goes back nine generations, talks about visiting all 251 towns in the state, on p. 74. Sarah Morris is the fifth generation to run the timeless Basin Harbor Club on Lake Champlain, the oldest family-run resort in the country. Owen and Sarah McClain, both in their 30s, moved back to Lincoln and their house is profiled on page 42.

Rachel Vandenberg (pictured at left with her family), returned and added a bowling alley to her family’s Sun & Ski motel. Mountain bike racer Alex McAndrew came home to the Northeast Kingdom and now leads mountain bike tours there.

What drew them back? The same mountains and trails, swimming holes and small town communities that make the rest of us want to put down deep roots, settle in and raise the next generation here. —Lisa Lynn, Editor­

Waterbury Waterbury

@prohibitionpig @prohibitionpig

CONTRIBUTORS Photographer Ali Kaukas’ grew up near Manchester and the Dorset Quarry was her backyard. She and partner Zeke Neubauer took turns behind and in front of the camera, diving and shooting there, to capture the cover of this issue as well as images in “Diving In,” p. 48.

Assistant editor Abagael Giles grew up in Shelburne and found her way back to the Green Mountains after writing and skiing around California’s Eastern Sierra. In this issue, she explored a few of the things that brought her back in “Diving In,” p. 50, among other stories.

The daughter of two Shelburne-based architects, Lindsay Selin has an eye for design. In this issue she photographed Sarah and Owen McClain’s Lincoln farmhouse (see p. 42) as well as the Bartender of the Year competition which we feature in “Vermont’s Cocktail Revoluition,” p. 17.

www.redhousebuilding.com • 802.655.0009 Timeless Craftsmanship • Employee-Owned

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EDITORIAL Publisher, Angelo Lynn angelo@vtskiandride.com Editor/Co-Publisher, Lisa Lynn editor@vtskiandride.com Creative Director, David Pollard Assistant Editor, Abagael Giles, abagael@vtskiandride.com Contributors: Brooks Curran, David Goodman, Ali Kaukas, Bud Keene, Brian Mohr, Lindsay Selin, Doug Stewart, Jeb Wallace-Brodeur

ADVERTISING SALES & DISTRIBUTION For general advertising and media kits: ads@vtskiandride.com | 802-388-4944 Greg Meulemans greg@vtskiandride.com Dave Honeywell dave_golfhouse@madriver.com

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uFIRSTTRACKSu Stratton Goes Downhill

THE FUNKIEST CAMP-OUT FESTIVALS Few things say summer like camping out at a festival in the mountains. And while this summer Vermont loses two favorites—the Frendly Gathering and the Vermont Mountain Bike Festival are, we are sorry to say, no more—it’s gaining a new one. On August 2-3, get your fill of art, music and beer at the new Bear North Festival at Sugarbush’s Mt. Ellen. Camp out, sip local brews and get a slopeside lesson during “Paint & Pint” sessions with artist Natasha Bogar. Music includes funky local groups like JUPTR and Mad Mountain Scramblers. Stratton Mountain’s Wanderlust (June 20-23) offers hula hooping, yoga greats such as Sri Dharma Mitra, mindfulness workshops, mountaintop yoga, cooking classes and live music. Sleep out at Wanderland, a pop-up tent village at the Sun Bowl Base. That same weekend, pitch a tent, mountain bike, run and do yoga at Ascutney’s Solstice Fest. Solstice weekend is also the time to go on group rides, camp and sample brews as part of MBTVT’s Vermont Bike & Brew at Killington. And if you’re ready for more riding the next weekend, head to the New England Mountain Bike Festival at Kingdom Trails, June 28-30. With music, camping, bike demos and group rides, it’s like Woodstock—for jocks. See Calendar, p. 71, for details.

PROTECTING THE MAGIC

Starting in early August, Stratton Mountain Resort is jumping in the downhill game with lift-served mountain biking and a new bike park.

The mountain plans to open 4.6-miles of beginner, intermediate and progression trails, serviced by the American Express six-passenger lift to mid-mountain. Vermont’s Sinuosity trail builders designed the layout with a focus on hand-built trails to minimize the environmental impact. Phase One will open eight trails on the lower mountain.

The trails are part of the $6.5 million in capital improvements slated for the next five years, part of parent company Alterra Mountain Company’s 2018 commitment to invest $181 million across its 14 North American ski areas.

In the meantime, the resort is still offering bike rentals and guided rides up and down the cross-country trails along the West River.

This spring, the Nature Conservancy announced big news for Glebe Mountain, the 2,943-foot high peak of Magic Mountain Ski Area. After a multi-year effort, the organization acquired 3,500 acres of connected forest that spans the mountain in Londonderry and Windham.

The goal is to permanently preserve the land, and put to rest proposals for a 27-turbine wind farm at the site. The Nature Conservancy is asking locals to participate in creating a management plan for the parcel that will dictate what sorts of recreation are allowed there. The ski area sits on private land held by Magic Ski LLC and will not be governed by the new plan, but skier views will be protected for posterity. As of press time, the Nature Conservancy was still fundraising and had secured $1.5 million of the $4 million necessary to seal the deal and preserve the forest. vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 11

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Summer Projects, by the Numbers Here’s what Vermont resorts are working on this summer.

200 % (or 2x) The amount by which Magic Mountain’s new quad will

increase lift capacity when it replaces the existing Black Chair, a double, by next winter.

The new lift, formerly Stratton’s Snowbowl quad, will run at about the same speed, to prevent any increase in crowding on the slopes. The ski area is also doubling the size of its snowmaking pond, increasing its capacity to blow snow next season twofold.

161,000 square feet

The combined size of the two new regulation-size synthetic turf athletic fields at Jay Peak that open this summer with bleacher seating for 380 and stadium lawn seating for 300. Look for summer camps, soccer, lacrosse and rugby tournaments.

3.19 miles

That’s how much new snowmaking pipe Killington plans to install this summer between Pico and Killington. The 16,850 feet of new pipe will go over Killington mountain to Pico and nearly double the snowmaking capacity at Pico.

THE EAST’S BIGGEST NEW BASE LODGE This summer Killington breaks ground on a 58,000-square-foot base lodge that will replace the current 37,000-square-foot K1 base lodge in 2021. The new lodge will have three levels, putting the lodge closer to (and on the same level as) the gondola with a food court on the second level and bar on the third.

There will be seating for 975 compared to the current 650 and, says CEO Mike Solimano, “there’s never going to be a line for the ladies’ room again as we are actually putting in more women’s toilets than men’s (total count will be 46, compared to the current 33),” he added. The lodge will have a full-service bar, couches and high-top tables similar to the layout in The Peak Lodge.You can also look for upscale fine china dining, and unobstructed 180-degree views of the mountain landscape.

Middlebury-based Bread Loaf Corporation will start construction this summer with the new lodge going up behind the current lodge (on the mountain side)—which will stay in place for next season before being demolished in the summer of 2020. The new base lodge is expected to be complete by fall 2020 “or winter 2021,” said Solimano, hedging his bets. With any luck, it will be ready for the women’s 2020 FIS World Cup, which is expected to return to Killington that Thanksgiving weekend.

In addition to the massive snowmaking pipe project at its sister resorts, Pico, Killington will also replace 12 kilometers of water pipe and add 400 low-energy snowguns and 120 low-energy towers.

12 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

A Natural?

Vermont may not be the first place you’d think of as an epicenter of winemaking, but when it comes to “natural wines,” it is becoming one.

In 2018, Burlington-based winemaker Krista Scruggs (pictured above) was named one of Wine Enthusiast’s 40 Under 40 Tastemakers. Her credo defines the natural wine genre: “No refining, no filtering, additives or funny business in the winery. No herbicides or synthetic pesticides in the vineyard. Just f-ing fermented juice from responsibly farmed living fruit.” In the cellar, intervention in the naturally-occuring wild fermentation process is kept to a minimum, with wild yeasts favored over added varieties.

The 34-year-old California transplant hand-picks grapes at Ellison Vineyard in the Champlain Islands and hopes to plant her own vines on Grand Isle next summer.

“There’s a real terroir in Vermont and the hybrid grape varietals that are hardy enough to grow here lend themselves to sparkling wines,” says Scruggs. Try Scruggs’ Zafa wines at her new Burlington tasting room, CO Cellars.

Other acclaimed Vermont natural wines include those by winemaker Deirdre Heekin at La Garagista Farm & Winery in Bethel and Shelburne Vineyards’ Iapetus label.

QUAD COMING

magicmtn.com/passes-cards

u Burlington’s waterfront is having a renaissance with the recent addition of a new sailing center, 160-slip marina, a surf club and more.

In May, the new Burlington Harbor Marina opened with 160 slips. The high-end marina has direct access to downtown, a pet area, a food truck, and a host of services including a personal butler to deliver meals to your yacht and a boat detailing and cleaning service. Did we mention that 60 of those slips will be for night-to-night rental?

If you don’t own a yacht, stop in at the new Community Sailing Center (right), which opened last summer next to the iconic Moran building. The beautiful new space features classrooms for year-round education programs, yoga and adaptive watersports. Rent a kayak, stand up paddleboard, canoe or take a lesson. You can also take out one of the Center’s O’pen Bics, Escapes, Hartley 10s, Lasers (pictured right) or 420s, or a keelboat.

And in February, Burlington’s City Council approved a plan to redesign the Moran Plant, the city’s haggard and long-since decommissioned coal-powered power plant. The city plans to strip away the brick, fill in the basement and create an open-air space for vendors and concerts, with new facilities and public art.

This fall, ECHO, the waterfront museum, will bring an outdoor climate change exhibit to the waterfront, with free interactive displays about how climate change is already affecting Lake Champlain. From May 25 to September 15, ECHO also hosts an interactive exhibit “Trivial Pursuit, A 50-State Adventure!” Kids can move through more than 50 hands-on activities, highlighting each state.

Lake Champlain may not have much surf but last summer the Burlington Surf Club opened. Located on a shady beach, the club has Hobie Cats, windsurfers, SUPS to rent and Adirondack chairs to lounge in. There’s also a pavilion where you can take an open-air yoga class. Just 125 steps away (he counted), Surf Club owner Russ Scully is planning the neighboring Hula Campus, a super hip coworking space where you can rent everything from an office for your startup to a hot desk for occasional business travel. Grab food from

the cafeteria, catered by Scully’s waterfront restaurant The Spot on the Dock. Showers and workout space are also included.

This summer, rock climbers with a Rock Point Property Pass can climb Lone Rock Point, (left) accessed via a wooded trail from the Burlington Bike Path, just north of North Beach. The cliff, which is owned by the Episcopal Diocese of Vermont, opened to climbers in fall 2017. CRAG-VT secured access to the stunning limestone crag through a special use agreement that requires climbers sign in and make a $5 donation for a permit. No more than eight climbers can use the area at a time, so be sure to check cragvt.org for regulations. n

14 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

Photos, top to bottom: Courtesy Lake Champlain Sailing Center (2), Lisa Lynn, Ben Moffatt

MAKEWAVES ON THE BURLINGTONWATERFRONT

Explore the Vermont countryside on our 2,600 acres!

Come ride with us! Our extensive mountain bike trail network features one skills park, 8 miles of expert and intermediate single track, and more than 20 miles of double track through mountains, fields and forests. Ride Hop Over or Lager Lane to the von Trapp Brewery Bierhall... the best trailhead ever with authenic Austrian-style food. Bike rentals through Giant Bicycles as well as repair services and riding lessons.

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August 10 & 11, 2019 Doors open 3pm | First Act 3:30pm | Second Act 5pm | Headliner 7pm

Great Music in a Beautiful Outdoor Setting at Spruce Peak Live performances | Food | Local Brews | Fun for all

Saturday’s lineup Milk Carton Kids Mipso Francesca Blanchard

Sunday’s lineup Shawn Colvin Parsonsfield Lowell Thompson

For more information, tickets, and lodging packages visit SprucePeak.com

SOUTHWESTERN VERMONT MEDICAL CENTER

ORTHOPEDICS

“I could have gone anywhere but I chose to have my surgery at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center. I am delighted with the results.”

— Deborah Slaner Larkin

Deborah Slaner Larkin lives tennis. When she broke her wrist training for a national tournament, she wanted the best care possible and found it locally. She turned to the boardcertified, fellowship-trained physicians at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center (SVMC) Orthopedics to fix her fracture. Together with the physical therapy experts at SVMC Outpatient Therapy, she’s back at the top of her game.

Whether you need care for a sports injury or fracture, a joint replacement, or wrist or shoulder surgery, SVMC Orthopedics’ goal is to get you back to the activities you love as quickly—and painlessly—as possible.

Dr. Suk Namkoong, SVMC orthopedic surgeon, with patient Deborah Larkin

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

TM

332 Dewey St., Bennington, VT 05201 | 802-442-6314 | svhealthcare.org

u

Après

VERMONT’S COCKTAIL REVOLUTION

With more than 25 craft distilleries inVermont, bartenders around the state are finding creative ways to mix local spirits into creative new cocktails that offer a taste of summertime in a glass. By Abagael Giles Above, bartender competition finalist Nadia Womble of Waterworks Food + Drink serves fresh cocktails like the one below, a Toronto with

Photos by Lindsay Selin

WhistlePig Farmstock Rye.

A

t 3 p.m. the bar at Ludlow’s Main + Mountain hotel was bumping as some of the best bartenders in the state served specially-invited guests—and judges—hand-crafted cocktails. Behind the sleek, gray bar, mixologists stood ready, wearing long, leather aprons. Artfully tattooed forearms stirred and shook drinks with style against a backdrop of mirrors and a sign that read “Soup of the Day: Whiskey with Ice Croutons.”

“Welcome!” said co-owner Eliza Greene, 30, who greeted me at the door with a warm smile, looking chic and like she might have run up Okemo mountain that morning. It was March 27 and this was the final round of the Vermont Bartenders’ Guild Association’s annual Vermont Bartender of the Year competition.

At one end of the bar, a rotating cast of bartenders muddled, shook, poured and whisked cocktails before a panel of industry experts: Andrew and Briana Volk, co-authors of the cocktail book Northern Hospitality and Lauren Hayes, wine director for the Cambridge, Mass., trattoria Pammy’s. The trio perched on green leather swivel chairs and grilled bartenders about their hometowns, the Vermont products they served and the stories that gave them context.

The challenge? To be the best representative of Vermont’s local spirits, wines, beers, secret swimming holes, backroad bike rides and restaurants, all while serving judges and guests a preset list of cocktails made with Vermont liquors and liqueurs. Contestants, who had already been through a quarter finals round and had to fill out a written test before advancing, were judged on their knowledge, creativity and overall delivery of each drink.

Over the past few years, Ludlow has emerged as a hotspot for craft cocktails in Vermont. In fact, four Ludlow bartenders made it to the semifinals at this year’s competition—Jamie Pessoa Monteiro of Mama’s VT, Steven Kelly of Main + Mountain, Danny Childs of Homestyle Hostel and William Mordecai of Coleman Brook Tavern, who was a finalist.

Though Emily Morton of Burlington’s speakeasy-style Deli 126 won Bartender of the Year, Ludlow’s bartenders proved the village of less than 2,000 to be a true cocktail town.

At the hip new Main + Mountain (which opened in early 2018), you can order a “Leaf Peeper”—a frothy concoction made with gin, elderflower, apple syrup, lemon and ginger beer.

Or hop across the street to Homestyle Hostel, also owned by lifelong Okemo Valley locals Eliza Greene, a graduate and board member of Okemo Mountain School, and Justin Hyjek. The pair opened it in 2014, serving their creative and constantly changing cocktail creations (like the Do Wrong Right—made of Barr Hill Gin, Byrhh, cantaloupe puree, burnt orange syrup and sea salt) in their chic but homey farmhouse hostel on Main Street.

Down the road at Mamas VT, which opened in summer 2017, you can order a Vergroni, a Vermont twist on the classic Italian aperitif with Green Mountain Distillers’ Green Mountain Organic Gin, bitter Italian Campari, sweet vermouth and a dash of Vermont Cassis, a sweet, dark liqueur made from native black currants at Putney Mountain Winery and Spirits.

“Mixology is all anyone can talk about in the [food] industry,” says Mordecai, referring to the art of creating cocktails. “And in Vermont, there’s a lot of rich stuff to play with.”

A SIP OF VERMONT Boutique cocktail bars like these are offering more than just drinks: they offer an experience.

From the bars themselves (think locallyharvested wood and field-fresh wildflower

vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 17

u Rock Skis (recipe by Emily Morton)

2 oz your favorite VT gin (Snowdrop & Wild Hart are my faves) 1 oz fresh lemon juice .75 oz berry syrup* (we use blackberry) 2 sprigs fresh thyme FOR YOUR TEMPERANCE DRIVER: 1.5 oz fresh lemon juice 1 oz berry syrup* (we use blackberry) 1 1

sprig fresh thyme for garnish lemon wheel for garnish

Muddle the berry syrup and thyme in a shaker tin. Add the gin (if applicable) and lemon juice, add ice and shake vigorously for 15 seconds. Strain over a large ice cube in a rocks glass, top with soda water, and garnish with a thyme sprig stuck through a lemon wheel.

18 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

*To make the berry syrup: pour 1 cup of white sugar over .5 lb of frozen berries. Mix them together, and let the mixture sit overnight, stirring if you can. Add boiling water a few tablespoons at a time to help melt the sugar. Stir the mixture through a mesh strainer. Add boiling water until the syrup is the viscosity of orange juice.

Local ingredients like blueberries, raw honey and garden-fresh mint come alive in a Barr Hill cocktail.

Spirits. “Like cheesemakers, brewers and vintners,Vermont artisans are all part of the same amazing maker community. I think what makes Vermont unique as a food and craft cocktail destination is that you may order a drink with one of these spirits and have the bartender say, ‘Oh, my childhood best friend’s uncle started that. Let me tell you about what he does and what’s in your glass.”

For bartenders like Morton, crafting a drink is like cooking a fine dish. “The more flavors you have in your repertoire, the more creative you can be,” Morton says. “Every cocktail requires a balance of bitter, tart, sweet and herbal notes. All of that can be achieved with things grown in Vermont.”

Bitters made with dandelion, burdock and gentian root from places like Burlington’s Urban Moonshine give even a Prohibition-era cocktail a fresh new kick. As Neil Goldberg of Mad River Distillers says, “Bitters are like spices for cocktails. A dash or two can elevate a cocktail to something beyond just the sum of its parts… and bartenders rely on a bottle of bitters the way a chef relies on salt.”

In the summer, field-fresh blueberries, blackberries, strawberries and currants also make their way into glasses. Caledonia Spirits recommends pairing their award-winning raw honey-infused Barr Hill Gin with Fino Sherry, fresh lemon, one whisked egg white and blueberry reduction with Vermont-grown berries in a frothy Dye House.

At Mad River Distillers’ tasting room, you can try a Bad Apple, with their Mad Apple brandy, Maple Cask Rum (aged in Vermont-made maple barrels), beet juice, Angostura bitters, allspice and cinnamon.

Photos by Caledonia Spirits, bottom left; Abagael Giles, top left; Lindsay Selin, top right.

arrangements at Homestyle Hostel or the chic speakeasy vibe of Deli 126 in Burlington, where the menus are made from vintage books), to the balanced and aromatic drinks they serve, these establishments each offer a unique taste of Vermont’s rich landscape.

“People are returning to an older way of drinking that is about taking the time to enjoy what is in your glass,” says Morton. “ Vermonters have known how to do that for a long time.”

As the founding bar manager at Burlington’s Deli 126, Morton spends her days crafting drinks from a palette of local ingredients. “I love that if I have an idea for a new drink or a question about a product, I can go straight to the source and shake hands with one of our amazing distillers and producers, in the place where that essence is being created.”

Since 2008, the number of distilleries in Vermont has grown from just three to more than 25. Many have tasting rooms where you can sample uniquely Vermont vodkas, bourbons, gins, brandies and liqueurs while learning about them from the people who distill them. Tasting rooms can be found all over the state, from Eden Ciders’ Newport tasting room to Vermont Distillers’ new bar at their Hogback Mountain headquarters in Marlboro, and it’s worth it to make a road trip of it (with a designated driver, of course.)

“Like a lot of things in Vermont, the great thing about Vermont spirits is that they pop up in the places you least expect,” says Sas Stewart, a co-founder of Middlebury-based Stonecutter

TASTING YOUR WAY, FROM NORTH TO SOUTH At tasting rooms around Vermont, you can sample everything from the delicately floral and slightly tart sweetness of Eden Ciders’ Northern Spy Barrel-Aged Ice Cider at their Newport tasting room, to the Manhattan at WhistlePig Pavilion at Stowe’s Spruce Peak, which features 10 Year WhistlePig Rye Whiskey distilled in Shoreham, and Boss Hog maple bitters.

Hardwick-based Caledonia Spirits opens a new 26,000-square-foot distillery, bar and tasting room in Montpelier in June. In late 2018, the

From left, third-place bartender Jackson Zieper of Monarch + the Milkweed, second place bartender Josh Wilcox of Mad River Distillers and 2019 Vermont Bartender of the Year Emily Morton of Deli 126.

distillery also opened a tasting room at Edelweiss Deli on the Mountain Road in Stowe. At both locations you can try their Barr Hill and Tom Cat gins, which are finished with raw honey, or their Barr Hill vodka, distilled entirely with honey.

Founded by lifelong beekeeper Todd Hardie, the distillery is now owned and operated by original lead distiller Ryan Christiansen.

With notes of caramel, the barrel-aged Tom Cat Gin makes a wicked Negroni. Raw honey produced by bees who gather nectar from native northcountry wildflowers like goldenrod, red clover and alfalfa lends floral notes to each spirit, and each bottle of the Barr Hill spirits is sealed with beeswax. At the new distillery and bar, you can try cocktails like the Bee’s Knees, a concoction made with fresh lemon juice, raw honey syrup and floral Barr Hill Gin. Jump off of a bike ride on the Lamoille Valley Rail Trail for a tasting at Smugglers’ Notch Distillery’s new 14,000-square-foot tasting room and distillery by the Lamoille

vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 19

River in Jeffersonville. Cocktails are yet to come at the new facility which opened in October 2018, but you can sample, among other spirits, their Maple Bourbon Whiskey, made by infusing their bourbon with Vermont maple syrup aged in bourbon barrels. Expect tones of charred oak and sweet maple. You can also try their organic vodkas and rums at their Barrel House Tasting Room in Waterbury Center or on Burlington’s Church Street.

In Waitsfield, head to Mad River Distillers’ tasting room at Mad River Taste Place. Try the Mad Apple, a European-style dry brandy distilled with apples, many of which are grown at the distillery’s Warren location, Cold Spring Farm.The recipe was inspired by co-founder and legendary extreme skier John Egan’s love for French Calvados.

The Barrelhead Rums at Barre’s Old Route Two Spirits get their flavor from the native hardwoods the company uses to create the casks they age their spirits in. Born from the rugged granite hills that are still quarried today, the maple imparts a round creaminess to the rums while the ash lends a little smokiness.

You can sip a mountaintop cocktail and take in hundred-mile views at Vermont Distillers’ new tasting room, which opened at the summit of Hogback Mountain in Marlboro. The Metcalfe family, who own the distillery, located it in the former base lodge of Hogback Mountain ski area.

They also produce Metcalfe’s Fine Liqueurs and Spirits, including small-

At Vermont Distillers’ Hogback Mountain tasting room, you can try a Peach Fizz, which features Metcalfe’s Raspberry Liqueur, hand-distilled and infused with berries.

batch Catamount Vodka,Vermont Maple Cream and Vermont Maple Liqueurs, made with syrup produced in Brattleboro.Try the Peach Fizz, with Catamount Vodka, Metcalfe’s Peach Liqueur, a dash of lemon, Metcalfe’s Raspberry Liqueur and prosecco.

Morton insists Vermont is bringing the craft of bartending back to basics. “Craft cocktails are as American as apple pie,” says Morton. “The drinks and spirits being made now in Vermont hearken back to a time when people had certain values about what and how they drank. We’re stripping away the drink mix, the additives, and going back to food and drink made with our hands, great spirits made by our neighbors and the flavors of this place.”

Justin Hyjek says that’s exactly what’s happening in Ludlow. “We live in an amazing place that is gaining a reputation as a food destination. Now, we’re putting our drinks on the map too.” n

Photo courtesy Vermont Distillers

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Lodges

SUMMER DREAMS Come summer, there’s nothing sweeter than kicking back at one of Vermont’s historic, family-run lakefront lodges. By Abagael Giles

Photos courtesy Basin Harbor Club

A

typical summer day at the Basin Harbor Club begins with stillness. In the hour just after sunrise, mist rises from the waters of Lake Champlain, eventually cloaking the 5,000-foot summits of the Adirondack Mountains that appear on the western horizon.

For Sarah Morris, these early mornings are as familiar as the resort’s 225 acres of gardens, woodlands, coastline and quaint one-room cottages. At age 35, she’s now the fifth generation to run what is one of the oldest family-owned resorts in the United States. And while she’s bringing it into the future, she’s careful about preserving its sacred past.

Tucked away from high winds and nearby towns on 700 acres in Ferrisburgh, the resort’s 74 clapboard cottages sit nestled in the cedar and oak that lines the rocky shores of Lake Champlain. The cabins have no TVs but there is an 18-hole golf course with views of the Adirondacks. The main lodge, built in 1810, is draped with hundredyear-old Dutchman’s Pipe vines.

“It’s a place where people come, year after year, to be together and put down their screens, their busy lives. We’ve watched kids grow up here, seen lifelong guests get married,” says Morris. “There’s a really heartfelt feeling of home and family.”

Endearingly old-fashioned traditions endure: like a strict only-Vermont-maple-syrup policy, and a somewhat less strict recommendation that men wear sports jackets and ties at dinner.

That’s when the dining room at the main lodge transforms into Ardelia’s, offering fine dining inspired by produce grown on farms throughout Addison County. From June through October, guests can enjoy more casual dockside dining with live music at the 63-slip marina. Sip a glass of wine while you take in the sunset over the mountains and the lake from an Adirondack chair, strategically placed to help you find the best vantage point on the lawn, or in one of the property’s award-winning gardens.

In Morris’ tenure, the resort has created new state-of-the-art conference spaces, relaxed its dress code (ties and jackets are no longer mandatory at dinner) and added new events like the Basin Harbor Sprint Triathlon series (June 19 and July 6). In addition to classics like croquet, badminton and paddleboats, the resort now offers SUP lessons, mountain biking, water skiing, sailing and even glassbottom boat tours of the more than 300 shipwrecks that haunt Lake Champlain, some of which date back to the Revolutionary War. To the north lies another long-standing family establishment: The Inn at Shelburne Farms. Open from mid-May through late October, the Inn sits on the shores of Lake Champlain, in the midst of a 1,400-acre working dairy farm. The 24-room inn is a masterpiece of Victorian architecture, with ornate gardens and paths that lead to the shores of the lake. Originally built in 1888 as the country home of Dr. William Seward and Lila Vanderbilt Webb, it now operates as part of

Above, a guest catches the sunset at one of the 74 lakeside cottages at the Basin Harbor Club. Right, Basin Harbor Club hosts (L-R) Pennie Beach, Sarah Morris and Bob Beach. Bob and Pennie are the 4th generation and Sarah is the 5th.

vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 23

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u Clockwise from the top right, the Cove House at The North Hero House sits right on the lake. The dining room is known for dishes like panseared Faroe Island salmon with butternut squash puree, spinach, roasted fingerling potatoes and dill creme fraiche. Below, at The Inn at Shelburne Farms, French doors open onto the Victorian mansion’s extensive gardens. At Ludlow’s Echo Lake Inn, guests can play tennis, swim, canoe or enjoy

Photos, top to bottom: courtesy The North Hero House, Echo Lake Inn, Orchard Cove Photography

a drink on the grand porch.

a nonprofit, founded in 1972 by Lila Webb’s great-grandchildren.

You can even spend a night in the elegant Overlook Room, Lila Webb’s corner bedroom on one of the upper floors of the mansion, which offers sweeping views of Lake Champlain and the gardens below. Explore more than 10 miles of trails that wind through pastures and woods to other grand buildings like the Coach, Breeding, and Farm Barns.

For dinner, breakfast or Sunday brunch, enjoy dishes like nettle rigatoni, with free-range sausage made in-house from pork raised at the farm, sunchokes and spinach from the farm garden. The Farm Barn is home to Shelburne Farms’ cheesemaking operations and the children’s farmyard, an education facility where kids can learn to milk a cow or assist with the daily chicken roundup while parents taste cheddar or freshly-baked sourdough loaves and pastries from O-Bread, the onsite artisanal bakery.

As the crow flies, the Champlain Islands are just a few miles from Burlington—and you can easily bike there across the Colchester Causeway. But they feel like they are a world apart. The North Hero

House and Restaurant sits in a sheltered cove, facing the Green Mountains. When the inn was first built in 1891, it welcomed guests to its 26 rooms via steamship. Today, it’s home to one of the best farm-to-table restaurants in the state, two bars, a marina and a sandy beach—a rare treat on the rocky shores of Lake Champlain.

Walter Blasburg, a graduate of the University of Vermont and former investment banker, has owned the Inn since 1997.

Under his leadership, it’s become a dining destination, with treats like pan-seared scallops over sweet potato and local pastureraised pork belly hash, with spring peas and asparagus grown in the islands, topped with toasted pistachios.

The rooms are stylish—with wrought iron four-poster beds and balconies that overlook the lake, wood stoves and even a tiny cottage called the Cove House, which is home to the Cobbler’s Suite. The thick stone walls date back to 1811 and open onto a private lakeside patio, with a pine log bed and fireplace to retreat to

vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 25

after a day biking the islands’ scenic roads, or sampling wines at Vermont’s oldest winery, Snow Farm Vineyards or at East Shore Vineyard.

If you head inland to the heart of the Northeast Kingdom, you’ll find one of the state’s most pristine lakes: Lake Caspian. Just across the road from the lake’s longest stretch of private beachfront sits the Highland Lodge, an 1860s farmhouse turned inn. In the summer of 2016, Heidi Lauren Duke, an opera director previously based in New York City, purchased the property with three other families. Along with it, they got the 132 acres of woods, which are laced with a network of crosscountry ski trails.

Duke has created a chic but homey bar, serving Hill Farmstead beers like the Edward, brewed in nearby Greensboro, and craft cocktails like the Barr Hill Bee’s Knees, flavored with herbs from the kitchen garden. Sip them on the Queen Ann wraparound porch while you enjoy sunset over the water and a steak from nearby Sawmill Brook Farm.

Pete’s Greens provides much of the produce that flows through the kitchen, along with other local proprietors. On Mondays and Tuesdays, Hardwick-based Caja Madera serves fresh tacos and other fare by the water from their food truck, with house-infused jalapeno margaritas in the twilight.

Canoes, SUPs, sailboats and kayaks are available to guests, who can escape the main house for a night in one of the lakeside 1920s-era cabins. Catch live music every Friday night at the lodge or theater productions like L’Odeur de Moliere: The Doctor and the Dowry (July 12) at Highland Center for the Arts, located nearby in Hardwick.

To the east in Fairlee, Lake Morey Resort graces the shores of a 600-acre tarn that is surrounded by rolling mountains. A quiet, winding road, perfect for walking or biking traces the shoreline, and loons call at dusk. The 130-room inn was built in 1900, as were the first nine holes of the now 18-hole golf course.

Today, it’s operated by the third generation of the Avery-Borden family. In the winter, the inn offers skate rentals for a 4.5-mile skate trail that is groomed annually around Lake Morey. In the summer, it offers beautiful gardens, water skiing, tennis, golf, access to a private beach and SUP among other activities.

Situated on smaller Echo Lake, just north of Ludlow and Okemo Mountain Resort, the Echo Lake Inn is a step back in time.The inn was built in 1840 as a Victorian summer hotel and Calvin Coolidge, Thomas

If you explore the trails at Highland Lodge (top), you may find blueberries growing wild. Sitting on the porch of one of Lake Morey Resort’s (below) four cottages should be on your bucket list.

LODGES ON THE LAKES Basin Harbor Club, Vergennes: $119-$1,700 basinharbor.com Echo Lake Inn, Ludlow: $229-$500 per night for summer and fall. $215-$720 per night in winter. Includes breakfast for two. echolakeinn.com Highland Lodge, Greensboro: $140-$300, highlandlodge.com Lake Morey Resort, Fairlee: $229-$339 per night for summer. lakemoreyresort.com North Hero House, North Hero: $140-$350 per night. Includes breakfast for two. northherohouse.com The Inn at Shelburne Farms, Shelburne: Open seasonally from May to October. $175$600 shelburnefarms.org

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Edison, Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone have all enjoyed meals in the farmhouse-style dining room.

Like Basin Harbor, it’s the sort of place families come back to for generations, as evidenced by the cocktail list, which often features a few drinks named for patrons. Sip a Moorzitz Tom Collins as you try the chevre and spiced apple ravioli with toasted walnuts in alfredo sauce with sun-dried tomatoes, sage pesto and tomato concasse.

If you’re used to visiting Vermont for its mountains, consider that there’s nothing that says summertime more than taking the plunge into one of the state’s pristine lakes. The opportunity to slow down, explore the shore, or fall asleep to the sound of lapping waves is all the more valuable in today’s busy world.

At Basin Harbor, Morris sees that every day.

“This is the kind of place where people take the time to write a letter, to take a long walk, and make friends.” That—and family—are what brought her back as an adult. “I’ve still never found anywhere quite like Vermont in the summertime.” n

Photos by Heidi Lauren Duke, top, and Lake Morey Resort

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Adventures

MOVE OVER GOLF, HERE COMES DISC GOLF

Photo courtesy Sugarbush Resort

More and more ski areas in the state are investing in some of the best disc golf courses around. Here’s why you should get out and try them. By Abagael Giles.

The U.S. is home to more than 8,000 disc golf courses—like Sugarbush’s Base Course, above—the most of any country in the world. That number has doubled since 2013.

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n a hot August afternoon, the air is filled with the smells of late summer: mown grass, freshly cut hay and cold, moving water. Stepping up to the first tee on the Smugglers’ Notch Brewster Ridge disc golf course, your vision is framed by the spine of the Green Mountains and the winding green ahead. Good thing you brought that cold beer with you.

This is disc golf in Vermont, on one of the world’s premier courses. It’s so world-class that last September,

288 professional disc golf players from all over the world came to Smuggs for the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) Professional Disc Golf World Championships.

The competition was fierce, with $10,000 in prize money on the line, and drew more than 1,200 spectators to Jeffersonville, a town of less than 1,000 people during what has historically been shoulder season.

Disc golf may not yet be as big as golf, but it’s getting there. In November 2018, Paul McBeth, currently ranked as the top disc golf player in the world in PDGA rankings, signed a four-year contract with leading disc manufacturer Discraft, Inc. for more than $1 million, the biggest deal of its kind in the sport’s history.

Meanwhile, participation in traditional golf—what disc golfers call “ball golf ”—is on the decline. According to the National Golf Foundation, the number of golfers in the U.S. dropped from about 32 million in 2003 to 23.8 million in 2018. At the same time, the number of golf courses dropped to about 15,000 in 2018, according to Golf Magazine.

Meanwhile, disc golf is booming. With an average of about 1,000 new courses built per year nationally, the

vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 29

u 10 TOP PLACES TO PLAY

Bolton Valley Vista Beast: 18 holes, Price: $5 per day, Par: 60. Tight woods make this a challenging course with hilly terrain. Pro shop with rentals available on site. boltonvalley.com

Manchester Hunter Park Disc Golf Course: 18 holes, Price: Free. Head to the park for a free, grassy, flat and conveniently-located public course friendly to beginners. manchester-vt.gov

Jay Peak Resort Jay Peak Disc Golf Course: 18 holes, Par: 57, Price: $5-7 per round. This mountain course covers a variety of alternately wooded and open terrain with scenic views. Rentals and pro shop onsite. jaypeakresort.com

Magic Mountain National Londonderry: 18 holes, Price: $6 per round, Par: 59 Meander up the mountain with views of the Green Mountains, the White Mountains and the Connecticut River Valley. Expect stream crossings. Disc rentals available onsite. magicmtn.com

Killington Base Camp Outfitters: 18 holes, Par: 54, Price: $10 per day. The Base Camp course sits across from Killington Mountain Resort and winds through hilly old growth forest on Nordic trails. Pro shop with rentals ($6 per day) is onsite. basecampvt.com

Below, Rebecca Cox at the 2018 Pro World Championships at Smugglers’ Notch. Top, right, Bolton Valley’s Vista Beast course.

Okemo Resort The Maples and The Saplings, Ludlow. 18 holes and 9, Par: 54, Price: $5 per person per round. Open, sunny and fun. Located at Jackson Gore. okemo.com

total courses in the United States has climbed to nearly 8,000, and is expected to reach 13,000 in the next five years. In Vermont, ski areas such as Bromley and Magic Mountain have recently installed courses. Smugglers’ Notch plans to open a new pro shop at its course this summer and even offers lessons.

Though there were just 46,457 PDGA members as of the end of 2018, that number has more than tripled since 2009, with much of the growth coming from amateur players. “I like to think of it as a non-competitive-competitive leisure activity. It can be as fierce or as laid back as you want it to be,” says Matt Cote, operations director at Magic Mountain.

THE PEOPLE’S GOLF Disc golf shares a common language and structure with traditional golf. Players compete on courses ranked with pars.

Like clubs, the discs used are of varying weights and are called “drivers,” “putters” and “mid-

30 Summer vtskiandride.com

Sugarbush Peak and Base Courses, Warren: 18 holes, Price: $5 per day, Par: 63 and 58 respectively The Base course sits on rolling terrain with mountain views and is beginner-friendly. The Peak course sits mid-mountain and requires a ride on Super Bravo to access it. sugarbush.com Smuggler’s Notch Resort Brewster Ridge and Fox Run Meadows, Jeffersonville: 18 holes, Price: $10 per round or $15 per day, Par: 60 and 61.

Brewster Ridge spans 30 acres of forested land on the flank of the Sterling Range. Fox Run features more open meadow terrain. smuggs.com Trapp Family Lodge Stowe: 9 holes, Price: Free Check out the practice basket at the bier garden or take on this short course which moves through a field, around two ponds and out into the woods.

Disc rentals available on-site. trappfamily.com Websterville, The Quarries Disc Golf Course. 18 holes, Par: 61, Price: Free. A challenging course through old granite quarries with tight woods in the Barre Town Forest, adjacent to the Millstone mountain bike trails. barretown.org

ranges.” The goal? Always a hole in one, or at least to get your disc into the basket (not the hole) in as few tosses as possible.

“As a sport, disc golf is really very laid back,” says Jeff Spring, operations manager at Smugglers’ Notch Resort and the designer of its two 18-hole disc golf courses: the more challenging Brewster Ridge and Fox Run. “Unlike traditional golf, it’s a really affordable way to get outside for a family,” says Spring. “To start, all you need is one mid-range disc. Once you give it a try, you can rent or purchase a set of three: a driver for long-range shots, a mid-range and a putter.” At the new Smuggs’ Disc Golf Center, which opened in May, you can find several varieties of each or sign up for a lesson or beginners’ clinic.

For just $15 a day, players get access to two 18-hole courses.There’s no dress code and Spring says the learning curve for disc golf is a mild one. “For less than $50 you can get your kid outfitted to try a new sport. Put in one good solid summer, and you can play with most people. It’s really that accessible,” he says. The only serious etiquette surrounds competition. Otherwise, he says, “Eighty percent of the people you meet on the course are out there to chill and be in the woods and have fun.” As long as you are not blasting music or drinking excessively, the scene is pretty inclusive.

Photo courtesy PDGA Tour

Vermont has become to disc golf what Florida is to golf. In 2018, the top players from around the world came to play the Professional Disc Golf Association Pro World Championships at Smugglers’ Notch Resort. While Smuggler’s Notch may have invested in two championship courses, other resorts are not far behind.

Here are 10 great places to play.

Photo courtesy Bolton Valley Resort

As one disc golfer said, “Think of a Venn diagram with the following circles: people who like craft beer, people who like to hike, ski, bike and get outside, people who like jam bands, especially Phish and the Grateful Dead and people who like to smoke a little weed. Disc golfers are right smack in the middle, where they all overlap.”

But the sport is expanding, and Vermont’s players say that’s a good thing. Participation among women is growing faster than any other demographic, competitive play is getting better and better, courses are getting more challenging and the disc golf community is investing in youth programs.

This year, Magic Mountain will be lending its rental fleet and basket set to local middle schools so they can use it during P.E. classes. “Then parents and their kids can use this resource outside in the summer.

That’s a great thing for the community,” says Cote.

“From the beginning, disc golf has been about spending time in the natural world,” says Spring. “If there’s an etiquette to the sport, it’s really about making sure that your enjoyment of the outdoors doesn’t impact anyone else’s ability to do the same.”

That spirit makes the community one that’s eager to organize trail work days, course cleanups and community gatherings. Some of the most beloved courses across the state are on private land. As Frank Johnson, manager of Potter & Brothers Ski and Snowboard shop at Bromley Mountain and a 25-year veteran of the sport recalled of one week-night session on the North Calais Disc Golf Course, “You call ahead, you show up, and you do some work for the guy who owns the maple sugaring operation on the land, you bring a few beers, and

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then you go for a walk in the woods. The In Manchester and setting provides serenity, the game fodder for Bennington, weekly disc conversation and a little motivation to trick golf leagues host games you into thinking you’re not getting exercise on free local courses like the one at Manchester’s when you hike all over the Vermont woods.”

Another such course exists in East Hunter Park.

Wallingford. Matt Cohen, Fiddlehead Brewing Co.’s founder, owner and head brewer, has built a course on his 80-acre property in Hinesburg, where he regularly hosts weeknight games. The expert player even brewed a limited-edition Imperial IPA for the PDGA Disc Golf World Championships at Smugglers’ Notch last summer, calling it Overstable, a term which refers to a disc that tends to turn right when thrown.

Chris Young is the former president of the Green Mountain Disc Golf Association, and now owns Disc Golf Vermont, a company that hosts and promotes events, tournaments and participation in the sport across the state. A Vermonter who is now a semi-pro sponsored by Innov, he learned to play in college while living in Eugene, Ore. “I’ve played hundreds of courses and in tournaments in many states.

There’s the wide-open park course which can be fun, but personally, I enjoy hiking with some elevation change, maybe a pond and lots of trees. Vermont offers that ruggedness,” says Young.

Johnson, who has built three courses: one at Colorado’s Copper Mountain, one in Frisco, Colo. and Manchester’s Hunter Park disc golf course, echoed that, saying, “The landscape here is unique.”

Vermont’s steep topography allows for creatively designed courses like the public Quarries Disc Golf Course in Websterville, which takes players through old granite quarries, buried in the forest. There is also Sugarbush’s mountaintop Peak Course, which sits half way up Lincoln Peak, in the middle of one of Vermont’s most iconic ridgelines. At Magic Mountain, players progress upward in elevation with each basket, earning views of the White Mountains and other ski areas like Bromley, Stratton, Ascutney and Mount Snow.

According to Cote, the diverse and mountainous terrain draws

Photo by Frank Johnson

Series Calendar:

Photo courtesy PDGA Tour

a unique intersection of athletes, from hikers to mountain bikers to golfers, skiers and snowboarders. “I love the sport, but I really love the inclusive community around it,” says Cote. “It takes all walks of life and you never know who it is going to grab. It’s for anyone at any age who wants to get outside in the mountains.”

AHEAD OF THE CURVE Back in 2012, Jeff Spring was working as a camp counselor at Smugglers’ Notch Resort and serving on the board of the Green Mountain Disc Golf Association, when the resort’s longtime owner Bill Stritzler approached him about what it would take to build a world-class disc golf course at Smuggs. At the time, Sugarbush offered disc golf and Smugglers’ Notch had a small course, but few other ski areas had them.

“The idea was to put in a top-notch course designed by people who understood the game, that would make disc golfers come and feel proud to play,” recalls Spring. They set a ten-year goal of bringing the Pro World Championships to Vermont. Last year, just five years after Brewster Ridge and Fox Run opened, they did it.

“We had 1,200 spectators and were pretty Below, four-time world much at capacity for bed nights resortwide,” champion Paige Pierce said Spring of last September’s event. “A fully on Fox Run during the stocked ATM ran out of cash, the general 2018 PDGA Pro World stores sold out of beer. That doesn’t even Championships. happen on President’s Day Weekend. Folks

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in town said it was like a major holiday At Magic Mountain, the popped up during what has traditionally been newly-installed back nine holes offer players shoulder season.”

At Magic Mountain, Cote was paying stunning mountain attention. “With the rate at which the sport views. is growing and the relatively low cost of investment [consider an $8 million chairlift replacement vs. a $200,000 disc golf course], we decided the vibe of the sport matched our ethos,” said Cote. Magic rolled out a beginner-friendly 9-hole course in 2017, situated so that parents could watch their kids play while grabbing a local craft brew at the Black Line Tavern. Last August, Magic put in the remaining 18 holes and started offering rental equipment.

“The sport is so new and the community is so inviting, we see it as a great resource for locals and a great way to get kids outside,” says Cote.

From August 3 to August 5, Smugglers’ Notch is hosting the PDGA Junior Disc Golf National Championships for the second time in two years. Magic is working on securing PDGA-sanctioned events at its courses, with the goal of bringing more big events to Vermont.

Meanwhile, Jay Peak will host the 2019 Vermont State Championships on its 18-hole course on October 12, the culmination of Disc Golf Vermont’s 2019 ten-competition Vermont Tour. “Folks coming up to New England in the winter to ski are coming up to play disc golf, maybe looping it in with a couple of trips to mountain bike, or to pick up their favorite beer from a local craft brewery and tieing that in with a music festival,” says Young. “It’s good for the ski areas to invest in this. If you put a course in, businesses in the local area definitely see an impact.”

And disc golf is one outdoor activity that a whole family can participate in, from grandparents to little kids. “Disc Golf is like fishing,” says Cote. “You don’t have to throw aces or have the round of a lifetime to have a great time out on the mountain. You can bring your dog, crack a beer, and take in some of the awesome views that this place has to offer. That’s why any day of disc golf is a great day of disc golf.” n

Photo courtesy Magic Mountain Ski Area

Next Adventure

summer, the power lines will be buried, making the town even more photogenic. At right, after mountain biking, there’s nothing better than a cold pilsner brewed and served at the von Trapp Bierhall: “The best trailhead ever,” says Sam von Trapp.

36 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

Photo left by Mark Vandenberg.

RIght, Trapp Family Lodge, Mike Hitelman

At twilight, the lamps of Stowe Village start to light up. This

Skiers and snowboarders made Stowe the winter destination that it is.

Now, a new generation of innkeepers, mountain bikers and brewers is making this village a hip, summer adventure town. By Lisa Lynn vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 37

and curated by Tom Rowlett, one of seven certified cicerones (the beer equivalent of a master sommelier) in the state.

A few miles away, on the west side of town, a similar scene plays out. It’s no coincidence that some of the Nordic and mountain bike trails of the Trapp Family Lodge spill out at the resort’s Bierhall. An airy restaurant and bar, the Bierhall is attached to a brewery that now produces 2,000 barrels a year and serves Austrian dishes ranging from crispy Bavarian pretzels to an authentic chicken schnitzel.

The Bierhall was the dream of Johannes von Trapp, the youngest son of Maria von Trapp and owner of the Trapp Family Lodge. But the mountain bike trails that lead to it are his kids’ passion. Just as their father laid out the ski trails that have made Trapp Family Lodge a winter destination, Sam and his sister Kristina (both top athletes who can ride, ski or run you to the ground), are now helping to shepherd the 2,500acre family farm, outdoor center and guest lodge in new directions. The resort now has miles of mountain biking trails, one of the most beautiful disc golf courses in the state, running festivals and more.

“We used to promote the lodge,” says Sam. “Now we know if we talk about our mountain biking and our beer, our rooms fill up.”

Bikes, Beer and Transformations

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Ranch Camp (top left) opened in summer 2018 as a bike shop, burrito place and bar. At right, clockwise: Summer in Stowe means: Paddleboarding on the Waterbury Reservoir; hanging out at Doc Ponds—where you might find owner/chef Eric Warstedt and Lance Violette, the artist/ illustrator behind the Doc Pond graphics (as well as graphics for Burton, Quiksilver and Hudson Denim); mountain biking Cady Hill or maybe heading to Stowe Bowl with the kids.

Photo courtesy Ranch Camp.

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t’s late Friday afternoon. My bike weaves through the forest, following the singletrack loops around Cady Hill. Helmets weave in out of the hemlocks, flashes of color swooping around bermed corners.The air is heavy with pine and moss and loam. A yeewuup echos through the trees as a rider launches a jump, sends a whip and careens around the next turn, dirt spraying from the rear tire.

Flying over these trails is addictive. The up and down, the flow of gravity, the lightness of accelerating on the downhills. It’s like skiing the woods, but with an added dose of speed that requires precision and lightning quick reactions.

As daylight fades and my legs tire, I spin down the trail that spills out into the pulsing heart of Stowe. The trailhead parking lot is just off the Mountain Road. On one side is Ranch Camp, the bike shop/ bar/burrito place that opened in June of 2018—what co-owner and illustrator Evan Chismark calls “a base lodge for mountain biking.”

Chismark, the former head of Stowe’s mountain bike club, is just finishing up work in the bike shop. “Where else can you find trails like this right in downtown?” he asks. The bike-themed bar is filling with riders, both visiting weekenders and locals.

I finish a Heady Topper, and head across the street to Doc Ponds.

The music is turned up, one of the 1,000 vinyl records from owner Eric Warnstedt’s collection and setting a beat for the evening. My order arrives quickly: it’s a burger, but not just any burger. Warnstedt is the chef who started Hen of the Wood in Burlington and Waterbury and, with business partner William McNeill, recently bought Prohibition Pig in Waterbury.

He’s also been on the cover of Food & Wine as one of the 10 up and coming chefs in the country and a finalist for the James Beard Award for “Best Chef, Northeast.” The burger, made with Vermont-raised beef and Vermont cheddar, is what one TripAdvisor reviewer called “the burger that changed my life.” And the beer? The menu is changing, but put it this way, Hill Farmstead is prominent and it’s almost all local, hard-to-find

In the past few years, bikes and beer have come to define Stowe as much as skis and snowboards, with the village-wide B3 block party (Bikes, Bevs and Beats) celebrating that pairing on June 14.

In recent years, the Stowe Mountain Bike Club, which formed in the 1990s, has morphed into the Stowe Trails Partnership and now has more than 1,000 members. The club helps to manage multi-use trails in four networks: 300 acres on Cady Hill, in the center of town; Sterling Forest, north of it; Adams Camp (which connects to the Trapp trails), and a new system that will connect Stowe with Waterbury’s trail system in Little River State Park, via trails off Cotton Brook road, near the northern access to Waterbury Reservoir.

Rick Sokoloff, one of the early presidents of the club, now runs Four Points, which teaches mountain biking at the Trapp Family Lodge Outdoor Center and offers guided tours to some of the dozen breweries and distilleries within a 10-mile radius of town, including four you could bike or walk between—von Trapp, The Alchemist, Idletyme, and Stowe Cider. “We’re getting people coming here now in all seasons just to taste beer,” says Sokoloff. “It’s like the Napa of New England.”

Stowe has, historically, been busier in the summer than in the winter, drawing crowds for craft fairs, the antique car show (no longer held there) and Vermont Symphony Orchestra performances in the Trapp Family Lodge concert meadow.

But things are changing. The busiest weekends of the year in this ski town are not July 4, President’s Day or winter holidays but the week in mid-July when the Bitter Lacrosse Tournament draws thousands of kids and their parents, according to Amy Spear, the former executive director of the Stowe Area Association.

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Clockwise: Grant Wieler, Lisa Lynn, Grant Wieler, Mark Vandenberg

Just below the ski trails, Spruce Peak at Stowe has become a village unto itself. “We wanted to create a community here,” says Sam Gaines, who has helped develop the resort and is planning the new 27-unit One Spruce Peak, pictured at left. While development at Spruce Peak and along the Mountain Road has grown in recent years, many of Stowe’s farms and fields (opposite page) have been preserved as open space, thanks to work by the Stowe Land Trust.

them being bought up.” Edson Hill is now a stylish boutique hotel.

Stowehof has been renovated. Timberholm, the Stowe Motel and Brass Lantern Inn all have seen recent overhauls, as has the Gray Fox Inn. “When I was growing up here there were farms all along the Mountain Road and the Gray Fox Inn, which my parents ran, was an old farmhouse,” says Rachel Vandenberg, president of the Stowe Area Association.

EW Bitter, 36, who comes from a family of Div. 1 lacrosse players, started a lacrosse camp in Stowe in 2010. By 2011, more than 1,000 kids and parents were showing up for what became a week of tournaments.

The success of that event prompted Bitter to buy the Town & Country motel and renovate it last year with a giant game room for kids.

Town & Country is just one of the motels that’s undergone a major renovation. “Five years ago, we were looking at all these aging inns that had maybe a dozen to 20 rooms and figuring that they would never sell and would need to be redeveloped as condos or affordable housing,” says Tom Jackman, Stowe’s town planner. “Now, we’re seeing a lot of

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Photos courtesy Spruce Peak at Stowe

The Next Generation

Rachel and Mark Vandenberg had been living in Holland before they moved back to Stowe in 2012 and took over the Sun & Ski motel, which Rachel’s parents also owned. “We wanted a better place to raise kids,” she says. “I love that I do the same things now with my children that we did as kids growing up here. On summer days, we ride our bikes on the Rec Path to a swimming hole in the West River and just hang out.” The couple renovated Sun & Ski as a hip, family-focused hotel with a stylish bowling alley, Stowe Bowl.

Rachel is just one of many next-generation Vermonters who have left, returned and are now revitalizing the town. As innkeepers, Sam and Kristina von Trapp maintain the level of gracious hospitality their grandmother, Maria von Trapp, brought to Vermont from Austria.

Five generations of Baraws have run Stoweflake Resort and Spa. When

Photo by Mark Vandenberg

Howard Shaw started Shaw’s General Store on Main Street in 1895, he could not have dreamed that his great-great granddaughter. Anne Marie Vespa and her husband Sal, would now operate it.

McKee Macdonald and his sister, Maggie both moved back to Stowe after working in New York and joined their mother’s real estate business as the Smith Macdonald Group (part of Coldwell Banker Carlson Real Estate).

The Macdonalds, both in their early 40s, tick off names of the people they grew up with who now own businesses in the village: Former pro hockey player Graham Mink returned to the town he grew up in and he and his wife reinvented the old Main Street classic, Lackeys’ Variety Store, as a more upscale home decor and kitchen shop, The Country Store. Andrew Neale came back to Stowe in 2003 to help his mother run Harrison’s restaurant and bar. Danielle Nichols Moffatt and her sisters, Morgan and Katie Nichols, opened the wine bar Cork in the village.

“When I came back here 10 years ago after working in real estate in New York City, it was for the lifestyle – to be able to mountain bike and raise kids here. What I found was that it was also great to reconnect with all my old friends I grew up with,” says McKee. “I think the thing that draws us back is the same thing that amazes people who move here: it’s how this community sticks together and supports each other,” adds Maggie.

The Once and Future Stowe

In many ways, Stowe hasn’t change much from the town the Macdonalds grew up in. There are still four working dairy farms, owned by the

fourth or fifth generations of Percys or Pikes, and a half-dozen other farms. There are also relatively new farmers in town, such as sisters Mollie and Katie Pindell whose Sage Farm produces goat milk cheeses; or Annie and Andrew Paradee who have an honor-system farmstand for produce at their Long Winter Farm.

Of the 77 miles of town roads that crisscross Stowe, 65 miles are dirt—Class Three or Four roads. The town still has no stoplight.

And one of the largest undeveloped parcels in the area, 750 acres of Brownsville Forest, is being preserved thanks in part to an anonymous $5 million donation in 2019 to the Stowe Land Trust.

Two town ordinances–one limiting retail to under 5,000 sq. ft. and another banning drive-throughs–have effectively kept out box stores and franchises. In the 1990s, a McDonalds operated out of the building that now houses Sushi Yoshi. The McDonalds went out of business.

This summer, the village power lines are being buried, as part of a sidewalk project. Condos and hostels are mushrooming along the Mountain Road. The lot at the Alchemist Brewery, shaded by solar panels, is often packed as people vie for parking, then stand in line to buy their famed Heady Topper. Last fall, Stowe Cider opened a new tasting room across from the venerable Rusty Nail.

The “Nail” turns 50 this year and new owners Chad Fry and Mark Frier are reviving the legendary music and night spot. “I’ve been following what’s happened with the Alchemist since they were based in Waterbury and I started The Reservoir right next door ten years ago,” says Frier, a former engineer from Chicago who originally moved to Vermont to get a job at Burton “because they have a dog policy and I couldn’t imagine anything cooler than that.” Frier followed The Alchemist to Stowe and when it opened a second brewery he bought first The Bench, a restaurant, and then, last year, The Rusty Nail.

That “follow success” approach has also attracted larger out-ofstate companies. Last winter, Topnotch Resort and Spa, a Stowe icon since the 1950s, was bought by the real estate investment firm AWH Partners and its hotel management arm Spire Hospitality. “With Vail Resorts now running the Stowe Mountain skiing operations and bringing both the Epic Pass and Vail’s vast resources to the destination, we see great potential,” said Chad Cooley, the 40-year-old principal of AWH Partners, when the purchase was announced in January.

It Takes A(nother) Village

Long before Vail Resorts started looking to buy Stowe’s ski area, Sam Gaines was figuring out what to do with the Spruce Peak side of Stowe Mountain Resort. In 2011, Gaines and his wife, Molly, a former features editor at Cosmopolitan, moved to Stowe from Brooklyn for his job with AIG, which owned Stowe Mountain Resort at the time. “It was right after the financial collapse and we were not really sure what Spruce Peak was going to become,” says Gaines, who had first come to Stowe to ski when he was four years old.

“I think after the financial crisis people’s values changed. It was no longer about building the golf course resort for baby boomers who were looking to retire or parents packing their kids off to camp all summer. Suddenly, we were seeing more people in their 30s and 40s who wanted to vacation with and spend time with their kids.”

In response, Spruce Peak, which already had a golf course, began to build out as a second-home community with a posh Alpine Club, a kids’ adventure center, a green where farmers markets and familystyle outdoor farm dinners are held. This summer for the second

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Closed in winter, come summer Route 108 through Smuggler’s Notch is a gateway for hikers who head up the Long Trail to the summit of Mt. Mansfield and rock climbers who tackle the boulders and routes up the granite cliffs. For mountain bikers who set out from the Trapp Family Lodge, a stop for water and a rest at the Slayton Pasture Cabin is the high point.

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hours. Up Route 108, hikers set off on the Long Trail and rock climbers, laden with ropes, to scale the cliffs and boulders in Smuggler’s Notch.

Since purchasing the Stowe Mountain Resort in 2017, Vail Resorts has been conservative in investing in summer. “There is an old plan for mountain biking trails off triple,” general manager Bobby Murphy, himself an avid cyclist, admits. “But we’re waiting to see if more mountain bike trails are a good investment, especially when there’s such a good cross-country network in town.”

In the meantime, summer’s “base lodges” – the places where people gather after biking or hiking are the Bierhalls, Ranch Camps, Doc Ponds, Matterhorns and other watering holes around town.

There, after bike rides and over beers, the “new Stowe” is evolving out of what Stowe has always been: a village community. n

Photo top by Mark Vandenberg, bottom by Mike Hitelman

year, there’s a folk festival planned. Gradually, what was once mainly a winter ski resort has become a year-round weekenders’ village. In 2016, Spruce Peak sold $70 million in units.

When AIG sold the ski operations, lifts and zipline of Stowe Mountain Resort to Vail Resorts in 2017, the real estate division kept the hotel and most of the new development on the Spruce Peak side of the resort. “We realized we had a marketing powerhouse next door and that Stowe was only going to get busier,” says Gaines, who at 38 is now president of Spruce Peak and a managing director of AIG Global Real Estate.

Over the last year, Gaines and his team have rebranded the AIGowned side of the resort, as “Spruce Peak at Stowe” and announced the construction of a new 12-story building, One Spruce Peak, that will house 27 high-end units.

That growth has not been without the occasional conflict, conflict that ski towns across America face. Many workers can no longer afford to live in Stowe. For several years, Stowe Mountain Resort has housed employees at what was once the Inn at the Mountain, and recently contracted with a new hostel going up on the Mountain Road.

According to town planner Tom Jackman, 60 percent of Stowe’s single-family homes and 85 percent of condo units are second homes.

As Maggie Macdonald also notes, “And a lot of the places that used to be available for long term rentals are now short-term Airbnb rentals.”

As larger operations, such as Stowe Mountain Resort and Spruce Peak, have been buying or renting units up and down the Mountain Road for their staff, affordable rentals have gotten even harder to find.

And then there are the complaints about parking and traffic, which grew to a crescendo on powder days this past winter “People complain about the parking thing, but the times we had parking problems last season weren’t the 9,000-skier days over the holidays when families shared one car but the 5,000-skier powder days when every local from Burlington drove up in a single car,” says Gaines.

“The solution isn’t to build more parking. It costs $50,000 per parking space to build a garage and you can’t even get financing for a garage anymore because banks don’t believe they will be used in 10 years.

The solution is to get people out of cars and onto public transportation.”

Still, Gaines recognizes that one of the hallmarks of both the town of Stowe (which has a year-round population of 5,000) and Spruce Peak (which has 500 units) is that these are both relatively small.

“That scale means we can build a real community and have it mean something,” says Gaines. “We don’t have room up here at the mountain for a lot more people. One of the beauties of Stowe is we are limited in size. The ski mountain itself, with its current lifts can only handle about 9,000 people a day. I don’t see Stowe getting much bigger,” he says.

Across Route 100, the lifts of Stowe Mountain Resort are quiet, for now.The gondola starts running on June 22, taking people up to one of the longest zip lines in the East and for meals at the Cliff House restaurant. A tree-top ropes course set up near the Mt. Mansfield base lodge has enough challenge and variations to keep adults and kids entertained for several

Register today for the Point to Point, powered by VSECU, an iconic event created in 2002 to raise funds and awareness for the Vermont Foodbank’s mission to end the growing problem of hunger in Vermont.

The Point to Point includes 100-, 50-, and 25-mile road rides, a 20-mile trail ride, a 28-mile gravel ride, and a half marathon trail run. Attendees, volunteers, and participants are welcome to join the P2P Festival, which includes food trucks, live music, a Family Fun Zone, and plenty of Harpoon Beer!

AUGUST 10, 2019, MOUNT ASCUTNEY IN BROWNSVILLE, VERMONT. www.thepointtopoint.org

Reframing the WHEN A YOUNG COUPLE MOVED FROM WASHINGTON, D.C. BACK TO THE HILL TOWN OF LINCOLN, THEY

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Returning to the tiny town where they grew up, Sarah and Owen McClain worked with friends to build the farmhouse of their dreams. Recently (after this photo was taken), they added a barn garage with room for another spare bedroom, gym and playroom.

Farmhouse

ENVISIONED BUILDING A CLASSIC VERMONT FARMHOUSE—WITH A TOUCH OF UMBRIA BLENDED IN.

BY LISA LYNN | PHOTOS BY LINDSAY SELIN vtskiandride.com Summer 2019 45

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ention the town of Lincoln to a Vermonter and there’s usually a smile and a knowing nod.

Some know Lincoln as the backside of Sugarbush and Mount Abraham, the tiny town that sits high on the western slopes of the Green Mountains. Others know it for Lincoln Gap. The road over Lincoln Gap rises up on the east side from Warren at a grade of 24 percent, making the last mile to the top the steepest paved mile in America. The road is closed in the winter but come summer, it draws cyclists willing to huff up the Gap and then scream down the winding dirt road on the western side.

But for locals, the thing about Lincoln is its tight community of artists and athletes, builders and ex-hippies. “This is a place where if there’s a snowstorm Vaneasa [Stearns] at the Lincoln General Store will hold your packages there for you,” says Sarah McLain, 39, one of a new generation of Vermonters who have returned to make Lincoln home.

Lincoln is where Sarah’s family (who lived in Pittsburgh, Pa.) spent their summers. She grew up playing in the woods and splashing in the swimming holes of the New Haven River, which cascades down a series of pools and falls and into the town of Bristol, below. Lincoln is where her husband, Owen, 39, was born and raised, watching his father build houses in the area.

After college, the two were both working in Washington D.C., Owen as a lawyer working with the Office of General Counsel at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and Sarah as a producer for The Smithsonian Channel. “We ended up in this house that was long and narrow—just 12 feet wide by maybe 32 feet. We knew we wanted to be back in Vermont to raise a family here.” They moved home with Owen taking a job at a law firm in Burlington.

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And in classic Vermont style, when it came time to build a home they called on friends who were carpenters and artists, builders and electricians.

Their farmhouse, which they started in 2009, sits on 22 acres they bought with friends, Lincoln-raised builder Oakley Smith and his wife Katie, and then subdivided. “Oakley, Owen and Owen’s brother Kevin pretty much designed and built this and it’s been a work in progress ever since,” says Sarah as she opens the heavy wooden front door (a present from her father). Today, Oakley and Kevin are partners in the building firm, Smith & McClain.

On the advice of a local architect, John Anderson of Birdseye, the McLains moved their original homesite from near the road to further up the hill, which was wooded at the time. Some of the timber they cut went into building the home. “I’m so glad we did build up the hill as we now get spectacular light and views,” says Sarah.

But the house they designed themselves as they built. “We love the aesthetic of the Vermont farmhouse, but that traditionally meant low ceilings and smaller windows,” Sarah says. Instead, the house features ceilings 10 feet tall and windows that rise eight feet. A deep porch extends around the east-facing side. Furnished with couches and deep chairs, it serves as an outdoor living area.

The dining area, with glass doors Sunrise bathes the McClains’ deep, eastfacing porch with light and a view of Mt. that open on both ends, feels like an Abe. Kiwi and other vines climb the posts elegant extension of the porch. and most meals in summer are eaten here.

On winter the McClains take Like the deep porch, the grand curved staircase feels like a nod to Italy, where their two young kids to ski at the Sarah goes each year to visit her sister and Middlebury Snow Bowl or over imports olive oil from Umbria.

Appalachian Gap to Sugarbush.

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In the summer, it’s hard to pry them from their home, which is a short hike to the Bristol Cliffs.

“As soon as it gets warm out, we throw the doors open. It feels like you are always outside and we get terrific cross-breezes,” Sarah says.

If the large porch, windows with black trim, high-ceilings and plaster walls seem like a nod to Italy it’s no coincidence. On the dining table sits a bottle of bright green olive oil from Umbria, Quinta Luna Gaudenzi. “One of my three sisters married an Italian. I spend time there every year and started importing this,” says Sarah as we sit down at the table for lunch. I splash some across fresh salad greens. The extra virgin olive oil, (Sarah imports it under her company, Lincoln Standard) is spicy with an intensity that seems to echo Sarah’s own. She also serves a kale and sausage soup—a recipe another friend of hers, Hinesburg cookbook author Katie Webster, developed for EatingWell, the Vermont-based food magazine where Sarah also once worked.

The dining table faces an elegant sofa covered in blue velvet. “It was my grandmother’s sofa, which I refinished,” says Sarah.The kitchen picks up the hue in a deep blue wall—a splash of color in an interior that’s largely wood floors and white walls with black accents. A window in the kitchen opens to the living room. “I wanted to be able to keep an eye on the kids playing,” says Sarah. There, hangs a painting by another neighbor, the artist Rory Jackson (his uncle Woody Jackson is famous

“In the summer, we throw open both of the doors in the dining room and it feels like an extension of the porch,” says Sarah. An office nook and library, just off the kitchen, often gets taken over by the kids for painting or homework projects.

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for the artwork of cows that brand Ben & Jerry’s ice cream pints, among other things). The scene is a landscape with stunning green mountains and billowing clouds, not that different from their views in Lincoln. Landscape artist Sam Wyatt is another neighbor.

Just off the kitchen sits a small room that serves as a kids’ area, with desks they can call their own and rows of bookshelves. A grand, curved staircase with locally-made wrought-iron rails sweeps up to the second floor.

The house itself is not large–just 2,600 square feet—and the bedrooms are pocket-sized and tucked under eaves with gabled windows and alcoves. A bathtub fills the space below a dormer—“a place the kids love to soak,” Sarah says—with a double window and view of Mt. Abe at eye level.

“We intentionally wanted small cozy bedrooms and we don’t like clutter so don’t have big closets,” says Sarah. In addition to the kids’ rooms, a small guest bed sits in a dormered alcove. The McClains’ master bedroom is situated above the dining room with windows that let light stream in from three sides.

Most of the doors are salvaged, but many of the closest are simply draped with a fine linen. What feels like a touch of French country Sarah attributes more to cost saving than an intentional style.

“There’s a lot we just have been adding as we could afford it,” she says. Somehow the refined of parts of the house mesh with the arty, thrift-store approach: Above the sweeping staircase hangs a light that Sarah calls “A $10 paper lantern” and two second-hand chairs sit in the alcove below.

Recently, as the family has grown, the couple added a garage, done in a quiet gray reminiscent of barnboard. It can hold two cars, bikes and all the toys that go with Vermont living. The barn also houses an indoor gym and, a floor up, a spare bedroom and giant open play area for kids. For now though, it’s also a play area for Sarah and Owen. A disco ball hangs from the ceiling and a projector and screen take up one corner. “We just had a 40th birthday party here for my sister and it was a blast,” Sarah says. “We danced, had a woodfired pizza oven set up outside and candles everywhere. We are actually way more social here in Lincoln than we ever were in Washington, D.C.” n “We don’t like clutter so we kept the interior very simple,” said Sarah. The master bedroom is flooded with light in the early morning. Splashes of color define areas such as the mud room closet and a wall of the kitchen below. The McClains kept the workbench used in construction as the kitchen island.

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Some of the best

University of Vermont Freeski Team member Zach Masi of Wolcott flips off of the 40-foot cliff at Bingham Falls in Stowe.

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i DivInng

freeskiers and cliff divers are making a splash in Vermont’s timeless swimming holes.

Photo by Brooks Curran

by Abagael Giles

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tricks and gainers to practice what he calls “aerial awareness.”

Labow likes to think about a cliff jump in three parts: take off, air time, balance and landing position. Often, beginners will leave their arms out to the side or attempt a pencil jump, with hands at their sides, when nervous about a tall drop, which can cause them to land on their back. “Practicing aerial awareness is meant to help you make good decisions in an uncomfortable setting,” says Labow.

The same principle applies on the slopes, and you don’t have to be launching 360s to benefit. “A lot of our focus is on managing fear and turning it into positive energy,” says Peter Dubois, who coaches Killington Mountain School’s Freeskiing Program. “For some people, a 10-foot cliff triggers that reflex. For some, it’s a 50-foot cliff. Those 10-footers are great places to learn new tricks, while a 50-foot drop gives you the space you need to work on a double or triple.”

For years, the same people pioneering big drops and aerial tricks on Vermont’s ski slopes have been taking their talents to local swimming holes around the state, from the Dorset Quarry near Stratton to the Jay Branch Gorge, close to Jay Peak. Now, cliff diving is even being written into the curriculum at some of the state’s elite training centers.

“It’s a great way to teach kids aerial awareness and get them outside, having fun in a safer setting during the summer,” says Dubois.

Dubois coaches students with Olympic aspirations, some of whom are landing jumps as big as 85 feet on the mountain. But he says Vermont’s swimming holes are great places to teach and practice skills that any skier can use. With everything from 50-foot cliffs to 10Locals, among them freeskier Derek McNamara (center) of Proctorsville, hang out at the local swimming hole beneath the Quechee Covered Bridge. The covered bridge is a popular jump.

Photo by Ali Kaukas

Before I jumped, I could taste the flowing water in the air. It smelled like earth—like moss and snowmelt, running clean and clear from a dark, cool place somewhere up the mountain. I gripped the rough edge of the rock with my toes, imagining what it would feel like to plunge into the water below. I shifted my weight and, after hesitating twice, I launched out and over the smooth, glacially-carved rock and into the pothole below.

For anyone who grew up inVermont, diving into the local swimming hole is a summer ritual. On a hot summer day, Vermont’s mountain pools become gathering spots, places where everyone comes together to take refuge from the heat and where diving in is a spectator sport.

Year after year, people go back to their favorites, plunging into the crystal-clear depths of glacially-carved holes. Some, like Bolton Potholes, are worn round and smooth by the streams and rivers that feed them, the water still ice-cold from snowmelt that trickled off the mountain above.

Each jump, for me, brings an element of fear, surprise and then refreshing clarity. Others seem to launch off the higher rocks with no hesitation, effortlessly contorting into flips and tricks before hitting the water below.

Noah Labow, coach at the Green Mountain Academy, is one of those.

“When I think of my favorite Vermont swimming hole, I think of Bingham Falls,” says Labow. “It’s a prehistoric kind of place, with roots hanging down over the rocks and cavernous pools. You enter from above, and when you do, you can feel the air cool as you get down to the springs, even on a 90-degree day. You can feel the vibration of the falling water flowing through the air.”

Labow, who also coaches the UVM Freeskiing Team, will bring some of his students down to the falls to do aerial maneuvers like Japan grabs, flip

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The rushing whitewater at Warren Falls (above) makes for soft landings in deep pools carved by the Mad River. Left, a diver takes on a gainer from the 50-foot-high covered bridge in Quechee. Cliff diving has its own language of tricks and stunts, like the gainer cork 720, a moving forward backflip with a twisting fall. back.

foot ledge jumps, places like Warren Falls are perfect summer training grounds. “It all translates pretty directly,” he says of freeskiing and cliff jumping. “In either case, it’s about getting upside down in the air, seeing where you’re at, and then making a decision that lets you land exactly where and when you want to.”

Photos by Ben Moffat.top, Ali Kaukas

Cliff Diving, For The Win

Derek McNamara is a cliff diver and former Okemo Mountain School freeskier who has been pioneering big jumps and tricks all over Vermont. In the summer of 2018, he landed a perfect gainer 720 off of the covered bridge that spans the Ottauquechee River in downtown Quechee, flipping and twisting through the air before plunging into the river more than 50 feet below. He’s done flips into water from 112-foot cliffs and once lit himself on fire during a cliff jump in Maine’s Acadia National Park.

McNamara is part of a growing movement of extreme cliff jumpers who compete at events like the East x West competition, which he describes as “a sendy convention of jumpers from the East Coast and West coast” who meet up in a new location each year since the event was established in 2012. In 2017, it was held in Vermont.

Red Bull pioneered a cliff diving competition in 2009 and even sponsors athletes. As the extreme sport grows in popularity, Vermont— with its deep mountain pools, granite cliffs and marble quarries—has become a hotbed for its development.

However, the risk involved is real. More than 25 swimmers have

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8 Places to Dive In

At these classic Vermont swimming holes, you can find pristine mountain streams, some cliff jumping and pools deep enough to swim in. Many are located near mountain biking, hiking and great food. Always be mindful of parking in designated spaces, obey posted signs and leave the place cleaner than you found it.

Four Corner Falls

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1

Bingham Falls

Bolton 2 Potholes Warren Falls

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1. BINGHAM FALLS, STOWE

Located in the Mt. Mansfield State Forest, the falls are a half-mile hike from Route 108 on a 72-acre parcel of conserved northern hardwood forest. The swimming hole features a 40-foot cascading waterfall and a series of deep gorges and pools. Expect moss, ferns and, as Noah Labow says, “a feeling that you’ve encountered something prehistoric.” Accessed via public land.

2. BOLTON POTHOLES, BOLTON

Head to the Bolton Access Road for this series of three waterfalls that each drop into a round pool or “pothole.” In the sunlight, the pools turn emerald green in the summer. The second is wider and deeper than the rest, with rounded, overhanging walls that some people jump off of. Be sure to check for depth and be very careful of slipping on the river-worn schist.

Quechee 6

Buttermilk Falls 3

Dorset Quarry

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3. BUTTERMILK FALLS, LUDLOW

Two waterfalls comprise this swimming hole, which is located off of Route 103 on Branch Brook, about 1.5-miles from downtown Ludlow. Try sitting in the deep pool underneath the cascade on a hot summer day, or swimming in either of the deep pools. There is some seasonal cliff jumping depending on the water depth.

Timber Crib Dam 7

4. DORSET QUARRY, DORSET

Also known as the Norcross-West Marble Quarry, the Dorset quarry offers cliff jumping from various heights, with clear water that is very deep. Located right off of Route 30, it’s drawn swimmers since the 1920s. If you’d like to contribute to the maintenance and safer infrastructure that will allow the current owners to keep the quarry open to swimmers, visit gofundme. com/preserve-and-enhance-dorset-quarry.

5. FOUR CORNERS FALLS, JAY BRANCH GORGE, TROY

A big, deep pool sits below this plunging waterfall in the Jay Branch with smooth rock walls along the rim. A rope swing is attached to a tree that sits above a popular jumping ledge, a 15-foot drop into the deep pool below.

6. QUECHEE GORGE, QUECHEE

Known as“Vermont’s Little Grand Canyon,” the gorge drops 168 feet deep in places. Under the covered bridge in town, the river gets to be about eight feet deep with cliff jumps ranging from 10 to about 35 feet.

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7. TIMBER CRIB DAM, GUILFORD

Built in 1811, this dam on the Green River is about 10 feet high, with a sheet of water that flows over the edge into calm water below, with deep pools and submerged boulders to stand on or dive off of. If you reach through the sheet of water, you can step into a hidden chamber in the dam. The dam is located near the Green River Covered Bridge, a national historic site about 20 minutes from Brattleboro off Green River Road.

8. WARREN FALLS, WARREN

A great place to cliff jump, Warren Falls offers anywhere from 10- to 40-foot ledges into clear, deep pools. The river-worn boulders that line and populate this stretch of the Mad River create a series of excellent pools for swimming with slabs for sunbathing.

Above, the Green River spills over the Timber Crib Dam in Guilford. Zeke Neubauer climbs out of Dorset Quarry, a great place to swim and watch some of the top skiers in the state do flips.

Recently, Dorset Quarry owner David McDonough launched a GoFundMe campaign to raise funds for improvements like better trail access, a grassy zone at the perimeter and more.

and reiterate that control is the key to safety.”

Labow recommends always jumping in shoes and considers a 40foot drop potentially lethal. Veliko advises you watch for slippery wet rocks, scout pools and launch sites and don’t mix drugs and alcohol with cliff jumping.

Photos by David Hajdasz, Ali Kaukas

Timeless Swimming Holes

died over the years at Huntington Gorge, a popular swimming hole and cliff jumping spot in Richmond.The Bolton Potholes have similarly taken lives, and Doug Veliko of Stowe Mountain Rescue says that in the summer, swimming hole rescues account for about 20 percent of the calls his organization responds to.

Veliko says that’s partially because these holes and pools are dynamic and change with the weather and water levels. One day, a jump goes well and another it’s too shallow to stick the landing.

“People get misled. They think ‘Oh I’ve been swimming here for 20 years,’ but things change,” Veliko says.

“The first thing to consider is safety, especially with the rivers of Vermont, which change vastly all the time,” says Dubois. “We have our kids get in the water with us before anyone jumps, to make sure that the hole we’re planning to jump into is safe.” After that? “We encourage them to work on tricks they are already comfortable with

You don’t have to be cliff jumping to enjoy Vermont’s swimming holes.

David Hajdasz, author of Take the Plunge: An Explorers’ Guide to Swimming Holes of Vermont says, “I’ve swum in many states across the U.S. and there is just something special about the sacredness about Vermont swimming holes.”

As Hajdasz says, these are places where toddlers, grandparents, teenagers and adults all come to savor ephemeral north country summers. “Swimming holes are melting pots, places that inspire ownership and for the most part, people get along there even if they don’t elsewhere,” says Hajdasz. They’re also places that are open to anyone: there’s no fee, no dress code.

In his 20 years of exploring and documenting more than 40 swimming holes across the state, he’s seen a lot else change.

“Everything in life changes. But swimming holes? They don’t change so much,” says Hajdasz, a retired chemist who now serves on the board of the Vermont River Conservancy. “It’s like time travel. You can go back to a place as a 50-year-old that you frequented at 15 and know it will be familiar,” says Hajdasz. “The stream, the rock you lounge on, the shape of the place are all familiar—it’s like stepping back in time.” n

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This summer Killington adds more beginner terrain to its 35 miles of trails. It’s also hosting new camps for kids and adults through Killington Mountain School and Divas of Dirt women’s rides and clinics with pro racer Amy Alton.

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COACH

By Lisa Lynn

DIRT CAMPS

Want to be a better mountain biker?

Vermont’s top pros can help, with clinics and camps aimed at every level— beginners to racers.

Photo by Brooks Curran

A

ndy Van Dam knows his mountain bike camps. For the last 20 years, Van Dam, who started the computer science program at Brown University, heads out on a guided mountain bike trip with a group of his former students. Often they head to Moab or points west.

But for the past three years, there’s been a trip to Kingdom Trails in East Burke to ride with Vermont Mountain Bike Tours, a custom guiding service set up by Alex McAndrews and Ella Skawold.

“Usually you get some instruction at camps like this but Alex and Ella took us out on a pump track and we really worked on skills,” says Van Dam. “ They taught me to use a dropper post and I can ride better and faster now. They also set us up with lodging and cooked our crew some amazing meals.”

What Van Dam, who is 80 and has COPD, didn’t realize when he first signed up was that both of his guides are World Cup mountain bike racers. “When I went on their website I thought, holy shit, this is the wrong crew! We’re duffers, we’re not doing tricks or riding aggressively–but they’ve been just great.”

Vermont’s long been the place to learn to ski or snowboard.

Now, with resorts from Burke to Mount Snow offering lift-served downhill mountain biking and coaching, it’s become the place to up your bike game. The one difference between ski schools and mountain bike camps? Most ski schools don’t have World Cup racers as instructors.

“Sure, we’re pros and out racing,” says Skawold, who left a corporate job in California to move east with McAndrews, a Vermont native. “But I didn’t learn to mountain bike until I was 24 and I can remember what it’s like to learn. The best tip I think I can give people is just use two fingers on the brakes so you have the rest of your hand left to control the bike.”

Isaac Allaire, 23, is a pro rider who spends part of his summers coaching at Sugarbush’s downhill camps for kids age 8 to 14. Allaire, who won both the downhill and the enduro at the Eastern States Cup

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Isaac Allaire (top left) won the 2018 Eastern States Cup at Sugarbush and will coach camps there this summer. Suicide Six’s new mountain bike park, opened last summer (top right).

At Kingdom Trails, pros Alex McAndrews (bottom, right) and Ella Skawold have set up a guiding and coaching service.

gram at Killington Mountain Resort, which is adding more beginning mountain bike terrain to its nearly 35 miles of trails, with new trails at the Ramshead base and a beginner skills park at Snowshed. “It’s all about access and we want to get anyone on a bike and if that’s an e-bike, that’s a great way to start out,” says Ben Colona, who manages Killington’s bike operations, shop and rentals.

In addition, the resort has partnered with Killington Mountain School, a ski racing academy that’s known for turning out top cyclists such as World Cup downhill mountain biker Mazie Hayden. The three- and fiveday downhill camps for kids 7 to 17 will put kids up at the school while adults who do the two-day weekend camps (Aug. 9-11) have a variety of

Photo top left, Jeb Wallace-Brodeur; right, courtesy Suicide Six; bottom, Chris Pascucci/Transition Bikes

at Sugarbush last year, still remembers the first time he started downhilling at 13. “It was so fun to be able to just do lap after lap with the lifts taking you to the top.” This season, in addition to the lift-served downhill riding on 28 trails, Sugarbush is also offering cross-country bike rentals and guided tours of the more than 50 miles of trails around the Mad River Valley.

“We’re even getting rental e-bikes, says Jake Kenealy.

Electric-bike tours are also part of the pro-

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lodging packages available, but get the same top instruction.

Amy Alton, who was a policy expert with the Department of Defense before she moved to Vermont to mountain bike, is one of Killington’s pros. “I started out by trying to trade a bike pass for giving lessons at Killington,” she said. Now, she hosts free biweekly Divas of Dirt group rides for women of all abilities.This July 13-14 she’s also leading a dream team of pro riders who are teaching a women-only camp, Divas of Dirt Gravity Camp. The coaches include Alton, who has two USA Cycling National Championships titles, former World Cup racer Ali Zimmer, another pro enduro rider Clarissa Fink, and Ella Skawold.

While not every resort has sponsored pros, more and more ski areas are developing mountain bike parks and instruction programs.

Burke Mountain Resort has a variety of features and lift-served technical terrain and, according to marketing director Jessica Sechler, has become even more popular with summer riders than it is in the winter for skiers and snowboarders.

Mount Snow has had lift-served downhill for nearly 32 years but six years ago realized the need for easier trails and put in Gateway, the longest intro downhill trail in the East. It also set up a First-Lift Program, (two-hour downhill lesson, lift and bike rental for $109) and a more advanced First Drop Program to teach drops, jumps and cornering.

At Suicide Six’s brand new bike park, certified coaches Christina Mattson and Nick Mahood can guide you on the park’s 11 miles of new lift-served trails (put in last summer by pro trail builder, Sinuosity), teach skills in one of two skills parks or take you over to the cross-country trail network at Mt. Peg. And for kids 7 to 14, there are three weekends of Gravity Camps and, for really little kids, free strider bikes.

Okemo began offering downhill lift-served mountain biking in 2015 and this August, Stratton will rev up a new lift that will carry bikes and is planning downhill trails. “Right now, we do offer guided mountain bike tours,” says Tony Bailey, who guided and taught in Moab, Utah before moving to Vermont. Bailey describes what sounds like a leisurely ride of 10 miles on trails up and down the West River.

“My best advice is don’t try something that’s too hard,” he says. “Take it slow.” n

VT BIKE SHOP DIRECTORY

Need new gear? Want to check out the latest bikes, get advice, or a tune-up for your ride? These full-service shops can help get you back out on the road or trail.

ALPINE SHOP

1184 Williston Rd., South Burlington, VT 802-862-2714 | alpineshopvt.com In operation since 1963, we specialize in mountain bikes, hybrid, commuter and E-bikes from Norco, Felt, Devinci & Rossignol. Alpine Shop is a full-service bike shop with ample free parking and riding space. Rental and demo bikes available.

Stylish clothing for men and women plus gear, shoes & apparel for tennis. Hours: Mon. – Sat. 10 – 6; Sun. 10 – 5.

FIRST STOP BOARD BARN

8474 Route 4, Killington, VT 802-422-9050 | firststopboardbarn.com Killington’s authorized Cannondale and Trek dealer. We also carry: Fox, Giro, Shimano, FiveTen, G-Form, Pearl Izumi, Smith, Spy, Oakley and more. We’ve helped outfit first timers to world class athletes since 1979. We have a service center that can fix practically anything and a rental and demo test center that lets you try equipment before you buy. We have gear experts who can help you find the right gear, right now. If you’re not sure where to get started, give us a call or stop by— we’re open 365 days a year.

HIGH PEAKS CYCLERY

2733 Main St., Lake Placid, NY 518-523-3764 | highpeakscyclery.com Lake Placid’s source for bicycling and outdoor gear since 1983! Sales, service, rentals and tours. Bikes by Intense, B.M.C., Salsa, Surly, Giant and Scott. Your information headquarters for Lake Placid and the Adirondacks for gravel road, mountain biking and road riding adventures. Free maps, ADK80 and Ironman race info and course conditions. New! Basecamp lodges. Hours: Mon – Fri 9 – 6, Sun 9 – 5.

OUTDOOR GEAR EXCHANGE

37 Church St., Burlington, VT 802-860-0190 | gearx.com OGE offers Burlington riders a premier bike shop with a knowledgeable, friendly, and honest staff. We have commuters and gravel grinders from Marin and KHS, mountain bikes from Pivot, Transition, Rocky Mountain and Yeti and a wide consignment selection as well as a demo fleet so you can try it before you buy it. Our service department is capable of everything from tuning your vintage road bike to servicing your new mountain bike and offers full Fox shock service. Come on down and see us on Church Street! Hours: Mon. – Thurs. 10 – 8, Fri. – Sat. 10 – 9, Sun. 10 – 6.

SKI RACK

85 Main St., Burlington, VT 802-658-3313 | skirack.com Locally owned since 1969, Skirack provides gear, clothing, expert fitting and accessories for all cyclists, with full service tuning and repairs...plus complete bike suspension service on most forks and rear shocks. Designated one of America’s Best Bike Shops, Skirack is blocks from Lake Champlain. Open 8 a.m. Mon. - Sat. for bike service, car racks and rentals.

VILLAGE SPORTS SHOP

511 Broad St. Lyndonville, VT 802-626-8448| villagesportshop.com Established in 1978, we are a family-owned, passion-driven sporting goods store serving customers for four seasons of adventure. Strongly focused on bike and ski, we have highly skilled, knowledgeable technicians and sales staff to assist in all needs of purchase, rental and service. With two locations, one nestled trailside on the world-renowned Kingdom Trails, and the other in downtown Lyndonville, we’re here to make your adventures happen!

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GOING THE DISTANCE TO FIGHT CANCER BIKE, WALK, ROW, GOLF TO FIGHT CANCER.

The biggest charity challenge north of Boston

TM

July 13, 2019 Register today at TheProuty.org

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR MAY 24-26 | Yeti Total Archery Challenge, Pico Mountain Three days of archery courses, competitions and more.totalarcherychallenge.com 25 | Peace Pipe Rail Jam, Mount Snow Head to Carinthia Parks for this annual end of season rail jam and ski or ride for free.

Enjoy drinks and live music from the deck of the new base lodge. mountsnow.com 25 | Color Run, Stratton Mountain A two-mile family fun run where participants get blasted with environmentallyfriendly colored powder. stratton.com 25-27 | 23rd Annual Killington Stage Race, Killington Three days of road bike races, with distances from 11 miles to 160 miles. killingtonstagerace.com

JUNE

8 | Ascutney Mountain Race, Brownsville Part of the USATF New England Mountain Running Circuit, this 3.7-mile race gains 2,300 feet up Mt. Ascutney. northeastuphillmountainseries.blogspot.com 9 | Tour de Heifer, Brattleboro Choose between 3-, 15-, 30- and 60-mile rides, all on the dirt roads of Southern Vermont. strollingoftheheifers.com 9 | 18th Annual Stowe Triathlon, Stowe A friendly but competitive 500m pool swim at the Swimming Hole, 14-mile bike ride and 5K run. theswimmingholestowe.com 9-10 | The Vermont Epic, Okemo, Ludlow Three bike races: the 18th annual B2VT, a 130+ mile ride, the VTMonster, a 70-mile ride with 9,000 feet of vertical gain on gravel and dirt roads and the VT 40, a recreational ride with 20- and 40-mile options. okemo.com 10-11 | 5th Annual Boomer Scramble Golf Championship, Sugarbush A two-day golf tournament open to anyone 65+. sugarbush.com

1 | 7th Annual West River Trail Run, South Londonderry Run 11 miles on exciting terrain on a one-way trail from South Londonderry to Jamaica State Park along the West River. thecollaborative.us/westrivertrailrun

14-16 | 40th Quechee Hot Air Balloon Craft and Music Festival, Quechee Enjoy tethered hot air balloon rides, a craft fair, kids’ activities, beer, wine and food as you watch 20 hot air balloons take flight. quecheeballoonfestival.com

2 | Covered Bridges Half Marathon, Suicide Six Woodstock Run 13.1 miles through scenic covered bridges starting at Suicide Six. cbhm.com

14-16 | B3 Fest: Bikes, Brews and Beats, Stowe Join the Stowe Trails Partnership for a townwide, family-friendly celebration of all things Vermont craft beverages, mountain biking, food and music. stoweb3fest.com

7-9 | Tour de Kingdom, Burke Choose from a series of rides, including a century, The Moose (a 200-mile ride) and a ride around Lake Memphremagog—or ride all threel. kingdomgames.co/june-tour 8 | 9th Annual Sugarbush Brew-Grass Festival, Warren Sample craft beers from more than 20 Vermont breweries, tasty local food and see jammin’ bluegrass bands. sugarbush.com 8 | The VTMonster Gravel Grinder, Ludlow A 70-mile ride with 9,000 feet of vertical gain on dirt and gravel roads that will “loosen your fillings and crush your legs.” ridinggravel.com/event/vt-monster 8-9 | Farm to Fork Fondo: Hudson Valley, Warwick, N.Y. Choose between an 83-mile gran fondo, a 50-mile medio fondo, a 35-mile piccolo fondo and a 10-mile ramble through rolling farmland starting and ending at Warwick Valley Winery. farmtoforkfondo.com/hudson-valley

14-17 | Vermont Stay to Stay Weekend, Brattleboro & Bennington Thinking of relocating to Vermont? Vermont Department of Tourism hosts a weekend with a reception, opportunities to meet with realtors, a job fair and an intro to co-working spaces. Repeats Aug. 9-12 & Oct. 25-28. vermontvacation.com 15 | Adirondack 540 Gran Fondo, Wilmington, N.Y. Bike 136 miles past epic Adirondack scenery on mountain roads near Whiteface Mountain. adkultracycling.com 15 | 8th Annual Mad River Valley Golf Tournament, Warren Sugarbush hosts an 18-hole scramble on Fathers’ Day. All proceeds go to Waitsfield’s Mad River Valley Ambulance Service. sugarbush.com 20-23 | Wanderlust, Stratton Mountain Enjoy three days of mindfulness, inspirational speakers, live music, farm-to-table meals, quiet hikes and mountaintop yoga. stratton.com

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THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR 21-24 | Vermont Stay to Stay Weekend, Rutland Thinking of relocating to Vermont? The Vermont Dept. of Tourism hosts this weekend with a reception, opportunities to meet with realtors, a job fair and an introd to local co-working spaces. Repeats Aug. 9-12 & Oct. 18-21. vermontvacation.com 21-23 | Vermont Bike & Brew, Killington A weekend of group rides, live music, on-site camping, demos and a whip-off competition, plus a Vermont Adaptive Charity Race. killington.com 22 | The 200-on-100 Double Century, North Troy This is a single-day double-century that travels the length of Vermont, from the Canada to the Massachusetts state line, primarily following VT-100. 100-200.org 22 | Lake Dunmore Triathlon and Vermont Sun Triathlon, Salisbury Swim 600 yards, bike 14 miles and run 3.1 miles in the Vermont Sun Triathlon, or try the Lake Dunmore Triathlon, with a 0.9-mile swim, a 28-mile bike leg and a 6.2-mile run. This is the series’ 34th season. vermontsuntriathlonseries.com 22 | Mt. Ascutney Solstice Fest, Brownsville Celebrate the longest day with guided mountain biking, hiking, trail running, yoga and ecology programs, plus live music, food and camping onsite. ascutneyoutdoors.org 22 | 6th Annual Salomon Catamount Ultra 25K/50K Trail Race, Stowe Run on rolling, hard-packed dirt trails through highland pastures and hardwood forest at the beautiful Trapp Family Lodge trail system. Followed by the Salomon Running Festival with free demos, local food and beer. 50K is two loops. catamountultra.com 22-23 | Vermont Adaptive Charity Ride, Killington Choose from 100-, 60- and 40-mile road loops followed by a barbecue with live music at Long Trail brewery and raise funds to support adaptive athletes. Mountain bike session with timed runs on Sunday. killington.com 22-29 | PDGA Pro Masters Disc Golf World Championships, Jeffersonville The most prestigious golf tournament in disc golf will run at Smugglers’ Notch Disc Golf Center’s Brewster Ridge and Fox Run Meadows courses. smuggs.com 22-23 | 4th Annual Vermont Renaissance Faire, Stowe Dress in Renaissance garb and sample Medieval-inspired artisans and craft vendors, beer, wine and cider makers. vtgatherings.com 28-29 | NEMBAFest, Kingdom Trails, East Burke The biggest mountain bike festival on the East Coast with over 90 vendors, 4,000 attendees and 100 miles of trails. Camp and make it a weekend. kingdomtrails.org 28-30 | Stowe Brewers’ Festival, Stowe Workshops, music, food and 100 craft beers, and ciders.. stowebrewersfestival.com

29 | Vermont Gran Fondo, Bristol Test yourself in this ridiculously challenging, road race with options for a 108-mile ride, a 65-mile ride, a 77-mile ride and a 39-mile ride. vermontgranfondo.com 29 | 14th Annual Tour de Grace Bicycle Rally, Stratton Mountain Ride 19 miles to support Grace Cottage Hospital. gracecottage.org 30 | Brattle Paddle Canoe, Kayak and SUP Race, Brattleboro Choose between a 9-mile and a 3.5-mile flatwater course on the Connecticut and West Rivers. neckra.org

JULY 1-7 | Vermont Symphony Orchestra Summer Tour Vermont’s most celebrated orchestra travels the state for lawn concerts and fireworks. Mountain Top Inn & Resort in Chittenden on 7/1, Hunter Park in Manchester on 7/2, Grafton Ponds on 7/3, Shelburne Museum 7/4, Suicide Six on 7/5, Brunswick School in Randolph on 7/6 and Trapp Family Lodge in Stowe on 7/7. vso.org 4 | Fourth of July Parade, Warren With floats, music and many more surprises this classic Vermont affair is a must on your bucket list of things to do. Get there early! warrenpajuly4th.com 5-7 | 33rd Annual Stoweflake Hot Air Balloon Festival, Stowe Watch more than 25 hot air balloons fill the sky while you enjoy a beer and wine garden, live entertainment, food and hot air balloon rides. stoweflake.com July 6-Aug. 31 | Cooler in the Mountains Concert Series, Killington A family-friendly music series held weekly on Saturdays from 3:30-6 p.m. and featuring acts such as Hayley Jane and the Primates, Ballroom Thieves and JUICE. killington.com 6 | Basin Harbor Sprint Triathlon, Vergennes A fast course that starts with a 500-yard swim from the resort’s beach and heads along the shore of Lake Champlain. Then, bike 12.2 miles and end on a 5K run. racevermont.com 6 | Gnar Weasels: Bubba Trophy Series #4, Brownsville This EFTA-sanctioned mountain bike race offers a $400 prize for the first man and woman to finish. Camping available at Mount Ascutney. bubbatrophy.com 7 | 38th Annual Stowe 8-Miler and 5K, Stowe Take to the roads for a fun summer race and celebrate your finish with Island Homemade Ice Cream and beer from Harpoon. stowe8miler.com 7 | Mad Marathon, Mad Half and Relays, Waitsfield The Mad River Valley is the site of a weekend of races on dirt roads with tough climbs, and great views of the Green Mountains. madmarathon.com 7 | Eastern States Cup Enduro World Series Qualifier, Burke Mountain The best riders in the East head to Burke Mountain Resort for enduro mountain bike racing and a chance to qualify for the World Series. easternstatescup.com 12-14 | All Come Home Music Festival, Okemo Three days of tribute bands, with bbq, lawn games, crafts and beer. okemo.com 12-13 | The 38th Annual Prouty, Hanover, N.H. Bike, walk, row or golf to raise funds for Dartmouth-Hitchcock’s Norris Cotton Cancer Center. Cyclists choose between 20-, 35-, 50-, 77- and 100-mile routes as well as a 65-mile metric century gravel ride. theprouty.org

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SPONSORED CONTENT

The Summer File

Free Your Soul

Vermont poet-laureate Robert Frost wrote about taking the road “less traveled.” And with Vermont having a great variety of ski resorts, it’s worth diverging to a road with a little more “undergrowth.”

That’s where you’ll discover Magic Mountain. Nestled among the major corporate ski resorts of southern Vermont, Magic hearkens back to the golden era of skiing in New England.

Magic’s narrow, twisting runs, its challenging steeps and abundant tree-skiing, and its crowd-free slopes allow skiers and riders of all abilities to make a more intimate, some say, “soulful” connection with the mountain and sport.

New Chairs Are Coming

Magic’s ownership has invested in major capital improvement projects recently with two new lifts. One came on line last winter, the “Green Chair”, which services easier midmountain terrain. The next one comes this summer and fall with the installation of a summit Quad chair (fixed grip) which will double Magic’s uphill capacity and improve access to the summit—while maintaining the mountain’s throwback ski aesthetic of uncrowded trails This summer Magic will also be doubling the size of its snowmaking pond for more

snowmaking coverage. The new pond will double the amount of water available for snowmaking, increasing the mountain’s capacity to produce snow twofold. It’s a double project summer which means double the fun next winter!

Disc Golf & Live Music

Besides all this work, there will be time to relax and get outdoors at Magic this summer with Magic’s new 18-hole Disc Golf course which opens June 1, featuring Thursday night family twilight rounds at 5pm and Saturday League Play at 2pm. The Black Line Tavern will be open Thursday-Saturday’s for dinner inside or out on the deck, and live music. With music, epic views of the mountain and delicious food and drink, you’re always in for a good time when you visit the tavern. Whether we’re grilling on the deck, putting on fireworks shows or just serving up some of Vermont’s finest draft beers, we know how to have a great time.

Magic recently won Liftopia’s Best in Snow award for North America, so whether it’s summer or winter, it’s worth taking a drive on the “road less traveled”. See Magicmtn.com for more.

DON’T MISS: Fireworks & Live Music | July 6 Head to Magic Mountain’s Black Line Tavern for an Independence Day celebration featuring fireworks, a cookout and live music from Road Trash Band from 5 p.m. to midnight.

Disc Golf | June 28-Oct. 4 Thursday Family Twilight play and Saturday League play begins June 28th and runs through October 4th. Thursday’s league is a great place to catch the sunset.

Magic’s Golf/Disc Golf Biathlon Charity Tournament | Sept.7 Presented by Fiddlehead Brewing, this competition is tons of fun and benefits the University of Vermont Children’s Hospital.

Teams of two register to play 9 holes of traditional golf at Tater Hill Golf Club and 9 holes of disc golf at Magic Mountain National Disc Golf course. For a $100 entry fee, competitors get green access, a golf cart at Tater Hill, shirts, a steak dinner and prizes.

Fall Foliage, Mid-Mountain Lift Rides to Sunshine Corner every Saturday from midSeptember to Columbus Day weekend.

Fall Foliage Festival | Sept. 21, Catch brews and live music at Magic’s mid-mountain Sunshine Corner, featuring Saints & Liars, Ida Mae and other performers from 1-5 p.m. There will be lift ride access to the music.

Visit Magicmtn.com for more and a full list of events.

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR 13 | Vermont’s Toughest Triathlon, Burke Mountain Resort Billed as the state’s most challenging triathlon. Swim 2.4 miles in Lake Willoughby, bike 112 miles (with 8,000 feet of elevation gain) and run a marathon with 5,000 more feet of climbing before landing back at Burke. skiburke.com 14 | Vermont Sun Triathlon and Branbury Classic Triathlon, Salisbury Swim 600 yards in Lake Dunmore, bike 14 miles and run 3.1 miles in the Vermont Sun Triathlon or try the Branbury Classic: a 1.5-mile paddle followed by a 14-mile bike ride and a 3.1-mile run in the Vermont Sun triathlon series. vermontsuntriathlonseries.com 20 | 6th Annual Jeezum Crow Festival, Jay Peak Live music in the mountains at the Stateside amphitheater. jaypeakresort.com 2-3 | The Inaugural Bear North Festival, Fayston Head to Mt. Ellen at Sugarbush Resort for a weekend of art, music, beer, food, camping, community and more. bearnorthvt.com 3 | Greensky Bluegrass, Jay Peak The Stateside Amphitheater hosts this celebrated bluegrass band. jaypeakresort.com 9-10 | Strangefolk Garden of Eden Festival, Jay Peak Two days of live music featuring Burlington-born band Strangefolk. jaypeakresort.com 10-11 | Spruce Peak Folk Festival, Stowe Catch Burlington singer Francesca Blanchard, The Milk Carton Kids and Shawn Colvin at this two-day, family-friendly outdoor music festival. gostowe.com 15-18 | Stowe Tango Festival, Stowe Performances by world-class dancers and the Stowe Tango Music Festival Orchestra, plus the Che Bandoneon International Competition. stowetangomusicfestival.com YOUR PREMIER FOUR-SEASON RETREAT IN THE GREEN MOUNTAINS

16-17 | Ragnar Trail Vermont, Ascutney Mountain Sports Trails of the Ascutney Basin host this three-day camping and running adventure. Teams of 8 (or 4 ultra-runners) will conquer a series of three trails that start and end at “Ragnar Village.” runragnar.com 19-21 | Conquer the Kingdom, Lyndon A mountain bike skills building weekend of lessons, small group rides and instruction with Cannondale mountain bike demos. kingdomexperiences.com 19-21 | Killington Wine Festival, Killington Taste hundreds of wines from more than 40 vineyards around the world. Held at Killington Peak Lodge, accessed by g ndola. killingtonwinefestival.com 20 | Raid Lamoille, Craftsbury Ride approximately 100K on mostly gravel roads through the rolling Vermont countryside. 6,000 feet of elevation gain. A 50K route is also available. raidlamoille.com 20-21 | Eastern States Cup Sugarbush Showdown, Warren Enduro and downhill mountain bike races with cash prizes. sugarbush.com

Enjoy Our 600-Acre Lake | Boats, Kayaks, Paddleboards & Private Beach Access Bike Rentals | 18-hole Championship Golf Course| Lakeside Dining, Craft Beer & Live Entertainment | Private Lakeside Cottages 130 Renovated Guest Rooms | Seasonal Family Activities, Daily | Wedding & Conference Space | July 4th BBQ and Fireworks

Fairlee, VT | 800-423-1211| Lakemoreyresort.com Like us on Facebook: @lakemoreyresort

64 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

21 | Farm to Fork Fondo, South Hero A non-competitive cycling event where riders enjoy aid stations with chef-prepared treats made from local farms’ ingredients. farmforkfondo.com/champlain-islands 26-27 | Stowe Kids Adventure Games, Stowe Hosted by the Trapp Family Lodge, this multi-discipline obstacle course and adventure race is designed specifically for kids ages 6-14. trappfamily.com 28 | Mansfield Double Up, Stowe Gain 5,000 feet over 11 miles on Vermont’s most technical terrain as you race across the state’s highest peak. nativeendurance.com

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Beast 365

Killington Resort sends it into all four seasons with no breaks in between. Summer operations got underway while the spring skiing continued into late May. Now, sunny skies and multi-sport days feature the Killington Golf Course, Snowshed Adventure Center and Killington Bike Park.

The Beast 365 All-Seasons Pass offers the best value to experience everything at Killington all year long. It starts this summer with unlimited lift and trail access for mountain biking, plus golf course greens fees and access to the Adventure Center including the Woodward WreckTangle. And, of course, unlimited winter access to the longest ski season in the East. The Beast 365 Pass must be purchased by June 13, 2019 ($102/month for adults). For more information visit Killington. com/beast365pass.

Mountain Biking

Three high speed lifts to get you to the top with 30 miles of trail for sending it back down on rugged single track, rock gardens, switchbacks and machine-built berms, hips and jumps all built with your progression in mind. New for 2019, group and private lessons are available for intermediate and advanced level riders and Killington is rolling out three and five day camps for kids and adults.

Golf

Get elevated 2,000-feet above sea level at the par 72 Championship Killington Golf Course and take on mountain terrain and signature views while surfing the earth on a GolfBoard.

Hiking

With 15 miles of hiking trails, you will never take the same route up or down The Beast.

The rewards after summiting Vermont’s second tallest peak are unencumbered 365-degree views and access to the Peak Lodge, offering fresh food and cool drinks to hikers and mountain bikers all summer.

Dining

There’s something unique about every spot on the mountain and our goal at Killington is to make dining as much of an experience as coming here to ski or mountain bike.

From seasonal farm-to-table fare at Preston’s restaurant and bar at Killington Grand Hotel to made-from-scratch daily specials at the Peak Lodge, The Beast caters to discerning tastes. Vermont’s highest elevation restaurant and bar, the Killington Peak Lodge, is accessible from mountain trails and the K-1 Express Gondola. Hikers, mountain bikers and sightseers converge here to witness the Green Mountain state from up high, have a beverage and enjoy a summer night overlooking three states.

Music & Beer

Snowshed Slope becomes the backdrop for free outdoor music from top national and regional acts every Saturday afternoon July 6-August 31 at the Cooler in the Mountain Concert Series.

Grab a lawn chair, a beach blanket, the whole family and head to the Snowshed Base Area for this weekly family-friendly event. Concerts are held from 3:30-6:00 p.m. and guests are encouraged to come early to enjoy the festive atmosphere and all the summer activities Killington Resort has to offer.

DON’T MISS: Killington IDF Skate & Luge World Cup | June 14-16 This track is the fastest racecourse in the world with speeds reaching upwards of 70mph on skate and 83mph on luge, drawing the best and fastest riders from around the world.

Vermont Bike & Brew | June 21-23 MTBVT and Killington present a family-friendly weekend of downhill mountain biking, organized challenges for all ability levels, camping, live entertainment and enough craft beer to satisfy even the most discerning palate.

Killington Wine Festival | July 19-21 Over the past 18 years, the Killington Wine Festival has grown immensely and now features more than 500 wines from a collection of over 40 vineyards around the world.

Spartan Race | Sept. 14-15 Speed meets endurance at the birthplace of Spartan in a series of obstacle races ranging from 3 miles to 30 miles of mountain climbing, lake swimming, barbed wire crawling and more.

Killington Brewfest | Sept. 28 Columbus Day Weekend and Harvest Fest is a fall-spectacular with fun for the whole family, including live music, annual Brewfest, Chili Cook-Off, hay rides, carnival games & more.

Visit Killington.com/events for information and a full list of events.

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR 27 | 4th Annual Blueberry Bash, Mount Snow Check out the blueberry parade, play backyard games, enjoy live music, barbecue, beer and an obstacle course for kids. mountsnow.com

AUGUST 2-4 | 2nd Annual U.S. Disc Golf Championships, Smugglers’ Notch Resort Entry is open to kids 5-18, with one round of tournament play per day to allow families time to explore the area and Smuggs’ other summer activities. smuggs.com

B A R + R ESTAU R A N T Join us in our intimate downstairs bar for a casual Vermont Bavarian menu of locally-sourced foods, beers and spirits.

Hours Dinner served daily from 4 PM - 9 PM Follow us on Facebook for specials and upcoming events @TheStowehof thestowehof.com • 802.253.9722 434 Edson Hill Rd • Stowe, VT 05672

4 | 23rd Annual Vermont Fresh Network Forum Dinner, Shelburne Sample fresh, local produce in signature dishes prepared by Vermont’s top chefs at the lakeside Coach Barn at Shelburne Farms. Warning: this event sells out so buy your tickets ahead. vermontfreshnet.org 4 | Maxxis Eastern States Cup Intense Downhill Series, Killington The best riders in the East will head to Killington for a day of downhill competition as part of the Eastern States Cup. There will be a kids’ class too. easternstatescup.com 4-11 | Mad River Taste Week, Waitsfield Celebrate the makers and growers of the Mad River Valley with tours, tastings, dinners and other special events. madrivertaste.com 5-19 | 5th Annual Vermont Open Farm Week Visit a few of the more than 44 farms across the state that open their doors and offer meals, tastings, crafts and tours of their operations, plus live music. digInvt.org 9-11 | North American Obstacle Course Racing Championships, Stratton 3K short course championship on Friday, followed by a 15K standard course championship on Saturday with the team relay event on Sunday. stratton.com 10 | The Point to Point, powered by VSECU, Mt. Ascutney, Brownsville Ride 100, 50 or 25 road miles, a 20-mile trail bike ride or a 28-mile gravel grinder or a trail half marathon. With live music and food trucks. thepointtopoint.org 10 | 10th Annual Bike ‘N’ Brew, Burke Live music, mountain bike rides, bike games and beer tastings. skiburke.com 10 | Farm to Fork Fondo: Finger Lakes Region, Burdett, N.Y. Choose from rides ranging from the 88-mile Gran Fondo to the 54-mile Medio Fondo, to the 37-mile Piccolo Fondo to the 7-mile Ramble Ride at this weekend of food, drink and cycling in the Finger Lakes region. farmtoforkfondo.com/finger-lakes 10-11 | Mountain Race & Vertical Challenge, Smugglers’ Notch Resort Try your hand at the 25K trail run and the Madonna Mountain Vertical Challenge.

A weekend of extremely challenging sky-run-style mountain races on the trails of Smugglers’ Notch Resort. ironwoodadventureworks.com 11 | Lake Dunmore Triathlon and Vermont Sun Triathlon, Salisbury Swim 600 yards, bike 14 miles and run 3.1 miles in the Vermont Sun Triathlon, or try the Lake Dunmore Triathlon, a 0.9-mile swim, a 28-mile bike leg and a 6.2-mile run. This is the triathlon’s 34th season. Part of the Vermont Sun triathlon series. vermontsuntriathlonseries.com 10-11 | 11th Annual Vermont Cheesemakers Festival, Shelburne Meet local cheesemakers and taste their creations paired with fresh local foods and wines at the Shelburne Farms Coach Barn. vtcheesefest.com 11 | Taste of Woodstock, Woodstock Annual street festival with over 50 vendors selling food, crafts, art, beer and wine with plenty of live music and activities for kids. woodstockvt.com

66 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

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DON’T MISS:

Base of the Mountain.

Center of Everything.

Nestled in the beautiful Green Mountains at the base of Stowe’s iconic Mount Mansfield is Spruce Peak, a welcoming mountain community that captivates guests with consistently elevated experiences. It’s the place for telling stories, for making family memories, for soaking in the views, and for embarking on adventures. Experience the pure joy of all-season gatherings in our grand Village Center – a bustling hub of major events, family activities and summer concerts, along with exceptional bistros, boutiques, and activities for all-ages. Absorb the energy of our mountain culture, built up over generations, taking you out of yourself and into the moment.

Unrivaled Luxury Accommodations.

Central to the Village is The Lodge at Spruce Peak, a four-star luxury resort hotel featuring breathtaking views of the Mt. Mansfield and Spruce Peak trails. Welcoming suites feature flickering hearths, full kitchens and local amenities, and a fleet of Mercedes affords you a tour of the countryside on your own terms.

Staying in one of our Penthouse or Rental retreats avails you to perks normally reserved for residential owners alone – including private check-in services, dedicated concierge assistance, daily continental breakfast and so much more.

At Hourglass Lounge, craft beer freely flows from the tap for your discerning approval. Nearby at Solstice, award-winning chefs prepare sumptuous fare. The Spa provides you with an exclusive, members-only wellness experience in a serene, seasonally inspired setting, and the heated pool and outdoor hot tubs are perfect after a day of outdoor adventure.

Mountain Culture.

Full of activity and charm, the Spruce Peak Village comes alive with a vibrant energy that

makes it a truly special place to spend time together. Experience outdoor concerts, farm table dinners and fun for the entire family all summer long.

The Spruce Peak Independence Celebration and Folk Festival are marquee events to bring the family together and connect with the ones you love most.

Mountain Adventure.

The mountains surrounding Spruce Peak treat you to extraordinary adventures just beyond your door. Take the famed gondola ride to the top of Vermont’s highest peak.

Tackle the world’s fastest and most exciting zip line course. Hike the Long Trail. Golf on the prestigious Mountain Course. You’ll find no shortage of adventure here.

The Charm of Stowe.

Spruce Peak is your gateway to exploring the mountains, and the quintessential historic New England town of Stowe. This favorite of Vermonters and vacationers offers art galleries, restaurants, boutiques, breweries and more.

Spruce Peak Farm Table Dinner Series June 28 | July 26 | Aug 30 | Oct 11 The Spruce Peak team of chefs will present a culinary feast under the stars in a picturesque mountain environment. Each dinner is unique, as we partner with a local producer and feature local foods at the peak of their season. What all dinners have in common is a beautiful setting, live music, great company and a memorable dining experience.

Independence Celebration | July 6 The Spruce Peak Independence Celebration on the Village Green provides something for the entire family. Spend the day strolling and exploring unique shops, or exploring the Green Mountains, then join us on the Village green at 4pm for live musical performances, food, kids activities, craft beer and plenty of family entertainment. The day culminates with fireworks as the sun sets.

Spruce Peak Folk Festival | August 10 & 11 The Spruce Peak Folk Festival is a wonderland of traditional and cutting-edge Americana, bluegrass, and folk held on the picturesque Village Green at Spruce Peak. An opportunity for enthusiasts to both appreciate and participate, Spruce Peak Folk Festival is family-friendly and brimming with the brightest talent. This year’s lineup includes Francesca Blanchard, Mipso, The Milk Carton Kids, Lowell Thompson, Parsonfield and Shawn Colvin.

For full event details visit SprucePeak.com

UMIAK OUTDOOR OUTFITTERS VERMONT’S ADVENTURE CENTER

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR 15-18 | The Vermont Challenge, Manchester This year, this classic four-day tour will now offer 3 routes of varying distances for each day of the tour, with two group leaders for each ride. vtchallenge.com

BOAT RENTALS

16-19 | Ragnar Trail Vermont, Ascutney Mountain A three-day camping and running adventure. Teams of 8 (or 4 ultra-runners) will conquer a series of three trails that start and end at “Ragnar Village.” runragnar.com

PADDLING TOURS

16-18 | The VT3, Craftsbury Common This three-day mountain bike stage races showcase some of the most fun riding that the NEK has to offer.. thevt3.com

DOG CARTING BREWERY & C IDERIE TOURS

17 | The Vermont 100 on 100 Relay, Stowe Starting at Trapp Family Lodge, this team race covers 100 miles on Route 100 to Ludlow over covered bridges, rolling fields and epic scenery. 100on100relay.com 18 | Cider Chase 5K, Middlebury Dash from barn to farmhouse and back through idyllic Middlebury in this fun road race which starts and ends at Woodchuck Cider and is followed by food trucks, live music and yard games. ciderchase.com

RENTALS SALES TOURS WWW.UMIAK.COM

23-24 | Farm to Fork Fondo: Pennsylvania Dutch, Ronks, Penn.

Choose between the 82-mile Gran Fondo, the 45-mile Medio Fondo, the 33-mile Piccolo Fondo and a 9-mile Ramble Ride through rolling hills. Enjoy stops with local food prepared by chefs before returning to Cherry Crest Farm. farmtoforkfondo.com/pennsylvania-dutch 24 | 2nd Annual Vermont Trail Running Festival, Stowe Head to Trapp Family Lodge for clinics about training, nutrition, trail running and for group runs. catamounttrail.org 24 | Magic Mountain Disc Golf Biathlon Charity Tournament, Londonderry Presented by Fiddlehead Brewing Company, this event challenges golfers to try a round of ball golf followed by disc golf. magicmtn.com 25 | Delta Dental Race to the Top of Vermont, Stowe Run of bike 4.3-miles up the Toll Road on Mt. Mansfield, up 2,564 feet. rtttovt.com 25 | 3rd Annual Clif Enduro Lite, Burke Created by the race pros at MAXXIS Eastern States Cup, this event offers riders an introduction to enduro racing in a stress-free environment. skiburke.com 31 | 6th Annual Great Tomato Tasting, Woodstock Head to the Kelly Way Gardens at the Woodstock Inn and Resort to taste the 55 varieties of heirloom tomatoes the Inn is growing this year. suicide6.com Aug. 30- Sept. 1 | 8th Annual Jay Peak Trail Running Festival, Jay Peak Sign up for one of several 5Ks on trails of varying difficulty, an 11-mile race and ultra races on Sunday. jaypeakresort.com 31 | ACS Hops for Hope 5K, Mount Snow Burn calories in support of a great cause before the brewers’ festival. mountsnow.com

SLICES • CREATIVE ENTRÉES • GLUTEN-FREE MENU • HEALTHY KIDS MENU CRAFT BEERS • GAME ROOM • DELIVERY

ORDER ONLINE

1899 M O U NRTOAAI ND STOWE VT 05672 • 802.253.4411

PIECASSO.COM 68 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

SEPTEMBER 6 | Dweezil Zappa “Hot Rats and Other Hot Stuff,” Jay Peak The acclaimed son of Frank Zappa at the Stateside Amphitheater. jaypeakresort.com 7 | 13th Annual Kelly Brush Ride, Middlebury Register to ride your bike 20, 50 or 100 miles on paved roads through the Champlain Valley. Registration and fundraising helps those with spinal cord injuries afford adaptive athletic equipment. kellybrushfoundation.org

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Summer Trails—Old and New!

A walk in the woods may be just what the doctor ordered, according to countless articles and blog posts about the value of getting outside and into nature. At Stratton Mountain, that goal reaches new heights.

Hike sections of the Long and Appalachian trails from the summit of southern Vermont’s highest peak, taking in the view that inspired both these storied footpaths.

And that’s just the start of what you’ll find with everything from SUP and kayak tours, to summit yoga, doggie-and- me hikes, bigname concerts, free music in the Village and outdoor movies.

This August, Stratton launches liftserved mountain biking on trails crafted by Vermont’s Sinuosity and designed with a focus on progression. Add a slopeside Village, range of lodging to suit every style and budget, Spa … and you’ll see why Stratton is the perfect place to get away to it all.

Practice Your Mountain Pose

Wanderlust Festival returns to Stratton from June 20-23 with world-renowned yoga and meditation teachers, music, speakers, artists and chefs. Throughout the summer and into fall foliage, Stratton offers mountain top yoga, a 90-minute practice that starts with a gondola ride to the summit and a view that stretches clear across four mountain ranges. How about a warm-up hike to midmountain followed by an invigorating 60 minute Vinyasa. Or combine movement, mindfulness, and your love for the outdoors with paddle board yoga.

Music Sounds Better in the Mountains

Stratton’s stage brings top entertainment to southern Vermont throughout the summer and into Columbus Day. The 2019 series opens Memorial Day weekend with the Eagles Experience, a free concert. This year’s lineup includes Little River Band on July 5, 10,000 Maniacs on August 3, and more music with Brews, Blues and Barbecues over Labor Day and the annual Harvest and Brewfest

from October 12-13. Tickets are only $30 in advance at Stratton.com where you’ll find the full line-up.

Adventures For Kids

DON’T MISS:

Games of Summer

Wanderlust | June 20-22 Wanderlust is a one-of-a-kind festival bringing together the world’s leading yoga teachers, top musical acts and DJs, renowned speakers, top chefs and winemakers, and much, much more—all in a setting of breathtaking natural beauty.

The kids will have a great time exploring all the activities Stratton offers. Camps include Adventure, Golf and Tennis in a fun, engaging and encouraging learning environment.

A six-year stop on the LPGA Tour, the Stratton’s golf course promises a scenic and challenging round with tree-lined fairways, spacious greens and plenty of water. Designed

by Geoffrey Cornish, the three distinct ninehole layouts – Mountain, Lake and Forest, give you 27 reasons to play Stratton this summer.

If tennis is the game, Stratton is home to New England’s only authentic red clay courts and the Cliff Drysdale Tennis School with programs for adults and juniors plus tournaments and special events.

Visit Stratton.com for all the details, special lodging offers, tee times and concert tickets.

Little River Band | July 6 Through the ‘70’s and ‘80’s, LRB enjoyed huge chart success with multi-platinum albums and chart topping hits. Watch as they take the Stratton Stage as part of the 2019 Mountain Music Outdoor Concert Series.

10,000 Maniacs | Aug. 3, One of the most critically acclaimed bands of the last three decades, 10,000 Maniacs plays Stratton this summer.

Brews, Blues & BBQs | Aug. 30-Sept. 2 More outdoor music, barbecues and festivities with craft brews on tap.

Harvest Fest | Oct. 10 Columbus Day Weekend and Harvest Fest is a fall-spectacular with fun for the whole family, including live music, annual Brewfest, Chili Cook-Off, hay rides, carnival games & more.

Visit Stratton.com for tickets and more information!

THE GREEN MOUNTAIN CALENDAR 14 | Mad River Riders Fall Classic Enduro Fest, Sugarbush Join the Mad River Riders for a full day of lift-served rides with 3,000+ feet of descent to the valley floor and shuttles to expand access. madriverriders.com 8 | Victory Hill Enduro, Victory Mountain bikers race for a chance to compete in the Enduro World Series NorAm Continental Finals. easternstatescup.com/victoryhill/ Aug. 31-Sept. 1 | 25th Annual Mount Snow Brewers Festival, Mount Snow Try beer from more than 50 breweries with ciders and brews from more than 100 taps and live music. mountsnow.com 14-15 | 5th Annual FallFest, Smugglers’ Notch Resort Celebrate fall with a disc golf competition and two nights of celebration. smuggs.com 14-15 | Grand Point North, Burlington Vermont rocker Grace Potter presents a full lineup of live music on the Burlington waterfront. grandpointnorth.com Sample wares from Vermont vintners, local food producers, artists, publishers, painters and more. mountsnow.com 21 | SIPtember Fest, Mad River Glen Vermont’s “Best Little Beer Fest” offers an intimate craft beer tasting experience with short lines, lots of great local beer, good people and plenty of opportunity to chat with local brewers. siptemberfest.com 22 | 9th Annual Vermont Wildlife Festival, Mount Snow Learn about Vermont’s wildlife from conservation organizations and state representatives with the Southern Vermont Natural History Museum. vermontmuseum.org 22 | 10th Annual CircumBurke Trail Challenge, East Burke Kingdom Trails, Conservation Collaborative and the Burke Area Chamber of Commerce host a mountain bike and cross country running race on a 26.2-mile loop on remote singletrack and logging trails. Try the CircumBerzerk, the 50+ mile two-lap version. circumburke.org.

OCTOBER 12 | 8th Annual Gulp and Gallup 5K, Mount Snow Make four laps of the course, returning to the base area each time to consume either a cup of water or a cup of beer. mountsnow.com 12 | Vermont State Disc Golf Championships, Jay Peak Catch the top players in the state at this PDGA C-Tier event in northern Vermont, hosted by Disc Golf Vermont. discgolfvermont.com Travel with confidence at Fairfield Inn & Suites by Marriott®, a hotel with outstanding service for an easy and comfortable stay at an exceptional value. We look forward to welcoming you to our thoughtfully designed guest rooms and suites with plenty of room to work and relax, the perfect place to recharge between your Vermont adventures.

Fairfield Inn & Suites Waterbury Stowe 1017 Waterbury Stowe Rd. Waterbury VT. 05676 802-241-1600 Fairfield.com/BTVWB

To reserve your room, call 1-800-MARRIOTT or visit Marriott.com

70 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

17 | 29029, Stratton Run, walk or crawl up Stratton Mountain. Take the gondola down. Repeat 17 times until you climb 29029 feet, the height of Everest. stratton.com 19 | Trapp Lodge Mountain Marathon, Stowe Don’t miss this challenging, hilly full and half marathon race on the rolling trails at Trapp Family Lodge. The race coincides with peak foliage. trappmountain.com 20 | Heady Trotter 4-Miler, Stowe The Alchemist hosts this road race, which starts and ends at the brewery and is followed by live music, lawn games, food and beer. headytrotter.com

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DON’T MISS:

Pump It Up

Skiing and riding down Sugarbush can be a real rush, but mountain biking down that same terrain can get the adrenaline pumping even harder. Sugarbush offers downhill and freestyle mountain biking on 28 trails leading to the base of Lincoln Peak. If you don’t own a bike or have gear, rentals are available right in the base area.

Lessons are available for all ages and abilities, from those looking to get out for the first time, to those looking to tune up their skills on technical terrain.

In addition, the Vermont Mountain Bike Association has connected nearly 60 miles of mapped trails to Sugarbush’s own terrain, including technical trails throughout the Valley and less technical terrain at Blueberry Lake. Take advantage of select weekend lodging at Sugarbush Inn to stay adjacent to the VMBA trail network.

Adventure Camps

For those not interested in mountain biking but still looking for some adventure, Sugarbush offers summer Adventure Camps for ages 4-17 from late-June to mid-August.

Activities include hiking, biking, ziplining, rock climbing, creek cruising, nature exploration, Euro Bungee- trampoline access, golf and more. Golf, mountain biking and tennis-specific camps are available as well.

Lodging packages are available for all camps.

Fore!

Not every resort has its own par-71 Robert Trent Jones, Sr. designed golf course, especially one as challenging and beautiful as Sugarbush’s. Golfers will enjoy a course designed under Jones’ mantra of “every hole should be a hard par and an easy bogey” while taking in breathtaking views of the Monroe Skyline and Mad River Valley.

Entering his 4th year at Sugarbush, PGA Head Golf Professional Roger King and the great staff have added several new programs.

The programs include the Boomer Scramble,

Brew-Grass Scramble, ladies’ league, and junior clinics.

The course also offers Vermonter Days on Tuesdays with $50 rounds (cart included), and $35 Thursdays, where foursomes can golf for just $140. King is the current VTPGA Player of the year, holds the Past President position on the board of directors of the VTPGA, was the 2012 VTPGA PGA Professional of the Year, and has many more accolades.

Enjoy...

Whether you golf or not, don’t miss out on Hogan’s Pub – the Mad River Valley’s premiere lunch spot for magnificent views and thirstquenching brews. The pub offers sandwiches, soups, burgers and more all off one of the sunniest decks in town.

Sugarbush Brew Grass Festival | June 8 Enjoy craft beers from more than twenty Vermont breweries, local food, and jamming bluegrass bands. Make a weekend out of it with lodging packages at Clay Brook Hotel & Residences, and a 9-hole golf scramble on Sunday.

Boomer Scramble | June 10-11 Enjoy a two-day golf tournament and a chance to win some great prizes. Golfers ages 65 and up can sign up as a full team or be grouped up with others. Discount lodging available.

Mad Marathon | July 7 The 9th Annual Mad Marathon and Mad Half return. Enjoy one of the most beautiful and toughest courses around with rolling hills, dirt roads, breathtaking views, historic barns, quaint villages, covered bridges and more.

Toss ‘Em Tuesdays | July 9-Aug. 20 Enjoy a summer night out with a friendly cornhole tournament, draft beer specials and woodfired pizza in the Lincoln Peak Courtyard.

Eastern States Cup | July 20-21 The Eastern States Cup East Coast Showdown returns to Sugarbush for 2019, featuring enduro and downhill mountain bike races with a combined cash purse. Cash and loads of product prizes from race sponsors. Top 5 in every class reach the podium. Top 3 in every class receive custom Eastern States Cup medals.

Visit Sugarbush.com for details and more information!

DRINK VT

The Green Mountain State is home to some of the best breweries, wineries, cideries and distilleries in the world. And most invite you to stop by their pubs, restaurants and production houses for a tour and to sample their goods. For more information, links and maps to each location check out www.vtskiandride.com.

VERMONT BEER, WINE, CIDER + SPIRITS

133 North Main St, St. Albans, VT 802528-5988 | 14thstarbrewing.com 14th Star Brewing Co. is veteran-owned Vermont craft brewery on a mission to brew world-class beer while enriching the communities we serve. Using the freshest local ingredients, we impart military precision and creativity into every batch of 14th Star beer. Find your favorite 14th Star brews in our Brewery Taproom (open Tues.-Sun.) Our beer is also available on tap and in cans statewide and Brewed With A Mission™ to give back to various charitable and veteran organizations.

316 Pine Street, Burlington, VT 802-497-1987 | citizencider.com Building character by making great fermented ciders since 2010. We use 100% locally sourced apples 100% of the time. See our story online; for events follow us on Facebook.

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

116 Gin Lane, Montpelier, VT 802-472-8000 | barrhill.com Open daily 12-5 for free tours and tastings at the distillery.

Beginning as a partnership between a beekeeper and a distiller, at Caledonia Spirits distillery we use raw honey to capture the countless botanicals that a honey bee forages while buzzing through a field of wildflowers in our award winning Barr Hill Gin, barrel aged Tom Cat Gin, and Barr Hill Vodka. Join us at our distillery and bar overlooking the Winooski River in downtown Montpelier for a cocktail, free spirits tasting, and distillery tour.

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

FIND MAPS AND MORE AT

vtskiandride.com/drink-vermont

Open daily 9-5. July-Nov.

Rt 100 Waterbury Center, VT 802-244-8771 | coldhollow.com

Visit us in Shoreham or find us at your favorite craft retailer to try our award winning, orchard-made ciders. All our ciders are made onsite with our ecologically grown apples and our orchard is solar powered.

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

Open seven days a week.

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

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

6308 Shelburne Rd, (Rte. 7)Shelburne, VT 802-985-8222 | shelburnevineyard.com Open daily, 11-5 Nov.-Ap.r; 11-6 May-Oct. Taste, tour, and enjoy our award-winning wines as we welcome you and share our adventure growing grapes and making wine in VT’s northern climate. Located in charming Shelburne, just south of Burlington.

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

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

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

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

69 Pitman Rd. Barre, VT 802-424-4864 | oldroutetwo.com

Old Route Two Spirits sets out to make all our spirits from scratch, doing everything the hard way under one roof. Each one of our spirits is carefully crafted to ensure you can enjoy it neat, while also making some of the most delicious cocktails you’ve ever tasted.

Learn about the local ingredients in our Joe’s Pond Gin and the uncommon woods that shape our unique aging program for our Barrelhead rums.

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

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

Come visit our new bierhall and restaurant at the brewery!

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

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

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

VERMONT BEER, WINE, CIDER + SPIRITS

Drop-In Brewing is Middlebury’s small, independent, locally-owned brewery, and is home to The American Brewers Guild Brewing School. Our tap room is open 7 days a week serving sample flights, pints, and selling cans and growlers to go. You can find our beer on draft in restaurants and bars across Vermont, and our cans in retailers that carry craft beers. For more information, check out www.dropinbrewing.com, or call us at (802) 989-7414.

The Chairlift Q+A

THE ULTIMATE VERMONT ROAD TRIP One summer in college, Mike Leonard and two high school friends decided to join the “251 Club” and visit each of Vermont’s 251 towns. In 2018, he did it again and this time made a movie about it.

Are you a Vermonter and how did you hear about the Club?

Three out of my four grandparents are native Vermonters (the Leonard name goes back nine generations in Pomfret) and my dad’s parents joined the club when they retired, driving around the state in an RV. What inspired you to join?

When I left for college at New York University I started to grapple with my identity. I began bragging about being a Vermonter then realized I was a bit of a phony and remembered the 251 Club. I spent the summer of 2006, after my sophomore year, driving around the state in a ’91 Ford Escort beater car with the music up and the windows down and camping out. Two high school friends, Sam Avant and Julia Norcross joined me.

That summer was our chance to explore our identity: At the age of 20 you’re trying to figure out your place in the world.

Where do you live now?

I’ve been studying nursing at University of New Hampshire and living in West Fairlee but my

74 Summer 2019 vtskiandride.com

husband—he’s from Northern Ireland—and I are moving to Montpelier.

It’s tough driving 20 miles to a general store.

Hardest place to get to?

Lewis, in the far northeast corner of the state, used to be notoriously difficult to get to as the dirt roads were only open certain times a year.

What were you favorite places?

Lake Willoughby is an almost other-worldly sight, with the mountains framing the lake in a majestic way. Bennington County has one of the most remote places in the state, Glastonbury. It’s one of the five unincorporated towns in Vermont (places with populations that are not large enough for a local government) and it’s more wilderness than anything. I love hiking the Long Trail from Glastonbury up to Stratton. Somerset Reservoir is also idyllic and even more isolated than Willoughby—it takes some real commitment to get to. And I love taking my canoe out on Woodward Reservoir in Plymouth.

Did you visit many ski areas?

I ski raced in high school at Suicide Six and I’ve always loved ski areas in the offseason and the trails you can hike up. There’s a different feel there in the summer that I’ve never been able to pinpoint. It feels like you have the place to yourself. It’s what attracts Vermonters to Vermont.

Favorite town?

I love any town with a general store and people sitting outside on the porch and chatting.

That’s something we do well in our state.

Biggest change since 2006?

So many general stores are closing.These were places where people would gather and get to know one another and that’s special.That’s how we overcome differences, by talking to each other. In Vermont, that happens at the general store. n

Photo courtesy Mike Leonard

I

n 1954 poet and historian Dr. Arthur W. Peach put out a challenge in his column in Vermont Life for “the native born and those born elsewhere but with Vermont in them to discover the secret and lovely places that main roads do not reveal.” To do so, he suggested a visit to all the towns in the state. Since then, more than 6,000 have officially joined what is now called “The 251 Club.” They include former governor Jim Douglas and cartoonist Ed Koren. The rules are self-governing: some stop at a post office, others have run or biked to every town, one couple put a canoe in a pond in each town. In 2006, Woodstock native Mike Leonard spent a summer visiting all 251 towns. In 2018, he revisited many to make a documentary about the club. The film “One Town at a Time,” premieres this summer and has screenings scheduled around the state. See onetownatatime251.com

awesome food. over 100 beers.

1,000 records. lots of fish stories.

serving dinner every night and lunch friday - monday.

802 760 6066 docponds.com @docponds

sugarbush.com

800.53.SUGAR

we’re more than winter DISCOVE R SU MME R I N T H E MA D R I V E R VA L L E Y